At the risk of further accusations of "flippancy" I can't help but be reminded of this scene from the movie Home, which seems to perfectly capture our conversation:
General / Off-Topic GET WELL SOON!
- Thread starter VR SenseiMatty
- Start date
You didn't need to read between the lines. My mum is a pensioner on a low income. No line-reading is required.
By the way, I don't know if your assumption on my own income level is based on thinking 'well Red seems a fairly intelligent chap so he's likely got a decent job' but for clarity I'm a UK government employee. I do have a fairly responsible job, as evidenced by the fact I'm working from home right now (I'm on a break not slacking lol) because my department is one of the ones that will not be closed for Coronavirus or anything else but I earn less than £20k a year for a full time role. That does not go far at all here.
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The only way in which people are fools is that they are completely overreacting to what is, essentially, a bad cold. Yes, there are some groups who are at risk - the elderly and those with weakened immune systems, specifically - but those people who are not at risk should not be acting in the way that they are, panic-buying the shops out of stock.
The only real effect this has is emptying the shops so that when other people need to buy something to eat, they can't.
The stupidity of the few, once again, has led to a crisis which is far out of proportion with the triggering event.
The only real effect this has is emptying the shops so that when other people need to buy something to eat, they can't.
The stupidity of the few, once again, has led to a crisis which is far out of proportion with the triggering event.
There are lots of small shops claiming the wholesale price has gone up on 'essentials'. And LOTS of wholesalers saying that nothing of the sort has happened. I just hope customers remember which shops tried to rip them off once this has passed, and vote with their wallets.
@Red Anders turns out my parents didn't do so well either. Besides themselves they also go through 2x bags of dog food and 1x bag of chicken food (I'm just finding out) per week and have literally done 0% preparing for anything despite nodding and "yeah yeah yeah sure thing-ing!" me a month ago when I laid out the case to take this seriously and get ready. And, on top of all that, after finding out that the above was the case, when I asked mom for pete's sake why she and dad didn't do crap to get ready she informs me that they only had $100.00 in the bank total and "didn't want to worry me." I'm not even sure how they've been getting by at all if that's really the case.
I've always lectured other people on the negative effects of infantilizing their senior parents, but I was way wrong. I'm not close to my parents really, but now it seems as if holding their hands in the most baby-sitting kind of way is a job that needs doing. When I told them we were going to go source, buy and deliver them a couple months worth of supplies that really cheered them up.
I've always lectured other people on the negative effects of infantilizing their senior parents, but I was way wrong. I'm not close to my parents really, but now it seems as if holding their hands in the most baby-sitting kind of way is a job that needs doing. When I told them we were going to go source, buy and deliver them a couple months worth of supplies that really cheered them up.
See that's what parents are like. Obviously you've done fairly well for yourself in life (and to be clear, good luck to you; I don't begrudge anybody success when they've put in the hard yards to get it) but in the eyes of your parents, you'll always be the child they want to protect from things. Or at least you will if you have decent parents, which it seems we both do. Well parent in my case, my dad died in 1996.
I'm still not so sure you need to be doing hand-holding and babysitting though because from what you said, it sounds like they knew that they should have been doing something if they were able to, they just didn't have the money to do much regardless of that. It's a practical problem not a cognitive one, which is exactly where my mum is at.
Good on you for sorting them out.
The main issue is that storing all that stuff takes space. If you've got a garage or something to keep it in you're fine, but a lot of city flats are pretty crummy when it comes to plain old storage space.
Trouble is, we regularly get storms, fires and floods, as well as aberrations like Covid 19, that demonstrate the wisdom of preparation.
It's a bit daft to claim that "you can't expect people to spend money prepping for something that might never happen" when these things obviously DO happen.
When most people think about "prepping" they tend to think about rednecks stockpiling guns and ammo in underground bunkers in readiness for the zombie apocalypse but there's a lot of wisdom in the idea - if not in the way some people go about it.
Obviously, it's pointless (and a bit arrogant) to tell people what they should have done but maybe, when this is all over, people can take some time to think about the problems they've encountered and consider whether they can take steps to prepare for future emergencies.
The thing with loo rolls is a great example of thinking about this stuff sensibly, though.
There's currently a national shortage of bog roll, apparently, but is that a big deal?
If you currently get through one pack of bog roll per week it might be worth buying an extra pack and bunging it in a cupboard so that, in the event of a future shortage, you've now got two weeks to find more but filling up a cupboard with bog roll is just a waste of space that might be used for more important things.
The main thing to think about, in a realistic emergency (such as the one we currently have), is how to stay ahead of the game.
You can't really expect to be able to just lock yourself in your house and survive for 6 months, unaffected by what's going on in the outside world.
What you can do, quite easily and cheaply, is ensure you have enough extra stuff that it'll provide a "buffer" to compensate for the stuff you might not find when you go shopping.
