Octopus Overlords

What are you doing to prepare for the coming Apocalypse? Evacuation plans, a 72 hour kit, food storage, guns & ammo? The plans will have to change depending on the scenario and survival will depend on who reacts first to the event, especially since I live in the desert surrounded by millions of people. There are 6 roads out of town, 4 of which lead to more desert. I am most likely fucked.

Shelter in place is really the only option for me. I need to get some water barrels for the garage. I'm in between two parts of the interstate split. There's no way out of the area without getting past them, and that's not likely.

I live in the DC area. I even used to live right across the street from the Super Mutant overrun Germantown police station.

Anyway, I'm fucked, so I have no plan.

Pray I can get to my parents house? Of course, I imagine riots and looting will make it so even if I can, it won't matter.

My guess it Global Warming will be what brings it, but Trump provoking a situation and escalating it is quickly moving up in the race.

I just can't shake this

"I'm not talking about the nature of the video. I think you're focusing on the wrong thing. The threat is real, and that's what the President is talking about."

I suspect a Black Swan will happen first. And it will be after I'm long dead, so I really don't care.

I think M.A.D. will hold the national nukes at bay, and I don't think think terrorists will get one. (At this point a nuke falling into unauthorized hands from, say, some former USSR stockpile is likely to be old or faulty.)

Some other kind of W.M.D. is possible (Sarin gas release or some such), but it won't be a city-destroyer, so it won't qualify as "apocalypse."

I think the most likely apocalypse is a slow one: cascading environmental failures leading to cascading social/economic/military crises, all playing out on the scale of two or three decades but leading inexorably to collapses at all levels around the globe. Maybe at this point you'll see nukes flying, but they'll be an effect, not a cause.

Short of trying to go deeper into the woods than I already live, there's not much to do.

We've got guns, well water, a septic system, a generator, water on two sides of our property, and my wife is a great gardener that could transition into farming. We buy in bulk to save money and tend to have a week or two's worth of food in general anyways.

It's not an end-of-the-world setup, but we could outlast the first few days of absolute anarchy if the US transport systems suddenly failed and no food was getting moved around the nation.

I'm practicing putting my head between my legs so I can kiss my ass goodbye.

Technically, the US has already nuked a city. 2 in fact. (and it was rather apocalyptic for Japan, at least in the short term - no more empire, complete change in culture)

PS you forgot killer virus epidemic. Or Zombies

Pyperkub wrote: ↑Thu Nov 30, 2017 3:11 pm PS you forgot killer virus epidemic. Or Zombies

I added Pandemic with the option to re-vote.

tgb wrote: ↑Thu Nov 30, 2017 2:51 pm I'm practicing putting my head between my legs so I can kiss my ass goodbye.

Yeah, I've put all my marbles on civilization. If it ends before I do, I bet wrong.

There are two existential threats to the US: Inequality, and climate change. The former is about to get a whole lot worse, and correcting it nearly always involves a cataclysm -- either open class warfare ending in a political revolution, or economic collapse, or both. This will likely become an acute crisis within my lifetime, assuming that I serve out the 15 years that I actuarially have left.

Climate change is more like punctuated equilibrium -- slow-motion background changes interrupted by the occasional loss of a major coastal city (starting in Florida). This probably won't become acute until I'm safely dead.

One could add a third existential crisis wherein the US becomes a fascist dictatorship that the rest of the world unites against, putting us on the wrong side of WW3, but I prefer to consider Trump an aberration that we will get through. He shows encouraging signs of flaming out within the next year.

These discussions became a lot less fun once my kids were diagnosed as type 1 insulin dependent diabetics. You can't store unrefrigerated insulin more than 30 days. If there's an apocalypse, my kids die. After that, I pretty much can't imagine remaining sane even if I somehow survive.

None of the above. No apocalypse is inbound this century.

On the "How to survive" question, I've got nothing.

I live in a big city with little access to the kind of fertile self-sufficient wilderness that usually figures in survival/self-sufficiency fantasies.

Since I think I'd rather be dead than live in a world ruled by the best-armed surviving survivalists, I'm probably going down with the ship.

Years ago? the plan was to wander off into the woods. Believe it or not, I actually have some skill at such things.

Now? I recognize that I've gotten too fat and out of shape to actually pull that off, and I only have one good arm. I'd most likely just be screwed.

I dunno. What I heard just now was "If you've got a fort, I can be a turret"

Rip wrote: ↑Thu Nov 30, 2017 10:44 pm None of the above. No apocalypse is inbound this century.

Except for whoever gets nuked by NK in the next 3 years, presumably.

