Monday, October 5, 2015

the possibility of probability 1 of 2


THE POSSIBILITY OF A PROBABILITY

As we all know, just because something is possible does not mean it is very probable.  We all read Lucifer’s Hammer and thought it great fun to visualize an asteroid making Earth its bitch.  Of course, we all realized the probability of that happening was really quite low and so the danger was not something we had to worry about.  An asteroid impact was kind of the zombie apocalypse of the Seventies.  Just with better writers ( actually, they are getting a LOT better.  Check out Joshua Guess and “The Fall”.  Not only a talented author, a story that isn’t boring or repetitious ).  Now in modern times, way after the hip and grooving disco era, it might added that I for one, after the recent Russian strike, place a lot more credibility in the idea of an asteroid hitting us.  I think the possibility is as real as ever and the probability is far greater than we have been led to believe ( if I’m remembering correctly, our space agency spending billions had no idea the above mentioned space rock was going to hit.  That, or they knew and were told to tell no one because it was initially believed it was going to be a lot bigger, perhaps on the dinosaur killer level.  So, NASA was either a bunch of incompetents, a bunch of liars or a bunch of civil servants suckling at the taxpayer teet and not even paying attention ).  I mean, I have a very personal problem with ANY official statistic.  I believe them to be at the Mark Twain level of damn lies. 

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You want a laugh?  Watch any episode of NatGeo’s Doomsday Preppers.  Any issue a prepper might be getting ready for, the narrator is quick to point out how silly it is by pronouncing that all is well and “proves” it with statistics showing how improbable the event actually transpiring is.  Like, “oh, no worries, Peak Oil won’t hit until 2030, all experts agree”.  I imagine if I paid an expert to consult for me, by carefully leading them in the direction I desired, I could get those rosy predictions also.  I’m not saying that National Geographic TV producers are a bunch of weasel pukes, suckling up to the government and its handlers.  Why would I?  Headquartered in Washington DC doesn’t always mean you are contaminated by association.  All I’m saying is that I can’t think of a more optimistic bunch, and hence they should have no business portraying preppers.  But back to probabilities.  Doomsday Preppers lowballs all disaster probabilities and purposely picks preppers with a propensity towards possibilities.  Again, lies by statistics.  Sure, it is stupid to think a magnetic pole switch is going to happen.  Probably right up there with the Mayan 2012 scare.  But picking your prepper poison is a minor thought crime.  I don’t think it is stupid at all to prepare for the possible rather than the probable.  As long as you are not single cause specific, and let your preps generalize to a certain degree.  Even if you do focus on one event ( which we all do, whether you realize it not ), as long as you have bleed over to other events you should do fine.  Tomorrow, let’s talk about prepping for the possible.

END
 
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32 comments:

  1. In July Northern Iran supposedly got hit by a big space rock that broke into three pieces and devastated a large area. US news agencies and NASA never said a thing about it. Yet it was reported in European and Asian news.

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    1. I believe someone mentioned that here, but I had a hard time finding anything.

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  2. Pole flip is completely possible, as like asteroid strike, it has happened before geologically speaking. More questionable is the 'punctuated equilibrium' or 'catastrophic sudden shift' of theories of geology.
    But a certainty is in imperial collapse. All empires collapse.
    All.
    The collapse might not be recognized for generations after the new normal is in place, but eventually it is. The roman empire claimed to continue until WW1!.
    If if we weren't in the USA, the fall of the USA empire will have global effects that intelligent people should be preparing for- and those same preparations should also be of use if the poles flipped or an asteroid struck.

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    1. Aren't the poles flipping going to cause ginormous flooding, like in the heartland?

