What kind of information regarding future trends do you consider for your preparedness plans?

I think the mistake we often make is seeking certainty: having a proof that a recession is coming, etc. In reality, things are obvious only from the vantage point of a history book author, and if you start looking for signs, you're gonna end up predicting far more disasters than actually come to pass. Just look at the track record of "doomsday porn" sites like zerohedge.com, the track record of /r/collapse, the number of supply chain collapses predicted on /r/PrepperIntel over the last two years, and so forth.

Signs are almost always ambiguous and seldom herald the apocalypse.

An approach I like better is to ask yourself three questions about every scenario:

  • In what way is the scenario likely to unfold, and what do you need to do to protect youself? To avoid doomsday bias, it's usually best to write down three separate variants: the optimistic one, where the disruption is transient or not particularly severe; the middle-of-the-road one, marked by significant hardships but with a clear path to recovery; and the pessimistic one, where all bets are off. The optimistic and pessimistic variants probably hinge on a lot of things going in a particular way, so the middle-of-the-road option is often the best way to anchor the rest of your analysis.

  • What would be a clear sign that things are not normal and that you need to shift into crisis mode? This is important because if every new day is only a tiny bit worse than the one before it, it's very hard to make disruptive decisions - the parable of the boiling frog and all. So, draw some lines in the sand that you can use to hold yourself accountable.

  • How long can you wait to still be able to escape harm? Assume there's going to be some profound fog-of-war: you're gonna be getting conflicting or inaccurate reports, people are going to have different opinions about how bad it is, etc. But there is a point of no return: for example, if the floodwaters are rising, you might not be able to leave once a particular street is submerged, so it's good to know when is the latest you need to leave, even if there's no clarity about what's going on.

/r/preppers Thread