So the Federal Reserve hitting its target inflation rate of 2% is your evidence…economics must be too hard for you.

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TheHonorableDrDingle@reddit

My evidence of what? You were suggesting that tariffs aren't inflationary. Putting politics aside, of course tariffs increase prices. How could they not?

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Fargo_ND@reddit

1) “There’s no inflation”

2) “Prices going down is catastrophic”

Smooth brain shit.

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tesla465@reddit

Can you remind me where I said “there’s no inflation”

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Fargo_ND@reddit

We go through recessions every few years. It’s natural, and we just had one a couple years ago.

We're all out here prepping for the end of the world. Maybe something happens maybe it won't. We're most likely to see financial hardship and local scale natural disasters.

Keeping your debt down, not living beyond your means, staying healthy and prepping for 2 weeks of no power and water will have everyone here better off than their neighbors.

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anotherthrowaway2023@reddit

This is the most logical answer. Everything else here reads a little too close to some movie action film. When truthfully unless someone strikes a massive attack on us (which due to the advantage of the US geographic location is unlikely) ..the real problem will be stuff like bad policy that continue to degrade basic livelihood and global warming effect that continues to create bad weather conditions.

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Comfortable_Pie3575@reddit

I agree for the most part, but you need to keep in mind that cyberwarfare can have some real consequences. Totally non kinetic, and the infrastructure that relies on it is so large and integrated with compromised Chinese tech that it is largely indefensible.

It seems like it's almost always be a catch-22.

It assumes that something would occur that is drastic enough to force you to bug out but not drastic enough to make bugging out non-viable, destroy your bug out location, or make tons of other people bug out as well.

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jk_pens@reddit

Yeah the whole idea of bugging out assumes there is somewhere safer to go. Maybe if you live in a large metro that might turn to lawless chaos that’s true, but otherwise probably the best place to be is home unless natural disasters are a risk that you are preparing for.

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TalentedHostility@reddit

I'm curious how realistic this 'lawless chaos' situation in an urban environment is.

Not talking down on viability of strategy- but has this situation actually ever happen? Post earthquake, blackout, hurricane, etc.

The only situation I think bug out would be more viable is a direct military invasionor targeted bombing of the city you live in.

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dyingwill20@reddit

It’s really not. Even if the federal government where to evaporate and climate change accelerated 50 years tomorrow, most likely what you would see is cities partitioned off I to areas of control of varying sizes. I’m not saying lawlessness can’t happen but the idea of a free for all in all major cities is outlandish. Think gang territory. And even if you don’t like them, gangs have rules you have to abide by.

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mowog-guy@reddit

Hurricane Katrina is a good example of this.

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That came off different than i meant it.

But i guess what im getting at is that its hard to help your neighbors if you are worse off than them from a preparedness point of view. You can't share a meal with food you don't have, you can't offer to run an electric cord over when you don't have a generator or fuel, you can't help clear storm debris if you aren't physically fit enough to do so.

why would you ask a prepper subreddit "whats gonna happen"? obviously theyre going to say a bunch of garbage.

go into a ghost subreddit and ask if ghosts are real. ya, youll get the answer you already wanted. but its worthless information.

Great response. One thing a lot of people don’t realise is that living will get expensive.

Money will get expensive; interest rates won’t eve go back to effectively zero because we’re heading into the time of resource scarcity, which leads to inflation, and the way they combat inflation is to raise interest rates. This will increase your mortgage, rent and unsecured debt repayments.
Food costs will continue to rise, and suffer from spikes, as harvests across the globe fail. Made worse by our globalised system that suffers from the ‘ripple effect’; reports of a potential shortage will cause mayhem in the futures markets, and cause price spikes. Even if the shortage is minor and doesn’t consequently disrupt supply, the prices globally will have shot up. This happened in the late 2010’s with global cereals - the price spiked due to fears of a poor harvest in one part of the globe, but turns out - looking retrospectively - the production increased that year. Think how bad that’ll be in the future with actual shortages.

The most important aspect of prepping as we head for a slow descent into climate breakdown and subsequent societal pressures, is to decrease your outgoings and don’t owe any unsecured debt.

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johnryan433@reddit

No I don’t think that’s happening the federal funds rate can’t be raised at a certain point as all the debt is adjustable on a rolling basis.