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    2. meh- no one really knows, the geologic evidence of prior pole flips is there, and our current magnetic field is doing things that it might prior to a pole flip, but there is no known reason why a change in magnetic field should cause floods hundreds or thousands of feet above sea level. There could be lots of other reasons for floods though, so it is something to keep in mind where ever you are, Small boats, life vests, and lightweight bike helmets don't cost much so if you worry about it get them with some of your other preps, I plan to myself after/during preparing for more likely things - like shelter, food, security, drinking water for the economic collapse we are in.

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    3. Only in 2012 .... A magnetic flip occurs quite often .... the biggest problem is the decrease in the field as it approaches the flip, so our cosmic ray shield is decreasing steadily at the moment.... That's the problem ....

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    4. Are the cosmic rays beamed directly at Washington DC responsible for the marked decrease in intelligence, when we didn't think that bar could be lowered anymore?

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  3. I'm constantly running these numbers, if you can call them that, in my head. When I have done formal risk assessment I draw out a box and and then divide that box into four smaller boxes. On the left side at the top I put "High'" and the bottom "Low" and label it "Impact." On the bottom left I put "Low and bottom right I put "High" and label that "Probability" So the "Low" labels are next to each other. Then I write down all of the crazy crap that might happen. Asteroid/Comet strike, Nuclear War, X9 CME hitting the Earth etc. Once you have all the things that you can think of that can ruin your day/life then you assign it an "Impact" Good size asteroid strike, (Need to figure out the size of an object that would ruin you life even if it hit on the other side of the planet.) Would be High and so on. Now here is the tricky part, what is the probability? You can trust the "official" numbers or you can fudge it up higher know they are liars like James says. Now plot each one on the quadrangle. Obviously the upper right quadrant is going to be your biggest concern, while just about ignoring the lower left one. Now you need to look at the cost benefit analysis. Can you kill two or three birds with one stone trying to mitigate/eliminate the threat? Say a bunker under a mountain, would cover just about everything except a huge rock falling out of the sky and landing on your mountain. This is your benefit. What is the cost to do that? It helps to draw it out and think through it.

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    1. I think nuclear war is probable, but the costs to prep adequately...I don't buy into the "one month in shelter" BS, believing it to be far longer just on the fallout, not to mention the nuke winter preps.

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    2. James, when you were in the Army do you remember those guys who ran the gas chamber? We also did nuclear downwind hazard plotting with half life decay models. Depending on what type of burst and what got hit, one month may be adequate, but not safe by today's Govt exposure levels which is 5 rem LIFETIME. If there was melting reactor nearby, then never coming out would be best, if not practical.

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    3. Ft. McClellen Alabama. MP & Chemical warfare school. Before they closed it down and moved it.

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    4. Nuke winter preps are food, water, shelter, clothing and heat source. Easy preps and usable for lots of other things.
      Nuke fallout preps are mass between you and fall out (aka sleep in the deeply buried root cellar and stay there until cabin fever sets in too bad) and avoiding ingesting the fallout (aka not planting until a rain has washed most of the fall out away or using a greenhouse, and filtering all particles out of your water if collecting rainfall).

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    5. Its at Ft. Lost in the woods.(Leonardwood) I went throught the AF school there.

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    6. JJ-knowing it is all theoretical, I wonder if the longevity of fallout in a big enough event would defeat all those preps.
      NS-the chemical school went to Leonardwood? What did they do before that? I never got the economics on closing bases, except as a political coup. It seems the newer base would just be expanded.

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    7. depends on - location, type of fallout, and what you expect from your preps. Radiation can not increase. No really, it doesn't, it just pays forward and/or concentrates. So really strong radiation will be localized in either time or place, or be so diffuse it costs you minutes or days of lifespan at worst. You don't get any more radiation from the uranium in total, you just concentrate it for a few decades at a single point or a few minutes in a single explosion, or relocate it.
      Now if the radiation from the uranium suddenly shows up in your bones, say your skull, you get something like a politician in mentality (aka brain cancer) either from an intense burst of the radiation or a slower lesser amount of radiation in that single place.
      All the nuclear weapons in all the world can not permanently irradiate the earth so that it cannot support life forever. At best they can kill off all surface dwelling life by short term (near instant) intense bursts. The moles, and voles, and cave dwelling fish would be fine, and any person who reflects the wisdom of those creatures too.
      Of course finding new sources of food when everything on the surface has been killed off is going to be a bit of a bear- unless you live next to a lot of grain silos.... :-D like I do....

