Are Preppers mad? Or are they wise to get ready for Britain to crash out the EU? Should we stock up on beans and UHT?

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Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast produced by me, Fraser McGruer, for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Chris Wragg and Nick Hare of Aleph Insights and this week we're delving into eschatology with Brexit and the end of the world. There you go, a bit of theology there for you.

Nick, lead us in. Well, it's always interesting when you get a sense of how other countries see your country and there was a quite widely discussed article in the New York Times a week or so back looking at people preparing for the disaster, as they saw it, of Brexit, the impending societal meltdown. People who are concerned about us running out of food and medicine and not being able to get any imports and this leading to a breakdown of society. So it's people who are kind of getting supplies in. What was the tone of the article? It was gloomy. It certainly gave the impression that most people in Britain are right now hunkering down and cowering in their cellars. And I think that's filtered, I would sort of imagine, through the fact that actually in the US there is a much bigger community of people who are preparing for disaster and very into preparing for disaster called preppers. And there's a whole prepper community, prepper culture, things that preppers worry about. But anyway, I think what we want to talk about is, are they mad or is it actually sensible to do this? Certainly, most people who aren't preppers think it's mad. There's something a bit unhinged, slightly conspiracy theory. It does overlap with the whole world of concern about big government, concern about society being driven off the deep end, all of those sorts of things. So there's definitely an overlap in the prepper community with very fringe beliefs. The question is, are they mad or is there some logic to it? Does it in fact make sense?

Okay. It's got some tie-ins with economics. Very much so. Chris, are they mad?

Well, it depends what the purpose of their preparation is, I think. And I don't think it's actually about preparing for the risk they perceive. I think there's a lot more going on with this at a deeper, deeper level. People have been talking about the end of the world and preparing for the end of the world for a very long time. And there's obviously something, millenarian cults have been around for thousands of years. And there's clearly something in our psyche that means groups of people like to think about that.

You might've heard of a guy in the Bible called Noah, world's first prepper.

Yeah, exactly. And he was proven right. So there you go. All pounds.

I think we all want to be Noah deep down, don't we?

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So I think there are a number of things here. I think one of them is the fact that I think the prepping is more of a social activity. It's more about creating in groups and out groups than it is necessarily about stockpiling tins of beans and learning how to hunt squirrels. But I also think that it's partly about our own sort of dealing with our own mortality. It's a way of thinking about, we all know we're going to die and sort of dealing with that on a kind of societal scale. And actually a lot of the cultures we create and sort of societal activity that we engage in is all about distracting us from our eventual mortality. And so I think there's something at that level going on as well. So yes, preparing for the sky falling on our head in March next year when we leave the European Union is daft. But I think it's much more about group cohesiveness and our own individual existential dread.

Okay, sort of clubs for paranoid people, they can all get together and be paranoid and have fun together.

Pretty much, yeah. Well, okay. I mean, let's look at what people are afraid of, some plausible scenarios that you might want to be prepared for in some way. By the way, the kind of yardstick for preparedness is people think we should be able to survive entirely on our own for 72 hours. That's a sort of minimum level of preparedness. So that's not the people who decide they're going to go into the countryside and live sustainably. A lot of people are interested only really in being able to survive for three days or so. Well, our body will do that for us. Well, kind of, but you do need things like water and sanitary facilities and those kinds of things. Sanitary facilities? Toilets. You've got the woods, you've got the sea. Yeah. Well, have you got toilet roll? Leaves. See, I don't think you've thought about it. So a lot of that is, so you've got grid down scenarios, which might be a coronal mass ejection or an EMP attack or other local disasters like floods. What's an EMP attack? An EMP, electromagnetic pulse. It's a kind of, it's a side effect of nuclear weapons, but you can build bombs that are just sort of primarily designed. Yeah, if you've seen the Matrix films, they use them at some point.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Let's have a look what's inside yours. Go for it.

What's in them? It's the first time I've ever heard of these things.