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theonlysmithers@reddit

Please show your working. I’m coming from an Economics degree background.

Because right now we’re heading into a period of ever increasing scarcity due to climate breakdown. It’s this scarcity that pushes up prices.

Interest rates are there to maintain confidence in the value of money. Prices go up over a sustained period of time - inflation - and in order for the central banks to maintain control they must increase interest rates in order to make international monetary markets not freak out.

I’m not saying they’re going to 20% overnight, but be sure that over the next 20 years, you’re gonna need more money to survive, as those at the top of society have saved and stored theirs in order to have purchasing power as we descend further into climate breakdown.

So my point stands - prices will continue to rise and rise faster and faster as food production yields decrease. Interest rates will continue on an upward trajectory. And people will lose their homes over this, as they already are.

So decrease your debt, decrease your outgoings, be financially stable.

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OldManSpartan@reddit

Were you a Chicago School of Economics, Milton Friedman, Brick Book following Economics major at University?

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theonlysmithers@reddit

I was a Keynesian through school and uni. Then fell out of love with it all and wrote my dissertation on behavioural economics (big up Daniel Kahneman).

Chicago School and Milton Friedman et al can go fuck themselves - they’re the reason we’re in this mess. They heavily influenced Thatcher and Reagan who one could argue are the architects of modern common society’s impending downfall.

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OldManSpartan@reddit

The one point and most significant you neglected to address is the price not of scarcity pressures, but instead the outright and outrageous greed on display by many of the world's largest producers.

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velvet_satan@reddit

its not just a climate issue that is going to lead to scarcity and inflation. almost all the leading industrial nations have an aging population issue. its going result in a major disruption in production and shift to other areas of the world where the population is exploding. it will take time for them to come online and in the meantime we will be dealing with shortages.

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JamieJeanJ@reddit

What does “decrease your outgoing” mean?

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theonlysmithers@reddit

“Decrease your outgoings”

Means decrease how much you’re spending on consumer crap, decrease your mortgage payments by downsizing, cut back all unnecessary spending, build up an emergency fund.

Everything else still applies.

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xamott@reddit

Absolutely. Your comment is excellent. Out of curiosity what country are you in? Curious about your mortgages they’re all adjustable rate?

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theonlysmithers@reddit

Cheers.

I’m in the UK. Most people have 2, 3, 5, or very rarely 10, year fixed rated.

Longer the fix, higher the rate.

Mortgage rates currently at about 4.5% for a 3 year fix. Pre-pandemic they were at 2%. Went up to 7% a year ago.

All mortgage rates offered in the market are closely related to the BoE Base Rate.

When your fix ends, you have to remortgage onto a new rate.

The jump from 2% to 7% of mortgage rates in a matter of 12 months has severely affected the UK economy as it took anything from £200 to £1200 out of households disposable income, due to the increase in the mortgage rates.

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Minimum-Major248@reddit

Are you charged with closing costs again when you remortgage? Can you just choose another bank with a temporary fixed rate?

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theonlysmithers@reddit

No charges for switching unless it’s within the fixed term.

After the fixed term ends, your rate reverts to the variable rate of the bank you’re currently with, which is always wildly above what the fixed rate terms are.

I think they do this in the hope people forget to remortgage before their fox ends and they get stung with a couple of months of higher interest payments.

A six months before your fixed rate ends you can go to market and get an agreement for a new fixed rate, either with your existing bank or a new bank, that kicks in when your current fixed rate ends.

Real humor is dark, like life is.

Funny laughing humor is for children with don't know yet.

No debt means flexibility, it means that financially I don’t have hundreds or thousands of dollars going towards servicing a loan which I can then put towards my prep, savings, cash, gold or whatever other thing instead of a bank.

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TheBearded54@reddit

My opinion is that all debt is bad. Paying interest is bad. Interest is wasted money.

That’s why my belief is that you pay off your debts as quickly as possible. No in between, no “well some debt gud” it’s just simply wasted money to service a loan.

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Aurtistic-Tinkerer@reddit

And if that works for you that’s great. The math doesn't really justify your opinion if you’re looking to grow your assets, but having no debt is valid from the perspective of managing assets in a risk-free way to sustain what you have.