Or the potential upcoming civil war, of course.

My plan is to die in the first wave so I don't have to deal with the aftermath. I live near a large city so I'm pretty sure I can pull that off.



Voted random terrorist nuke which seems like the most likely cataclysm to me.

gbasden wrote: ↑Fri Dec 01, 2017 2:32 pm Or the potential upcoming civil war, of course.

No race war? Poll is broken.

Other - EMP. After all of our modern conveniences are disabled, man vs nature and man vs man will do all the rest.

Pandemic, 12 Monkeys style.

My plan is to make a plan after the apocalyptic event. Then I will know what options I have, and who I need to kill in order to gather the supplies I need to carry out that plan. That's why I pay close attention to people who talk about their plans for the apocalypse.

gameoverman wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2017 4:23 pm My plan is to make a plan after the apocalyptic event. Then I will know what options I have, and who I need to kill in order to gather the supplies I need to carry out that plan. That's why I pay close attention to people who talk about their plans for the apocalypse.

Sounds like a plan.

First thing, shoot my phone. Catharsis is the best way to begin the Apocalypse. After that, play it by ear.



It will be a bioweapon for sure.

First we kill all the lawyers.

No, not really. A little torture might be in order though.

A Federal Ban on Making Lethal Viruses Is Lifted

This can only end poorly.

I would have a Thunderdome built and ready within minutes of the Apocalypse. There are so many family, friends and neighbors I've wanted to see in mortal combat for my pleasure that I can't even begin to count.

hepcat wrote:I would have a Thunderdome built and ready within minutes of the Apocalypse. There are so many family, friends and neighbors I've wanted to see in mortal combat for my pleasure that I can't even begin to count.

Do you have your hockey mask and leather chaps all picked out?

Why would I change my look?

Moliere wrote: ↑Tue Dec 19, 2017 1:46 pm A Federal Ban on Making Lethal Viruses Is Lifted

This can only end poorly.

Don't know what you're worried about, What's the worst that could happen?

hepcat wrote:Why would I change my look?

Well it could probably use some accessorizing. Pastel highlights, a skull necklace, etc.

Rip wrote: ↑Thu Nov 30, 2017 10:44 pm None of the above. No apocalypse is inbound this century.

Let me quote your orange monkey god.

"What good are nukes if you're not going to use them?"

I'll reconsider my vote after he is removed from office.

gbasden wrote: ↑Fri Dec 01, 2017 2:32 pm Or the potential upcoming civil war, of course.

No need to fear the "Guns, fuck yeah!" states as we have Chicago on our side.

Jeff V wrote: ↑Wed Dec 20, 2017 12:02 am

gbasden wrote: ↑Fri Dec 01, 2017 2:32 pm Or the potential upcoming civil war, of course.

No need to fear the "Guns, fuck yeah!" states as we have Chicago on our side.

Chicago, Detroit, Flint, New York. Michigan may have gone red but I promise Detroit and Flint join our side.

Remus West wrote:

Jeff V wrote: ↑Wed Dec 20, 2017 12:02 am

gbasden wrote: ↑Fri Dec 01, 2017 2:32 pm Or the potential upcoming civil war, of course.

No need to fear the "Guns, fuck yeah!" states as we have Chicago on our side.

Chicago, Detroit, Flint, New York. Michigan may have gone red but I promise Detroit and Flint join our side.

Massachusetts may have restrictive gun laws but we have you covered when it comes time to field combat robots due to our technological prowess!

Massive solar storm set to hit Earth tomorrow

The storm could also knockout satellites and was created last week by an enormous explosion in the sun's atmosphere known as a solar flare.

Charged particles from that flare are now on their way to our planet - and are predicted to hit on Wednesday.

The arrival of the solar storm coincides with the formation of 'equinox cracks' in Earth's magnetic field, which form around the equinoxes on March 20 and September 23 every year.

These cracks weaken our planet's natural protection against charged particles, potentially leaving aeroplanes and GPS systems exposed to the storm.

No insects = Apocalypse

More than 40 percent of insect species are dwindling globally and a third of species are endangered, concluded the peer-reviewed study, which analyzed 73 historical reports on insect population declines.

Chillingly, the total mass of insects is falling by 2.5 percent annually, the review’s authors said. If the decline continues at this rate, insects could be wiped off the face of the Earth within a century.

“It is very rapid. In 10 years you will have a quarter less, in 50 years only half left and in 100 years you will have none,” study co-author Francisco Sánchez-Bayo, an environmental biologist at the University of Sydney, Australia, told The Guardian.