So you've got water, first aid kits, power, heat and light and that sort of thing. You have, yeah, you have sort of, you know, the means to start fires, toilet paper, sanitary items. People are very keen to point out that you shouldn't forget about your pets. My reaction would be we can eat them first. But I think people with pets don't necessarily see it like that. You know, you can get very, you know, you can get very fancy ones where you basically have all of that, but more so. So, you know, fancier shelters.

So your conclusion, I'm going to guess is, well, wait a minute. So what we're talking is hundreds,

we're talking possibly a couple of hundred quid, you know, possibly thousands, but, you know, let's say a minimum couple of hundred quid. Well, the final thing is how valuable would it be in a crisis, right? So if you, how much would you pay for that? One way to think about it is let's say it happened and I didn't have one. How much would I be willing to pay? Well, they might end up saving your life. You know, they would certainly be extremely valuable. And I would say at least an order of magnitude higher. So where I'm going with this is I think it does make sense, right? It does make sense to have, you know, some water stockpiled somewhere and some food and some

medicine. Change my mind. Yeah. Well, I'm going to say that the costs are obviously not just the cost of the pack, right? So there are perishable items in there. So there's the need to replace. Well, very, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say the medicine, food and your cost, something like 20 or 30 quid. Right. There's then this issue you'd have to carry about your person the whole time because you never know when this emergency is going to strike, right? Well, no.

The idea is that you'd assume you'd be able to at least get to your property quickly and grab the thing. So, you know, it's things like if there's a flood or hurricane or something like that, so you're, you'd be able to get your thing, but then you need to get out of dodge. I'm going

to say that I could probably assemble the contents of one of these packs within extra 10 minutes from, from the items I stock in my house regularly. So you're already a prepper, but you just didn't think of it that way. No, I'm, incidentally, I'm a prepper because I happen to keep food and water

and, you know. I think you'd come, yeah, but you'd turn up at the sort of prepper assembly area with the world's most terrible, you'd be like, oh, I've got two tins of apricots and, and, and a moldy loaf

of bread. And they'd be, they'd be the rare item. So they'd have the highest value. Yeah. Everyone

would have medicine, but you'd be the only guy with the apricots. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Incidentally, has everyone got a tin of apricots in their cupboard? No. Everyone's got a tin of apricots

in their cupboard. I don't know why. They cause, they cause a great deal of flatulence. Okay.

I'll give them a miss. But, but yeah, so, so I, so I'm, what I'm saying is, I think it's sensible. And I actually, having researched this podcast, I'm probably going to, going to assemble a small

but functional bug out bag. By the way, as an aside, you're the mathematician, not me, but I think you're not quite right on your figures by your own calculations, even though they're back of an envelope. Let's say you thought it was 1% chance a year. Let's just say for a moment, we will live for a hundred years. Yeah. Not right. Doesn't that make the chance?

Doesn't that make it 100% chance of that? No, in fact, it makes it, it makes it a roughly two

thirds, in fact. Yeah. Okay. Rather than the 5% you said, um, of happening in a lifetime. Anyway,

which just. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Because that's, that's being affected by disaster. What I'm saying is this goes further to need a bug out bag. Okay. Like you need to be affected. It has to be a really bad, bad. Okay. Okay. So, so it's, you know, I'm saying it's going to be at probably an order of magnitude lower than that. Fine. Um, look, where do we go with this? Um,

well just, well, I had a suggestion, but anyway, go, I mean, just one other suggestion is move somewhere else, move to Wales, but anyway, that's got its own problems, but yeah, go for it.

Well, I was going to say, you know, I'm quite interested in, uh, people's approaches to sort of disaster management or, you know, coping with significant problems and the, um, you know, rather than people following an, uh, an optimal strategy based on, you know, rational evaluation, that seems, you know, you know, you have kind of different kinds of reactions when, when you see, you know, you have people who are resigned to these things happening, uh, so they, so they don't prepare beforehand. You have people who might be in denial about them, uh, you know, who, who are, even if, even if, you know, like people living in earthquake zones, you know, maybe wandering around their, their life, not actually preparing for something that there might be a reasonable chance of. Yeah, I've got data on that. Well, hold on. Before you do,

