Yesterday I added another page to the main menu of the blog, Status. It contains hourly radiation measurements from my dosimeter, and my current assessments of dangers.

You might ask “why”, and “why now”. I’m actually not sure – I basically solved the technical problem of “how”, and then just did it. I don’t know how much sense it makes. The current geopolitical situation is the worst I ever saw, and I was here in the 1980s, in the time of the Pershing-missile crisis in Europe, when Andropov was so spooked he had a general with the nuclear codes with him at all times in his hospital room. I also monitor the spiritual condition of the global astral field and it shows all signs of extreme energy depletion. Also, there are strong indicators of complete societal breakdown in the West, the petrodollar system has been de facto broken, and the fiat currency system is in the process of collapse. Each of those by itself is not good and suggests a crisis, but together they form a very strong multi-variant convergence that I don’t think we’ve seen at any time in history. Also, I can’t tell whether this current multivariant convergent collapse pattern is merely a symptom, in the sense that people on a very wide scale have a premonition that this world is doomed, and this causes their behaviour. For instance, if we were to be hit by some fatal natural disaster in the near future, and people could subconsciously sense this, it might cause them to act weirdly. It’s hard to tell what is the cause and what is the effect, and this is why I’m monitoring all kinds of possible disasters; also, because I hate being ignorant and so I pass my time hypothesising. I feel something’s up, but that’s about it.

As for the radiation monitor, the reason why I have it is twofold – first, I don’t trust any government at this point to provide us with timely and accurate data about anything. They lie so much I can’t even assume that they lie and extrapolate anything useful from this fact. Also, I know a thing or two about nuclear weapons, enough so that I am aware that serious shit could be going on and nobody outside of the immediately affected area would know about it, with the possible exception of very colorful sunsets. Combine the two, and, obviously, there could be several nuclear explosions in Europe, and I would not be able to personally verify it, and the governments would lie. A dosimeter would let me know if fallout cloud had reached me, and from this I could tell that some serious shit hit the fan somewhere. Also, I could use it to check if the food I’m buying is contaminated, or if some area is particularly “hot”. In the first days, however, I am aware that not many people have their own radiation monitor, and when shit starts going on, I expect to have other priorities, so setting this up now looks like a good idea, because transcribing measurements manually or tweaking software during an acute crisis is not something I would realistically do. Having something that does it by default might help. Also, it can prove a negative – for instance, if the governments say there was a nuclear war, and my dosimeter consistently shows baseline, it would mean they want us to think there’s a nuclear war so that they can assume emergency powers. As a middle ground, they can understate or overstate the danger, and I have the ability to check for myself. For instance, if they say everything’s fine and I can see that everything is hot as fuck, I can avoid the danger. Also, if they say everything is hot and I see that it is fine, I can move around safely and notify others. In any case, it allows me to perform my own measurements and share them with others, so that they can have a datapoint independent of the lying governments and media. Whether that will help or not, I don’t know, but it’s something I can do, and I prefer doing something to remaining passive and waiting to get fucked.

I watched video about a prepping community that refurbishes former US Army ammo bunkers in South Dakota:

The first thing that crossed my mind was that this looked like exactly the kind of place the army would select for a Minuteman ICBM silo site, and in a few minutes of searching, here’s what I found:

Yes, there indeed is a huge ICBM field right across from that abandoned ammo depot. So, yeah, good job placing your “survival” bunkers right on the “X”, in the middle of a first-strike zone of death that’s going to be turned into a glass parking lot in case of a nuclear war.

Edit: this missile field seems to have been retired, but to quote Wikipedia, “Some 450 of the newer Minuteman III missiles are still on active duty at Malmstrom AFB, Montana, Minot AFB, North Dakota, and F. E. Warren AFB, Wyoming.” This is all basically “next door”, so my observation stands.

This made me continue this line of thinking: how to identify bad ideas when you’re trying to prepare for a disaster, and what makes sense.

