I'm going to start a pool. Buy in is $200 equivalent[1] per square. The board will be a 3 dimensional matrix, whose axis are:
1. The amount of time from now the collapse occurs. (most likely a logrithmic scale)
2. How far civilization falls, e.g. "back to the 19th century" or "back to the stone age"[2].
3. How "wierd" this makes the world, e.g. are there 40 degree temperature shifts in the afternoon in San Diego and warm beaches in Antarctica. Are there now hyper-intelligent wasps running the show. Do we discuss the "fragility of the fabric of space-time" much more frequently.. and so on.[3]
Finally, every "square" is actually in a state of superposition, based on the answer to the question "are there zombies[4] now" at the time of selection. Therefore if you are sure 10 days from now, early 16th century avg tech, wierd factor of .09, put in $400 worth of goods to catch the both zombies outcomes.
Winners will be chosen at the END of the collapse, before the rebuilding period. The winners will be given the location and secret combination to enter the cache. Transport and armed escort will not be provied by me or any other participant of this pool, (except by other arrangement out of scope of the pool) nor will any other form of survivability enhancement until reaching the cache.
[1] Entry fee must be in the form of non-perishable food, ammo, guns and other items traditionally considered valuable post-apocalypse
[2] Avg tech level does not include the fact that various warlords, mad scientists, intelligent creatures and other bad guys will have access to various tech remnants and caches... This is strictly about the level of technology and civilization available to the average person.
[3] Weirdness factor algorithm tbd, but it will be normalized on a 0-1 scale, with the current state of the US being .27.
[4] Zombies here includes both new and old style zombies, some forms of mutant, possibly mind-control victims, and certain types of insectoid horde. All other types of undead, mutants and creatures, as well as those with supernatural powers are actually just manifestations of the wierd factor (see [3]).
> This is strictly about the level of technology and civilization available to the average person.
So, um. How would you define this now, given that right now I have three computers within easy reach, a big-screen television and a game console in a heated apartment with lights and a gas stove - while somewhere across the world, someone is hoping they find enough water to drink so they can finish building their mud-hut before the wolves come?
Bonus points for pointing out that while my girlfriend is playing a post-apocalyptic video game, someone is probably doing almost exactly what she's doing, except with a real gun against real people?
I will arbitrarily define it at the time of the collapses, based on my rough knowledge of history and completely arbitrary whim, by looking around me and deciding everything based on the people I see.
Oddly, I lost a bet to myself with you comment, I figgured the first bit of pedantry would be over my statement regarding prizes being awarded at the end of the collapse. Such a thing is:
1. Even harder to judge
2. A much less useful time to be giving out caches of valuable supplies than the bits on the way down.
Anyway, given it is an apocalypse, odds are neither of us would survive, strictly statistically speaking, so who cares how I judge. If I remain alive, I am honestly not going to wait around for you for the argument given you are most likely dead, and I hope for your sake you would do the same for me by prying the cache location out of my dead hands.
As for your girlfriend's game: I have heard, and seen myself, that even the places that are most "terrifying ugly and bad" (first hand: the slums of Detroit and Pre-Katrina new Orleans, second hand: mogadishu, slums of bombay, etc) are surprisingly civilized. The "crazy fight for survival" based entertainment scenarios are about as realistic as the "evil corporation", "massive government conspiracy" and "small team of highly trained operatives" ones are. Such things may exist, but they are both more boring and more interesting than any such entertainment ever will be. Just sayin...
Unfortunately, in cases of societal breakdown, there are very few ways in which agreement and contracts and so on can be enforced. This is why even the staunchest libertarian will admit we need governments to enforce contracts! In the absence of such a thing, personal integrity and honor play a much larger role in the scheme of things. A man's word could in fact be his life-blood.
The short of it is you have no guarantee that I will not steal cache, other than my personal beliefs and ethics prevent me from doing so.
As for me dying before your winnings can be distributed: I understand this concern. I assure you I will actively do anything in my power to prevent this. However, in apocalyptic situations this is frequently not enough :(. Of course in an apocalypse a chance at a surviving cache is still better than not having the chance, so consider it a 5th condition on the pool:
Will sophacles survive in the apocalypse to hand out the prize. If you choose yes, sign up. If you choose no, don't sign up :P.
tl; dr -- ignore that paper on my desk that says "how to fund an apocalypse stockpile without spending a dime"
It still is, so long as it's sequestered such that the fibers don't become airborne. Asbestos removal projects done in eg. municipal buildings are often misguided.
Try "usually misguided". Several reports have come out that airborne asbestos is usually worse after asbestos removal than before. Going over it with a sprayed on sealer would be safer and more effective.
I didn't actually intend it to be a stupid joke; I was actually trying to parse the word, and then it turned out I was in the middle of a redditesque joke thread. But, no, I doubt it, especially given the number of downmods.
In larger-scale chunks (ie, dust). There have been a lot of questions how nano-scale particles react in our bodies, some of them apparently very differently, and not very much science because the creation of them in relatively large quantities is such a new development.
So yes, lets add new things to food without the testing we require of drugs, and lets do it on a massive scale.