Some of us choose to take advantage of controlled risk for long term benefit, which is pretty important to counteract the effects of rampant inflation when you don’t already have much in the way of hard assets.

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CrazyQuiltCat@reddit

Only if you can make money off the amount of debt plus be able to pay it off immediately with affecting your ability to live comfortably without a job

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CrazyQuiltCat@reddit

That’s what they are saying, it’s not going to be a shit hit the fan event. It’s going to be a slow worsening of everything over several years. Having no debt and building savings to deal with the higher prices and intermittent ever-changing disruptions and emergencies will help protect you from becoming homeless in an era of disappearing social safety nets and increasing instability.

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Aggravating_Refuse89@reddit

Fair enough. I think this assumes the stereotypically Prepper of financially affluent though. I am also assuming that mortgage's aren't considered debt in this sense . Honestly that fear has been what has kept me from buying a house. Unfortunately I ended up in other debt. If shtf happened I would stop paying but I suppose in the true and likely worse case scenario of things just getting worse, less debt equals more ability to prep. I would also say more income would as well

Some preppers are renters and live paycheck to paycheck. My prep plan would be snag one of my paychecks and stop paying everything and pray a lot at this point.

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TheGreatSockMan@reddit

The general ‘peppers dream shtf’ with an immediate shutdown of the current financial system is extremely unlikely. If S ever Hs T proverbial F, there will likely be a decline in things getting worse and worse. Things will get more expensive and dangerous, but you’ll still be expected to come into work.

Being debt free allows you to say “damn, this situation sucks, I don’t feel safe going to work/being in this area/I can see this negative event in the near future” and remove yourself and your family from the afflicted area.

I also believe all of this will happen leading into winter. The best time to “attack” Americas infrastructure and cause outrages would be in the dead of winter. I would expect mass casualties simply from exposure to the elements.

This is the scenario I’m preparing for.

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Away-Map-8428@reddit

leaded gasoline really did a number on people.

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dyingwill20@reddit

For real bc wtf

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Equivalent_Poetry599@reddit (OP)

How are you prepping

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80085@reddit

1) Many guns (several duplicates for parts) 2) Lots of Ammo. 3) Full Solar array (21kWh) with 40+ kWh of battery storage (slowly expanding the system) 4) Come spring I’m buying a manual well water pump. Bison Pumps is expensive but great !! 5) We have chickens and a rooster 6) My parents that live next door have a small heard of cows; along with a bull. 7) Pallet of Bottled Water, pallet of toilet paper, pallet of paper towel. 8) Currently working on a pallet of Flour, pallet of sugar, packed in custom Foil bags with oxygen absorbers. 9) Working on stockpiling 45 gallon drums of diesel with fuel extender added. 10) Slowly building up my first aid preps and our light pantry.
11) I have Starlink on my roof being used as my backup internet. I have cable service as primary. I also bought a 2nd Starlink dish as a backup. 12) I’m working on a faraday toolchest that has my backup Starlink system, laptop, vital electronics.

Plus others. We have a large field that my wife grows flowers in, but we have a small area for a food garden. If SHTF the whole field goes to food production.

Madroooskie@reddit

More stuff moves around is precisely supply chain. More doesn’t make it effective when supply is ‘not more’.

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no-rack@reddit

Not for long

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skittishspaceship@reddit

No it really shows no signs of slowing down. Hilarious you think so though.

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bellj1210@reddit

yes- and we are not interconnected to it. I do my grocery shopping at aldi- they use a just in time model- meaning what is out on the shelves is more or less all they have (ie a loading area off trucks that more or less is put out immediatly. So if the trucks get delayed- that knocks out one of the biggest grocers in the area.

From my US based perspective:

Tariffs and/or wars causing supply chain issues, effecting everything from energy, infrastructure, apparel, medications etc. causes delays and inflation on most basic items.

Increase in substance use due to general malaise, loss of social services/safety net, increase in domestic violence, increase in stress due to labor shortages and/or layoffs

Increase in suicides due to multiple levels of crisis —- personal, family, community, state, federal, international. Increasing of antagonism, divisiveness, economic scapegoating etc.

Lots of loss of purpose / disorientation as work becomes more disrupted by AI. Also contributing to increase of substance use and suicides.