There are several fundamental principles I try to adhere to:

1. Prepare the way you normally live. This means you don’t buy “survival foods”, you buy the kind of foods you would normally eat, just keep an increased suply at home instead of doing the “just-in-time” thing. This also means you don’t have a separate “survival location” where you would bug out to in case of a disaster, because the likelihood of you being able to leave your primary residence in case of an acute emergency is exceedingly low, and your probability of success drops exponentially with the remoteness of your survival site. This means that your primary location must be equipped to serve as an emergency shelter, and if it’s not, you should move to a place that’s inherently safer. Essentially, don’t buy a shelter in the middle of nowhere if you don’t intend to actually live there, because chances are you won’t be able to get there in time; if there’s a nuclear war looming, do you really want to be on a long road trip, exposed? If there’s an emergency, understand that the authorities might restrict your movement, that there might be panic and chaos, and being out there in such a scenario actually increases your probability of robbery, injury or death.
2. Use your imagination a bit and imagine several modes of disaster. Examples are nuclear war, civil/conventional war, riots, earthquake, volcano, flood, tsunami, plague and extreme weather (tornadoes, hurricanes etc.). Use common sense to model probabilities: are you in a flood zone, does your location have extreme weather, is there a history of seismicity or volcanism, is your country trying to piss off a nuclear superpower, what’s the population density and what happens in case of riots or a plague and so on. If your primary or hypothetical secondary location puts you right on the “X”, you have a problem. You need to approach this from a risk-reduction realistic perspective. Basically, don’t build a nuclear shelter in a first-strike zone of death, near the ICBM field.
3. What’s your realistic endgame? You’re in the shelter, there’s a disaster you’re riding out, but what do you actually plan to achieve? Let’s say it’s a big disaster. Do you keep relatives and neighbours out in some “every man for himself” pattern, or do you try to build a wider community “for later”, because your probability of survival as an individual with lots of supplies, but alienating everybody else, works for as long as you don’t vitally need something you don’t have. However, if you’re spreading out your supplies across a wider group, they are not going to last long. It would be a very good idea to be surrounded by people who are all on the same page, and they all try to maintain some level of disaster preparedness, and who can then pool resources.
4. If whatever you’re doing fails, what then?
5. Never rely on mercenaries (or hired staff of any kind) in emergencies. They will either abandon you at the first sign of real trouble, or they will actually rob and murder you. This is a lesson people historically learned the hard way. Always ask the question “why would that person not just outright rob/kill/rape/murder me”, and if the answer is “because of the law”, you’re fucked. Also, never trust atheists with anything; if a person is not profoundly religious, they are inherently dangerous in a situation where there’s no state to enforce laws.
6. A source is always preferable to a limited supply. This means having a source of water you can filter and use instead of having a water tank; having a power source (a hydroelectric, solar or wind generator) rather than relying on batteries or a limited tank of diesel for the generator; being able to grow food rather than relying on limited supplies. Living in some remote area with limited supplies inevitably creates a scenario where the supplies run out, and then what? Always plan ahead and avoid obvious dead ends.

Russia has reliable data that the Armed Forces of Ukraine are storing Western weapons at nuclear power plants – SVR

The Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation reported that there is reliable information about the deployment of three Ukrainian nuclear power plants in the territories. In addition, they said that these “warehouses” house missiles for HIMARS and foreign air defense systems.

If detonation of warehouses and destruction of nuclear power plants occur at Ukrainian nuclear power plants, it is planned to blame Moscow – Foreign Intelligence Service

The Foreign Intelligence Service reported that only in the last week of last year, several railway wagons of the “deadly cargo” were delivered to the Rivne NPP. In the event that a large-scale detonation occurs at Ukrainian nuclear power plants, Kyiv plans to put the blame on Moscow.

“The calculation is based on the fact that the Russian Armed Forces, realizing the danger of a nuclear catastrophe, will not strike at the territories of nuclear power plants. If a large-scale detonation of warehouses and the destruction of a nuclear power plant happen due to the fault of another “stray” Ukrainian air defense missile, then the blame for the tragedy can always be attributed to Moscow,” the Foreign Intelligence Service noted.

source1, source2: Telegram

This is just wonderful. Basically, the Ukrops are keeping the NATO weapons stockpiles in the nuclear power plants, because they figured out that they are the only thing the Russians weren’t calibrating, so it’s safe. So now of course the Russians are frustrated because they have to choose between not achieving military goals, and risking several Chernobyls at once if they do.

I watched a series of YouTube videos by a young woman who is travelling alone across the world in a Land Rover converted into a camper. Yes, it sounds like one of those “conquer your fears, get killed” things, but one thing in particular made me go out on a rant.