It isn't too late to start doing that kind of thing now, and it needn't cost a lot of money (technically, it won't cost anything if you're buying stuff you're going to use eventually, anyway).
Just clear out a cupboard and start filling it up with stuff that'll give you a few days extra to find replacements if supplies are unreliable.
I have to admit that is one aspect I hadn't considered. It's a pity that they don't make things to lift your beds higher off the floor to increase storage space under them, small refrigerators or freezers that you can replace an end table with, flat pack free standing storage cabinets, or plastic bags that can be used to suck the air out of season clothing and bedding so they take up less space.
Honestly, I'm not entirely sure it's worth making a huge effort, for most people at least.
Again, it's all about considering the different possibilities and then planning on how to deal with them in a way that's specific to you.
The current situation is likely to be long-term but it isn't a complete breakdown of society.
Sure, you could plan to lock yourself inside your house for 6 months but you're going to need a warehouse full of stuff if you want to avoid any impact on your lifestyle.
If you live in a suburban area, chances are that "survival" is just going to be about trying to carry on acting fairly normally but having enough stuff that you won't be inconvenienced if you can't immediately find the things you need.
In that case, a single cupboard filled with a pack of bog rolls, some extra light bulbs, some tinned food, pasta and rice, coffee and tea and some toiletries is probably going to be enough.
Most people should be able to afford, and have space for, that kind of stuff if purchased over a period of time.
Course, there'll be people who live in different circumstances and they'll have different requirements but, like I said, it's all about figuring out what YOU need.
If you're thinking about this stuff more seriously, the "rule of thumb" is that, in a western democracy, you're only ever likely to need to "survive" for 4 days, in the event of a major emergency such as a flood or storm that causes a temporary breakdown of society.
That being the case, you've probably already got enough clothing to be comfortable and all you're going to really need is to add, perhaps, a pack of candles, a camp stove, a torch, a USB battery-bank and (ideally) a couple of collapsible 5 gallon water containers to your cupboard and you've got enough stuff that'll allow you to survive a proper short-term emergency as well as to remain comfortable in a less severe but longer-term situation.
Not suggesting that everybody should do this stuff, or that it's all that everybody needs to do but if you're currently having problems and you decide to do something about it, it doesn't have to be terribly expensive or take up a heap of space.
I agree about your "rule of thumb" estimate of 14 days prep in western civ. I think that people are going to be totally inconvenienced, not starved to death. The bottom line is that having anything over the typical 2 day average is better than nothing. Personally, I've prepped for three months and am staying topped off, but I have a wife and small children so the stakes are high and I'd rather over-prepare and feel silly afterward when this all turns out to be wildly over-blown than feeling stupid when it grinds into the zombie apocalypse
I always think of the old saying; "You don't have to outrun the bear. You just have to outrun the other guy being chased by the bear".
That applies, in a metaphorical sense, to an awful lot of stuff, including the current situation.
You don't really need to be prepared for "the zombie apocalypse" (although it's great if you can) but any level of preparedness is going to mean you're better-off than a lot of people, which is going to mean you're going to have extra leeway if shops start running out of stuff and you're not going to contribute to any panic-buying by running around like a locust, hoovering up the last 10 tins of pork'n'beans.
There's preparedness and then there's idiots being a complete national embarrassment.
Thankfully I think the UK's panic buying epidemic is in the process of calming down, they've switched to swiping all the booze now so their houses must already be full of toilet roll and rotting food.
This drawing is not mine but I thought it was appropriate for the Elite Dangerous Community
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And of course the sun is just snobing earth, and poor Pluto was cast aside.
The planet is in perfect health, regardless if we're here or not, for at least another 10 billion years.
That would be a good trick since it's due to get eaten by the sun in about 5B.
The issue is that if you're "preparing" while the crisis is actually happening, you're already too late and you're now part of the panic buyers. I've still not bought toilet roll or soap since this whole thing kicked off and at the rate I'm using it I'm going to be well into May before I have to buy either.
Normally I don't like shopping at the weekends or in the middle of the day if I can help it even when there isn't a crisis on so at the moment my biggest concern for supplies is that I can't go out at 3am any more.
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No panic buying where I am anymore, other than instant decaff. Which means I'm making do with the swanky ground stuff. Yum.
Londons still bad for it according to the Daily Panic.
Yeah. By the time I'm hurting for any kind of supplies besides the obvious perishable stuff like milk, the wave of people all wanting to stock up all at once will have passed. All the manky sods that didn't already have soap in their homes will have enough soap to last a year.
There have been occasional weird moments, there was a guy round my mate's way going door to door trying to flog stuff he'd hoarded, but I doubt that one guy has more purchasing power than the combined supermarket chains and I wouldn't be surprised if he ended up coming out of this making a loss once he's left with a few crates of soap that tesco can supply without his markup. Plus, yanno, everyone hating the guy.