Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/04/30/survivalist-answers-survival-questions-from-twitter.html
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24:36 - How to book a hotel reservation.
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I saved it to my phone so if I’m ever in a survival situation I can watch it til help arrives or my battery dies.
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I prefer this, it has information that is far more useful for most people (look at the books).
Most survivalists don’t seem to be interested in the “There has been a disaster, how do my neighbours and I survive?” side of things.
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I always ensure that I keep a Bear Grylls with me everywhere I go. Phone, glasses, wallet, knife, Bear…my EDC.
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OTOH most individuals are probably more likely to find themselves lost in the wilderness for a few days than find themselves in a situation where they need to build a makeshift solar-powered internet in the wake of a disaster (at least for now).
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I have a number of survival books downloaded on Google Play to my phone. There are several from the US Department of Defense and US Department of the Army that seem like they’d be useful.
I also usually carry a solar powered charger / flashlight with me, along with a very short charging cable on my keychain, so even if I’m out in the middle of nowhere with no signal I could read the books to stay alive as long as there’s sunlight. [And if I’m trapped somewhere with no sunlight for long enough for my phone to die, I’m probably screwed anyway.]
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I started keeping a nature journal last summer and I was astonished at how many edible plants there are, just on my street, growing as weeds, including arugula, that’s escaped gardens.
Last year I started using a UV water purifier at my cottage on a lake, which is about the size of a magic marker, and as effective as a life straw at killing bacteria, viruses and amoeba, but doesn’t filter out particulates or heavy metals, so I use coffee filters and a Brita for those, since I’m stationary.
Also; the “related” story at the bottom of BB’s article is about an elephant attack, and Donnie Dust doesn’t cover elephant attacks in his video. Sadly.
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That was covered in the article
Background
(You can skip this if you want, but there are reasons why I wanted to create this)
Being Black and living in Texas I have become accustomed to seeing the ways that regressive, hierarchical, individualistic, racist, and capitalist systems fail firsthand. Texas is the only state in the US to have its own separate power grid that isn’t tied to the national interconnected grid. (Technically there isn’t a giant grid that is completely connected across the US but separate regions basically that can share power but whatever, you get the point.)
The power grid is maintained by a private company in an effort to deregulate power in Texas. With privatization and the grid being held in private corporate hands, that means regulation, winterization, maintenance, and upgrades come second to maximizing profits. The corporate “freedom” that comes with deregulation means that while the grid maintainers and operators gain massive profits, they forgo actually taking care of shit.
February 13-17 2021, winter storm Uri rocked Texas. Due to the changing climate, Texas saw one of the worst winter storms in recent history. We saw extreme cold for close to a week, keep in mind that because businesses want to maximize profits, homes, businesses, and infrastructure are not built to handle cold weather by construction companies. That would “cost too much” to adapt to our changing climate. Homes here lack any kind of heavy winter insulation.
The power grid was not prepared for extreme winter weather events. Why? Because the private corporations said winterization would cut into profits. There is a lot that went into the grid almost totally collapsing, but basically, electrical lines were getting damaged, power production plants were going offline because natural gas lines were freezing. A huge driver for the rolling blackouts was that the cost to operate the grid was getting too expensive, and so ERCOT, the board that regulates the Texas power grid decided to do rolling blackouts.Around 700 people died as a result of the blackouts caused by corporate greed and climate change. (This number ranges, it’s said to be up to around a thousand people) Thousands lost their homes because of frozen pipes and destroyed infrastructure. The national guard and the state did nothing for the first three days, and the only people who were out providing hot meals, clean drinking water, and essentials were mutual aid groups.
This was a giant wake up call of the fragility of the Texas powergrid, we were minutes away from being in the dark for months. After this storm, seeing how many people died and lost their homes, opened my eyes to the pressing fact that we need to build resiliency NOW. We need autonomy from state oppression and neglect and to build local autonomy and power NOW. And so with that came ideas of fostering dual power, of making our own systems in the shell of the one currently falling apart.
With that came projects about water, food, and now electricity, communications and what I would consider to be a public utility, internet.My goal is to help bridge the gap from speculative fiction, of imagining a better future, of prefiguration, and to bring those ideas into action in any way I can. But I’m not alone in this. Everything I do is for free, and released for other people to enjoy, work on, be inspired by, build and collaborate. The only way out of this is together. We start by building the infrastructure to make a better future. A more egalitarian one, without hierarchy, where we can intertwine our social change with political change. Intertwine technology and ecology, not for destruction, but for regeneration. A better future won’t come from destroying old systems alone. It will come by building social change, building autonomy and true freedom, building equality, building our connection with the earth and the ways we can stop destroying nature and instead living with it. We can change. And it starts with building.
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I dunno, there is definitely a subset of people who have community based survival in mind.
But it does feel like the “one person alone in the middle of nowhere” seems to be what sparks imaginations, and gets featured on TV.
There is a TV show I’ve seen at my parents where they plop people alone in the middle of nowhere in Alaska or somewhere and they have to outlast the other competitors for months living alone. While interesting some of the stuff they come up with, it seems like a really miserable time.
Civilization is really what separates man from beast. A bear can live alone in the woods pretty well, most of the time, but they aren’t going to change their environment to suit their needs any time soon.
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I can agree with all of this. Our breakpoint was the derecho several years back. No power for a week, no grocery stores open, no gas stations open. We were already pretty set with garden veggies and canning lots of stuff, but this made us more aware of where we were not so ready. Once we get a solar power system in, which will probably be next year, we will be set to be OK through several weeks of system shut-down, along with a community that is pretty much as set as we are. We need to be set for the infrastructure to let us down, but the nonsense of being a “lone wolf” as got to end. No one gets through on their own. No one.
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I think the most important answer to survival questions from Twitter is: “Get off Twitter”
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People shouldn’t really be on 𝕏 at all. But I remember once, in somewhat happier days on Twitter, cartoonist Ryan North got stuck in a hole and tried suggestions from his followers until he was able to escape.
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That’s bizarre and great! Very on brand for Ryan North.
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Is “eating the film crew” considered a legit hack or cheating in this scenario?
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I’ve told you a dozen times stay the bleep out of my garden. 
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I like the concept, that plants, not known for having a lot off agency, escaping from somewhere. Go plants, I’m rooting for ya!
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astonished at how many edible plants there are, just on my street,
Same here. Once I started learning about wild edibles back in 2011 it was like the blinders fell off. Now what used to look like a homogenous “lawn” is a rich and varied smorgasbord.
I was really glad the survivalist mentioned being able to survive on plants. So often the shows like Alone focus so much on eating animals and ignore all the productive foraging one can do!
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On the other hand …
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There is no film crew. They have their own cameras they have to set up and record. Which sounds like a bigger PITA than trying to survive. Though half the footage is them huddled up in their shack or lean to saying how miserable they are and what they are going to try to do tomrorow.
They got a satellite phone or some other way to call in the producers to get them out should they get hurt or want to tap out. I think on occasions the producers pull the plug on them. I believe the show is called Alone. My parents just have antenna TV, and so its on one of those extra channels that shows reruns.
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