Also, beyond the purely personal, are there any actions that could be taken by individuals right now that would have a positive impact on humanity’s chances to recover, conditional on nuclear war?
Some (probably naive) ideas:
Downloading and printing vital information about how to rebuild food supply and other vital infrastructure (so that it can easily be accessed despite varying degrees of infrastructure collapse); I guess ALLFED’s articles might be a good starting point (even though I could not quickly find any distilled strategy document/user guide for their research)?
Increase the likelihood that you will be able to distribute this information: Ensure survival, build local networks, practice leadership skills etc.
Make sure others do the same: While there already seem to be a lot of preppers, I do not know whether their culture emphasizes strategies for rebuilding a flourishing civilization over mere survival. “Altruistic prepping” might be a relatively neglected niche (or not, these are just off the cuff thoughts...)
I’m reading this book now and finding it very good! I’m surprised because most books in this genre I’ve tried lately have been really bad and I couldn’t bear to continue reading them. This one is fun because in addition to being practical it takes you on a fast route tour of just the essentials from the tech tree we’ve developed over human history, without the long winding arbitrary delays we had historically, which is interesting as well as potentially useful. Makes me think Cyberpunk is more likely in some ways (for some types of disaster) than I’d realised. It should be said that the book assumes technology is somewhat intact but most (but not all) of the population are gone.
I think some form of this could be valuable, noting Sebastian’s point that decreasing risk should be the main priority. It struck me reading the main article that the tendency for EAs to congregate to some extent geographically poses a challenge from a long-term perspective. Oxford, the community’s beating heart, is uncomfortably close to London (the obvious civilian target) and Portsmouth (home of the Royal Navy, probably second-top priority military target), meaning a large fraction of the community would be wiped out in a nuclear war. It might be prudent for EAs who can work remotely to set up ‘colonies’ in places unlikely to be devastated by a nuclear exchange, to provide resilience.
I’m guessing that with the number of nukes Russia has, most cities in NATO above ~100k people will be targeted, including Oxford. In contrast, basically everywhere in the Southern Hemisphere is likely safe (New Zealand is a favourite hide out for elites I hear).
Also, beyond the purely personal, are there any actions that could be taken by individuals right now that would have a positive impact on humanity’s chances to recover, conditional on nuclear war?
Some (probably naive) ideas:
Downloading and printing vital information about how to rebuild food supply and other vital infrastructure (so that it can easily be accessed despite varying degrees of infrastructure collapse); I guess ALLFED’s articles might be a good starting point (even though I could not quickly find any distilled strategy document/user guide for their research)?
Increase the likelihood that you will be able to distribute this information: Ensure survival, build local networks, practice leadership skills etc.
Make sure others do the same: While there already seem to be a lot of preppers, I do not know whether their culture emphasizes strategies for rebuilding a flourishing civilization over mere survival. “Altruistic prepping” might be a relatively neglected niche (or not, these are just off the cuff thoughts...)
Also, see this 60 second advice article: https://nuclearadvice.org/
Some good reading for the bunker: Lewis Dartnell’s The Knowledge: how to rebuild our world from scratch.
I’m reading this book now and finding it very good! I’m surprised because most books in this genre I’ve tried lately have been really bad and I couldn’t bear to continue reading them. This one is fun because in addition to being practical it takes you on a fast route tour of just the essentials from the tech tree we’ve developed over human history, without the long winding arbitrary delays we had historically, which is interesting as well as potentially useful. Makes me think Cyberpunk is more likely in some ways (for some types of disaster) than I’d realised. It should be said that the book assumes technology is somewhat intact but most (but not all) of the population are gone.
I think some form of this could be valuable, noting Sebastian’s point that decreasing risk should be the main priority. It struck me reading the main article that the tendency for EAs to congregate to some extent geographically poses a challenge from a long-term perspective. Oxford, the community’s beating heart, is uncomfortably close to London (the obvious civilian target) and Portsmouth (home of the Royal Navy, probably second-top priority military target), meaning a large fraction of the community would be wiped out in a nuclear war. It might be prudent for EAs who can work remotely to set up ‘colonies’ in places unlikely to be devastated by a nuclear exchange, to provide resilience.
I’m guessing that with the number of nukes Russia has, most cities in NATO above ~100k people will be targeted, including Oxford. In contrast, basically everywhere in the Southern Hemisphere is likely safe (New Zealand is a favourite hide out for elites I hear).
I appreciate the line of thought but it also seems important to focus on decreasing the risk and/or severity of nuclear war.