just before you do, just two things. He's speculating, I've got some actual facts. Okay, hold on. Just one thing, um, that I know that is, is, is actually more important than, than most people realise is actually following safety briefings, for example. And I know that, on a plane, you definitely should listen to the safety briefing, and that makes a big difference. Or things like just having a thought, thinking about what you would do in a fire, and fire drills are actually really important. And they're things we shouldn't just go through the motions, we should pay attention because, um, those are the people who end up surviving and not getting burnt to a crisp and things like that. Um, we've heard a lot from Nick, um, and I definitely do want to hear about these statistics, but before, is there? Well, yeah, no, it's just, so, so,

you know, the, the three kinds of, uh, you know, primary behaviours I was considering, you know, the other is, um, sort of futile obsessive preparation. So over, over preparation, you know, the people who've, who've got their little shelter packed, you know, ready for the, for the end of the world. And I think, I think it's just interesting to, um, consider, you know, what, what kind of reaction we have generally, and it's not always based on, um, you know, what the, what the best course of action is, that it seems to be driven by, um, uh, you know, our, our own

individual personalities. Hmm, okay. Um, so you were, you were dangling some statistics in front

of us? Yeah, well, I was just, um, gonna talk about actually how prepared people are. Um, and if you look at things like, so, I mean, my, my order of magnitude, by the way, was sort of more or less for me, my, my rough probability, I think, of being involved. We're very lucky I'm on a hill, um, you know, so I've got almost no chance of flooding, uh, which it would be the major reason you'd have to get out of your house. Um, but there are areas of this country where actually it's a virtual problem, you know, likelihood that, that, that people will be flooded. And certainly if you look at, um, uh, people think there's, there's something like a 50% probability of a really major earthquake in, in LA in the next 25 years. Um, but something like one third of people report, report in surveys that they're unprepared for it, right? So they're kind of aware that this could happen, but they're, they're not prepared for, for, you know, what, what might happen. And that's, um, in fact, the, the people who are most vulnerable are the least prepared as well. So, you know, people who are sort of less well-educated or, uh, you know, poorer, uh, less prepared. And, um, and, and so, you know, it's almost like, well, what can you do? You know, I mean, I mean that they, these are people where forget about, you don't have to become a prepper. It's just common sense that you ought to be, you know, ready for, um, you know, in, in the case of Florida hurricanes and floods, um, in the case of, you know, LA an earthquake. Um, and, and yet people aren't, you know, so I, I, yeah, I dunno, it's hard to sort of make that a rational thing. I think it feels like, well, it's just go and do it. You know, you should, um, you don't have to be a prepper, but yeah, I think it's interesting this question about, um, you know, what, I think the Chris's taxonomy there works quite well for me. You know, it's fatalists. Well, if it happens, it happens sort of obsessive preparedness, which is sort of over, um, you know, spending too much, if you like an irrationally high amount on preparing. And then there's sort of sensible people in the middle. Um, now the cook, I know when I, when I was at school, it's very fashionable to talk about, oh, well, you know, if there's a nuclear war, I'd just go out there and get vaporized because I wouldn't want to survive. Um, but I remember my dad always used to say, no, it'd be, I want to see what the world would be like after nuclear war. I'd definitely try and survive. And I think actually when push came to shove, um, you know, people who, who are blithely saying, oh, I don't mind just being vaporized. Probably, you know, we're animals and we've evolved to survive. I suspect most people would wish that they had prepared more, you know, in that situation would, would actually find themselves quite wanting to survive, please. So I think it's, it's nice. It's a classic Aleph,

uh, topic on podcasts essentially, um, which is, um, know what your aims are, know what the information is, have, or try and get the best, best view you can on the information and then

take action. Yeah. And if you do live in an area where, you know, flooding or earthquakes or known natural disasters are, um, you know, uh, relatively frequent, well, you know, there's just no excuse whatsoever. Uh, for the rest of us, you know, I think it's still sensible to think

about. Okay. So, um, just bringing it back round to what you were saying that, and your dad was saying and, um, what was fashionable back in the eighties, et cetera, what would we do, you know, post apocalypse? Um, I want to ask you, um, think of either a film or a play or a book or, or, um, what's the one I'm missing or a TV program that is, or a musical or a musical doesn't really work on radio. Yeah. It's not great for radio. Um, and yeah, no, what's your favorite post apocalyptic one of those. Um, go for it, Chris. Uh, yeah. So for me, it's, it's the road by

