Hypothetically, if we switch over from fossil fuels to something renewable like solar without too much difficulty, do you then stop worrying? Or do you say, in effect: "Well there's always the next thing that's going to bring it all down"?
First, I think the likelyhood of switching over to renewables and maintaining our current energy budget very, very low. And since there is a very, very strong correlation between GDP per capita and energy use per capita, that means a good chance that a financial system that requires exponential growth in order to survive is going to do some very
interesting things. None of them particularly useful if you're planning on investment returns.
There are also very real problems with high renewable penetration - how to keep the grid stable and function with high DER (distributed energy resource) connection rates is quite an open problem, and there are all sorts of interesting feedback loops and paths to blackouts. The UL listed grid tie inverters are part of the problem - by design, they have basically zero frequency or voltage transient ridethrough capability, and will shut down completely if things go marginally out of spec. Oh, and you often get a bonus feature since they all implement the minimum shutdown period - if they all go out at once, they all come back at once, which is a great way to get another voltage or frequency transient to shut them down again. Lots of interesting behaviors, and that's not even counting the fact that the security of them (because, of course, everything has to be internet connected) ranges from "adequate" to "awful." And any large scale DER based power grid has to have some sort of centralized control over the devices. Do you trust a computer from 10 years ago to be secure on the internet today? Inverters last an awful long time...
I think there are things that can be done that would at least prolong our nation/empire, but historically, those things don't happen. Political systems end up dysfunctional, frozen, and incapable of action, even in the face of obvious actions to take. Sound familiar? Historically, it doesn't get better - so, consider that we're dealing with a useless political system going forward, and on top of that, have a system optimized for short term thinking - who cares what happens after you're out of office? That's the
other guy's problem.Put another way: Do you prep because you see a real existential threat and you'd stop prepping if that threat was avoided? Or do you just keep finding more threats to justify being a prepper?
I can't speak to other people in the thread, but I really don't consider myself a "prepper" - though I suspect some people would consider me one. I'm looking at ways to reduce my costs and improve my anti-fragility regardless of what happens. Solar on the roof and things keep going well? Great, I've paid for my power for a long while, and it should continue to pay off in the future. Things aren't going well? Great, I can keep my house powered, run cables to the neighborhood, and have the basis of a small hyper-local power station. Either way, I don't see a huge downside.
Same for food - if things go well, darn. I eat a lot of garden-fresh stuff and know where it grew (and while I'm not deep down the GMO-is-evil rabbit hole, Monsanto and Bayer merging scares the hell out of me, because they now have a seriously perverse set of incentives to make people sick). If things go poorly? Great, I have local food production, and the local knowledge to helps scale that in my community.
I can't see myself "not having a reasonable set of supplies stored up," because that's just generally wise. Were I more confident in the direction of the country, I'd probably be a bit lazier about getting gardens and greenhouses set up, but it's a direction I want to go anyway, and it's useful in a wide range of futures.
Have you considered that you might be depressed and life seems hopeless and fragile because of that?
... why does everyone seem to think I'm depressed? I
quite enjoy my life out here on a few acres with family nearby and no HOA to tell me that my cracked basalt path (current project) is against some regulation or other. I'm radically happier out here than I was in the Seattle metro shithole, with neighbors complaining that my truck never moved (which was not true, I just happened to have a good way of parking it within a few inches of the same spot every time, and once I started parking crappier, the complaints stopped), that there was an apple in the back yard attracting rats (complaint on file with the city, and, yes, there was an apple tree back there), etc.
Nations have their arc through history, and there are an awful lot of nations that no longer exist - why do so many people seem to think that "Things are Different Now"? It's just one of those facts of life - people age and die, nations age and die. Nations that live on "change" seem to die faster than nations that value stability over all else - the nations that have lasted thousands of years without serious disruptions didn't have much in the way of technological change.
I certainly don't feel that "life is hopeless and fragile" - I just see that there's a good chance of things going in a direction that is not commonly considered, and am working to handle that case as well.
To borrow an analogy from myself (in some unpublished work), if you're on a boat, it's taking on water, and the crew is busy insisting that it's not sinking, and besides, it's the other guy's fault, would everyone just stop being so pessimistic - at some point, the wise action is to go find yourself a life jacket and put it on. Maybe the ship is sitting a few feet above a sandbar and won't actually sink, or maybe somehow the crew will do something useful, but just in case, there's no harm in a lifejacket.