At one point, she almost lost a wheel because she didn’t tighten the screws enough, because she was being a strong independent woman and did it herself instead of having a mechanic do it. Then she spent half the video showing how she’s being brave and forward-thinking, and not allowing fears to constrain her, and she’s going to just look forward and not think about the past and waste time thinking “what if”.

The rant I exploded into was “Yeah, that’s such a great idea, it’s good that you didn’t think about anything because your fears and doubts might have motivated you to have the vehicle checked thoroughly for other easily preventable things that might strand you in the middle of a desolate road through the northern wilderness, and that would be such a bad thing, to have your fears rule you. Things such as that loose and corroded electrical connection to the starter motor solenoid, that finally fell off later, exactly in the middle of nowhere, and you had to depend on pure dumb luck of having a guy with another Land Rover close by, and having him fix it.”

I’m trying to identify what is it exactly that’s pissing me off there, and I think it’s the “positive thinking” attitude, or, as I would put it, dealing with issues by refusing to think about them because that causes stressful emotions, and when shit actually happens you “solve” it by making helpless female in distress vocalisations and have someone rescue you so that you can be a strong independent woman successfully dealing with adversity again.

Let me tell you how I approach potential problems, in my negative way that doesn’t give a shit about anyone’s emotions, starting with mine. I make a list of things that would strand me in deep shit if they happened, and I especially focus on things that would leave me in worst shit and would cause the worst emotions, and I identify weaknesses in my position, plans and so on. Then I see if anything can be done about it. If nothing can be done about it, I shrug and go on, because it is pointless to worry about things you can’t influence. For instance, if an asteroid or a nuclear bomb strikes me, I’m dead and there’s nothing I can do about it. However, if electricity goes out for a day, or a week, that’s another matter entirely. Also, if someone hits my car with an RPG and blows it up, it’s a freak event and I can’t prepare for it or do anything about it. However, if I have bald tyres and there’s strong rain and I lose control due to aquaplaning, that’s something I can influence. I can always have good tyres on my car, I can check tyre pressure regularly, and I can adjust speed according to the conditions on the road. Basically, I draw a tree of possibilities and I simply prune the branches that are out of my control, because worrying about those is a waste of effort and stressing about them is pointless. However, it is very much worth the effort to stress over things where I can attenuate or outright prevent problems.

Sure, you can extend this attitude too far and constrain your actions excessively because you see too many things that could possibly go wrong, so you end up not doing anything or going anywhere. The other extreme is being so open-minded your brain falls out, like those people who go on backpacking trips across dangerous areas and news of them being found dead is not really even news at this point, because it happens so often, and this is caused by all this “let’s push your limits” propaganda on social media, where people fail to perceive how those “bold adventurers” are in essence just idiots who regularly fuck up and then have to depend on other people to pull them through. This makes for interesting social media content, but if you make it a lifestyle, you eventually run out of luck and you make the news. Every year we have stupid tourists of this kind going poorly prepared into the Velebit mountain here in Croatia and the mountain rescue service ends up saving their stupid arses. They don’t bring enough water, they dress optimistically and, basically, they all act like stupid children who think that the world is here for their entertainment and adventures and anything dangerous would be “unthinkable” because it causes unpleasant emotions, and so you just don’t think about it and it will all be fine. It’s similar with women who go out alone in the night and think it’s fine because they are wrapped in a bubble of safety caused by thinking they have a “right” not to get raped and robbed. Guess why the prisons are full, dumbass? Because you don’t have a right not to get raped and robbed. It’s just that the state will prosecute and imprison the guy who beat you up and fucked you for hours, then took your phone and wallet and slit your throat for good measure. You have the right to have your murderer/rapist/robber prosecuted, if they can find him.

I get really weirded out when people say that nuclear war is “unthinkable”, which they then translate into “impossible”, and then proceed to act as if they solved that problem and they can provoke a nuclear superpower all they want, because of course there won’t be a nuclear war because that possibility is “too horrible to consider”. Guess what, dumbass: things too horrible for you to consider happen every day. People live their entire lives in ways that are too horrible for you to consider. Your failure to consider very realistic possibilities that cause you to experience strongly unpleasant emotions doesn’t make those possibilities go away; in fact, it actually increases the probability of those events taking place. Not considering the option of being slowly eaten alive by a bear and proceeding to go to a camping trip alone and unarmed doesn’t make you immune to the outcome you found “unthinkable”, it actually makes the statistical intersection of your life and that outcome bigger.