Cormac McCarthy, uh, book. Right. Yeah. I've seen the film. I've not read the book. Okay. Well, yeah, the films with that Danish bloke, isn't it? That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. Well, the book is incredibly harrowing. Uh, but you see that, um, sort of dichotomy of approach that I was, that I was talking about. Um, cause it's, it's, it's largely a book about a father and, and his relationship with his son. That's essentially what the book's about, but it's just on a relentlessly bleak, uh, vision of the, of the future. Um, but, uh, you, you find out that the mother, um, survives, whatever the cry, you know, the, the, um, uh, undefined crisis that occurs beforehand. Um, but she, uh, she, they have a gun with a few bullets in it and she, she takes her, takes her life early on in the crisis because she just can't face the bleakness of it. But he has this, this drive to continue. And obviously, you know, um, look after their son and so on. Uh, but it's just, it's just a beautiful book, but it's so miserable. It's, uh, it's, it's unbelievable. I'm going to, he's laid down the gauntlet and I'm going to put

forward. And I think what I would say is probably the most miserable piece of fiction, um, ever created, which is threads. You're shaking your head. I cannot believe it. I would never, ever recommend anyone to watch threads because it's so utterly, uh, soul destroying, but it's, it's, um, a very realistic, um, nuclear war scenario, Britain in the eighties written by Barry Hines of Kes fame. And, um, it's so realistic, it's done in a sort of documentary style. Um, but it follows this couple, you know, in the run up to a, to a nuclear war and, uh, she's pregnant and, you know, then the nuclear war happens and, uh, and it, and it doesn't stop there. It goes in, you know, sort of years later showing a Britain, you know, which has regressed to sort of medieval levels of, um, of, uh, or pre, you know, dark ages levels of, uh, of, of prosperity. And, um, you know, sort of saying this, this, uh, it's just, it's just, uh, horrible if you're not in the mood for that. And I don't know why you would be. I actually have got quite a lot of time and I'm very surprised by this for the film Noah starring Russell Crowe. I was expecting it to be like a biblical Epic. It's not, it's more of a kind of, they it's almost like a literal interpretation of the biblical story of Noah. And, um, and it's actually more no, it's, it's actually like a fantasy film because if you look at the kind of myth of Noah and the fact that it was supposed to be God cleansing, cleansing the earth, which had become unbearably sinful and starting afresh, um, it is, uh, it's sort of more or less trying to faithfully do that. And it's, and it's sort of got, um, you know, sort of strange, um, does he have every species of animal on, uh, it's, it does a pretty good job of sort of saying, well, if you were going to do that realistically, like if Noah was true, what would it be like? And, and, and I, I recommend it. It's good fun. It's quite, I was really surprised. Um, on the, well, they have a whole cut through the deck so that they can stick their necks out. I don't know. Goodness sake,

they lie down. So it's like a documentary approach as if it's real anyway. No, it's not, it's not filmed like a documentary. That I get. Okay, fine. Uh, my one actually is, is actually from a, is it from a comedy show is from a sketch show called that Mitchell and Webb look. I think it was called one of the recurring sketches they had in that was a game show set in post apocalypse Britain. Um, and I can't remember anything about it other than it was hilarious.

Yeah. They keep talking about the events, don't they? Yeah. Clearly people, people come on with

their face banding and one of them's blind and one of them keeps screaming hysterically. And it's, it's just so I go and Google it and find it on YouTube. So I think, and I think that has sort

social breakdown. Yeah. Very good. Okay. On that happy note. Um, I've forgotten what we were talking about. What were we talking about? Preparing for disaster. There we go. Preppers. There we go. Um, all right. So we'll, we'll finish it off there. Um, thank you as always for listening to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast. Um, I'm Fraser McGruer, been here with Nick Hare and Chris Wragg of Aleph Insights. Yeah. Happy prepping until next time. Bye-bye.