(Continued from Part 1.)
SCRABBLE IS A MATH GAME
Just as Scrabble involves math, have we applied enough math to our prepping? Do we know how long a bar of soap lasts or how many calories we need per year per person in our group? Are we just guessing or have we actually marked a tube of toothpaste with a Sharpie when we begin using it and note the date when it’s finished? Have we at least looked it up somewhere to get a rough idea on how long it will last? Do we know how long it takes for a pair of jeans to fall apart? Have we taken into account how much more quickly our clothes will wear out when we switch to a labor-intensive lifestyle?
We have to apply math if we’re going to have an accurate amount of each supply item to get us through the first year.
Probabilities and statistics are branches of math. When applied to prepping, statistics can refer to the history of governments, empires, and how things worked out when a known number of variables came together. Having a knowledge of history can help us make better determinations on the probability of certain events coming to pass.
When figuring our preps, we also have to take into account probabilities. What’s the chance a certain type of TEOTWAWKI event could occur based on history and current world events? What’s the chance of a regional war that turns into a world war or, worse yet, a nuclear war? What’s the probability our fragile just-in-time supply chains will fail to the degree that rationing will be implemented in times of war as they have in the past, even when those wars weren’t occurring on American soil?
What’s the probability another gain-of-function organism will escape a lab and cause a major pandemic worse than the Spanish Flu, which killed an estimated 50 million people, or the Black Plague, which killed an estimated 50% of Europe’s population between 1346 and 1353? What’s the probability we’ll want to self isolate for an extended period if that type of pandemic happens? Gain-of-function, the procedure that is likely to have created the COVID-19 virus, is still carried out in many countries. It’s generally used for legitimate purposes to gain a better understanding of things like virus transmission and virulence. But as we saw from covid, things sometimes go awry. How large and dangerous will a possible pandemic be the next time an escape occurs?
DO THE NUMBERS ADD UP?
Another important aspect of using math in our prepping is to be sure all the numbers add up. In Scrabble, incorrect addition can cause someone to lose who really won the game. Not exactly a do-or-die event. With prepping, incorrect math can be life-threatening or more commonly, create major inconveniences. We need to be sure the numbers all add up for how much we need of each item, that we’ve accounted for the “two is one and one is none” strategy, and that we’ve erred on the positive side. Not storing enough food will be life-threatening. Not having enough canning jars will result in a lot of food waste. And can you imagine a world without soap?
Do our food numbers add up to ensure we’ll each have the nearly one million calories we need per year to survive? A spreadsheet greatly simplifies this task. Food storage must be based on the total necessary calories per day for each person in our group.
Using a spreadsheet allows us to play around with the numbers of how much rice to add compared to beans and wheat, and what the new totals will be if we decide to add more rice and fewer beans. The spreadsheet will instantaneously change the new total calories. Most importantly, we’ll get the math right!
WHAT’S MOST VALUABLE? WHAT SHOULD BE PRIORITIZED?
The second most important hard and fast rule if you want to ever get to the expert level in Scrabble is to realize that the Blank tile, which can represent any letter we want, is the most valuable tile in the bag and the S isn’t too far behind. The Blank is especially valuable when we can use it to form a bingo and get the 50-point bonus. This occurs fairly frequently with the Blank tile. It can also be exchanged for a high-point tile such as a Z (10 points) already on the board, allowing us to play a high-scoring word. We can often use the S tile to pluralize a six-letter word, thus forming a bingo and earning the 50-point bonus. Whether or not an opponent adheres to this rule of prioritizing the Blank and S tiles allows you to quickly size them up.
As with Scrabble, you can often size up an online prepper’s article by what they prioritize. It’s easy to recognize when a SHTF top-10 prepping list is written by an armchair prepper if they mention things like multi-tools, ferro rods, and edible plant books as high-priority necessities.
When prepping, we must thoroughly think things through when it comes to high-priority preps. We have to consider what our most basic needs are and how we’ll provide for those if the SHTF. These high priorities include things like water, food, firearms, and heat, not multi-tools, camping stoves, and cartons of Marlboros for bartering. When considering the highest priorities, have we thought these all the way through so we’ll have all the necessary items associated with that prep?
For example, if we have buckets of wheat on our top-priority list, do we have everything necessary in order to get the wheat from the bucket stage to a loaf of bread on the dinner table? I’ll cover this topic in more depth in an upcoming article sharing my thoughts on a proper top-10 prepping list.
ACQUIRE AND USE ALL POSSIBLE RESOURCES
A Scrabble player can become even more expert and achieve higher scores if all available resources are implemented.
Since no two people are on the same level at Scrabble, vocabulary-, math-, or strategy-wise, the playing field can be leveled to some degree by ignoring or adding some rules as long as all players agree to it.
For example, using a dictionary during play can not only improve scores for all players, but also add a lot of vocabulary choices for those who may not be as literate as their opponents. A regular dictionary can be used as long as the players agree on which one. Professional Scrabble players use a Scrabble dictionary, and American Scrabble players who want the best of the best send off to the Mother Country to get the British version with more words than the Yankee edition.
When prepping, we want the most exhaustive lists possible so we can analyze each suggested item and decide how or if it applies to the program we’re trying to put together. Just as we can’t possibly think of every word we might create with our seven Scrabble tiles, even the best of the best preppers won’t think of every necessity when making or buying preps. Lists can help point these out to us.
In the way of outlining prepping necessities, I don’t think there’s a planning resource that comes close to the SurvivalBlog List of Lists. Under the “Resources” tab at the top of the SurvivalBlog home page is the mother of all prepping lists, aka the List of Lists. This spreadsheet is broken down into every aspect of prepping, each topic on their own tab. It’s undoubtedly the most complete list you’ll find anywhere so be sure to check it out. The list is included on the SurvivalBlog archive stick, as well. Scanning over this list will give us ideas we hadn’t thought to prep for, or thoughts on how to prepare better for the things we have thought of. Many find YouTube videos a great way to learn things, but without a list of some sort, how do you know which YouTube videos to do a search for, in the first place?
One of the most valuable post-SHTF resources for preppers will be the SurvivalBlog archive stick. People will be hurting for knowledge on how to cope with life in TEOTWAWKI-ville.
If you want to know how to accomplish a task or DIY something after the SHTF, it is very likely on the archive stick. Now that the Schumer has hit the fan, how do we get water? Firewood without a chainsaw? How does a beginner start a garden? Is the weevil-infested wheat in my stores still edible? Those and 10,000 other questions have in-depth answers on the archive stick.
While we should obtain and have in our libraries hard copies of books and articles on prepping and getting along in grid-down life, we can’t possibly obtain and store physical copies of all the literature that will help us survive in the best way possible. With thousands of articles and books stored on a device so small it fits on a keychain, the SurvivalBlog Archive Stick will greatly increase our chances of not just surviving a TEOTWAWKI event, but surviving it with less waste of time and resources. We can live a better life as we learn to DIY things like rocket stoves and ovens, lighting from repurposed car parts, baking bread without store-bought yeast, and hundreds of other talents and skills necessary to live as comfortably as possible in a gridless world.
(To be concluded tomorrow, in Part 3.)
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