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    8. Nuke war/asteroid strike is why I think 5 to 10 years food is needed ( also because of soil recovery needed plus ag areas fought over continuously, but nuke winter is the worse case and prepping for that encompasses the other events ). If you can survive the long time underground, then without much social interaction. I think most will go batcrap crazy first.

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    9. You might find this link to be of some use James? I think that I might have posted it here once before, but do not recall?

      Farming after a nuclear war:

      http://www.ki4u.com/webpal/b_recovery/2_farm_recovery/farming.htm

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    10. Looks like an excellent resource. Thanks!

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    11. " If you can survive the long time underground, then without much social interaction. I think most will go batcrap crazy first."

      That's what books and a handful of good friends included in your plans is for. Making certain everyone has space for privacy and a place to gather, and more than a couple dozen people for a few years probably isn't necessary. If the die off is severe enough people will invite new people to join their community just for the new faces and entertainment value. Given the current total population of the earth I doubt almost any die off will be that severe in our lifetimes though.

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    12. That guy in Canada, Bruce Beach ( ? ). Had/has a web site. Buried like fifty buses all together. Even his set up, as huge as it is and beyond our means, looks claustrophobic to me.

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  4. Food, water, shelter, security, mobility. Square those away and deal with what comes. Some things are too big to do much about so don't worry about them.

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    1. I think trying to see Big Picture items is just entertainment when all those basics are squared away.

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  5. I saw a few episodes of that Doomsday Preppers before James. While I did learn a few useful things from it, it was basically yuppie scummery of the highest order, only in television format. Probably not even worth tuning into unless you have at least $100K to get yourself started.

    With regards to Western journalism and stats, sadly I've learned that the only way that you can count on credible and objective reporting, is when there is no profit to be made from lying.

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    1. DP had a few good low income types, like the guy in Maine going primitive wilderness survival ( with steel blades ).

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  6. The intelligent prepper will understand any one event in a 10 year period is small. The probability of one of many possible events in ones life time is very high. Me I am a EMP believer followed by financial collapse and nuclear exchange. It all over laps with a few tweak's.

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    1. In a ten year period we have had Peak Oil, near financial collapse, nuke reactor meltdown, global drought, global war, Ebola outbreak and a few others I'm forgetting. And we are just warming up.

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    2. WOW the government cant even get the apocalypse right!!!!

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  7. Jim,
    Hey, I love you man, but I can't believe what you said about National Geographic.
    In my opinion, with the exception of Time-Life, they are the pre-eminent NWO mouthpiece of propaganda and lies. The Grosvenor Family as well as the editors and trustees were all big insiders / one-worlders from the get go.
    They are like Walt Disney for "adults". Their pages are full of subliminal propaganda carefully leavened for the unsuspecting sheeple.
    I have a collection of issues going back 120 years that I bought before I was "aware". Even in the earliest editions, they were the Trojan horse of environmental fascism, anti-Christianism, and mind control.
    It's unbelievable how trusting people are of their magazine and especially all the various TV shows they put out. Right on par with Disney.
    Trust me Jim, they are "weasel pukes"

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    1. I lost all respect for the mag when Peak Oil was grossly mis-reported with Saudi Arabia reserves at impossible levels, a magical geological fantasy. Sorry if my sarcasm wasn't plainer :)

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    2. Jim,
      OK, Sorry about that. Boy do I feel dumb.
      I remain your loyal minion.
      R de B

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    3. No reason you should feel dumb. I'm the one who didn't make myself understood, and I'm the paid writer here.

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