This sort of feels like a stupid question.
I have a small food supply that could last a few weeks if needed…
but I do not have solar powered power banks, tents, gas masks, and things of that nature…
There’s been a lot of really impressive hacking lately… Could things like power grids and banks be hacked, creating chaos, and as a result I actually should be prepping this way? (Edited for clarity: my concern is especially about hacking damage to the US power grid, where I am, or other infrastructure, not about being personally hacked. As of this edit, no one has responded to whether that specifically is a realistic or unrealistic concern.)
I’m a pretty poor person. Buying some extra food is easy, buying solar panels and a portable power bank for hundreds costs a lot more. I already have an emergency radio.
More than that, as someone who is often poor, I may end up needing to move due to rent increases. I often think about the physical weight of anything I am buying, because I don’t drive and weight means moving or shipping costs.
With the FAA grounding thing, my initial reaction is “They are all morons, they can’t listen to advice, and so they pushed some AI slop to production because they are egomaniacs too stupid to listen to IT, or they have created a culture in which IT knows if they say something they will get fired, or IT is so exhausted from their stupidity they just do what they are told and don’t care.” But I’m actually not sure if that’s true.
Russians and other smart hackers probably knew those updates were being pushed. What if they have used that as an opportunity for hacking and confusion?
Should I actually be prepping right now out of fear of hackers?
But if the chemical plant near you gets hacked, then you might be grateful to have a gas mask…
But that kind of thing is highly dependent on location and your own personal risk profile. Personally, I do have gas masks for me and my girlfriend (old Polish military surplus that’s compatible with NATO filters, only about $30 each), but those are much more likely to be used for rioting/protesting than for emergency preparedness. Immunity to teargas and pepper spray sure is nice…
(Though, actually, I did use it once in an emergency. A small kitchen fire started while we were on a walk. Put it out pretty easily with a fire extinguisher when we came back, but it was a pretty nasty smoky fire and filled the house with toxic-smelling smoke. We had two cats inside that I wanted to rescue, so I put on my gas mask to help find them. Once I found the gas mask and got it on, it was so much easier to see and breathe in the smoke. Which was good. One cat was quick and easy to find – came right to me. But the other cat had hidden in a pile of stuff in a corner and took quite a bit of effort to find – she was lethargic and weak when I finally found her, obviously suffering badly from smoke inhalation, but she recovered within a few minutes once I brought her outside into fresh air. For a couple days after that, we left all the windows open and lived in a travel trailer in the back yard instead, the cats as well. After that, the smell of smoke mostly cleared out, and we could move back in. I guess an RV in the back yard is also nice to have for emergency preparedness – it’s kind of an entire backup house when you need one.)