BoringGuy0108@reddit

Escalation overseas, but we won’t be as involved in it as we are now.
Gradually increasing inflation. I would guess that his tariff policies will immediately increase prices around 5-10%, and he will have around 3% inflation in subsequent years as a result of deficit spending.
A lot of fear from the left. A few on the right taking the recent winnings way too far and doing various bad things that are likely violent. The left responding in mass to the violence and potentially creating more violence. It won’t spiral out of control or anything, but it will escalate and get uncomfortable in some places.
Decrease in US credit rating. This would potentially spiral debt services costs and possibly increase inflation.
Large drop in legal immigration from developed countries.
Increasing mistrust of US institutions (media, courts, government). Especially at the federal level.
Economic damages from climate disasters increases and gradually permeates through the entire economy.

I doubt anything truly chaotic will happen in the next four years (in the US; Europe may be in trouble). Though if policies don’t start reversing or long term problems getting addressed, every subsequent 4 year cycle will spiral exponentially.

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CrowdedSolitare@reddit

I’ll agree with everything except 3. I’m an independent, but the left seems more sane than the right. Even the “riots” during trumps first term were often the extremist right instigated. (Ie: Minneapolis riot instigator from Texas, Ivan Hunter.)

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ChatGPT is basically programmed to not answer questions that could be dangerous, for example the famous "Grandma how do I make napalm" jailbreak. Slightly unrelated to the lawsuit part, but GPT and similar models (ahem ahem Google Gemini) are also being made intentionally inaccurate in order to be more inclusive (not answering questions involving race, generating images of historically white figures as black, etc.).

As these models have progressed, users have noticed them steadily getting worse. In the most recent couple major updates to GPT, for example, some changes OpenAI made behind the scenes have resulted in the model becoming less and less accurate for even questions unrelated to either of the things I mentioned above. It's getting dumber.

AI language models used to be fancy web scrapers, but now they're so unreliabke that you're better off just Googling your question and scraping the web with your eyes

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waffledestroyer@reddit

Coping. Self-driving taxis are already a thing in China and they are safer than human driven taxis. They also slashed prices for taxi rides by 50%. Waymo also already operates in some US cities.

https://waymo.com/safety/

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MostDirector4211@reddit

My point isn't that self-driving cars never work. My point is that it isn't AI that makes them work.

Like I said, the bones of a self-driving car are basically a science project. The only difference is the materials cost a lot more. It's a GPS-based "follow the line" program with some hardcoded exceptions. The closest thing it has to actual machine learning is the algorithm it uses to recognize whether a light is green or red.

People think self-driving cars rely a lot of object recognition AI, but that's easily the shakiest part of it, and it gets tripped up all the time. It's super unreliable, it just doesn't really matter. Because an obstruction is an obstruction and the point is to not hit it, no matter what the car thinks is in the way. That's why it can still be relatively safe; doesn't mean it's because of AI.

Also, China has experienced 50% more traffic accident deaths per capita than the US despite the US being wildly more car-dependent and China having a highly developed road network, ranking above the global average and well above any western nation. It's not shocking that taking control away from those drivers and giving it to a machine designed to not hit anything would be an improvement.

TL;DR, fancy proximity sensors are what carry self-driving cars, not machine learning or "AI"

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OnTheEdgeOfFreedom@reddit

AI is already dangerous, but not the way people think. It's dangerous to employees because businesses really, REALLY want to believe AI can replace employees for pennies a day. It rarely goes well but if you can get a 65% good answer for $.10 of electricity per day vs a 85% good answer for an employee cost of $120 per day, what do you do? Lots of layoffs.

Of course it sucks for you if you then discover that your business was limping by with 85% good work but crashes at 65%. But it still sucks more for the people laid off.

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ageofbronze@reddit

This is the problem…. AI is a cult in Silicon Valley and amongst all the consulting firms/tech conferences right now, and companies will very much lay off whole departments in droves to implement AI. The problem is that it doesn’t actually replace people and companies will learn that (anyone who has ever worked at a company trying to hold things together while there are budget cuts/layoffs/increased quotas knows what it’s like for things to slowly crumble). But we are going to see a lot of tech and services internally go to shit because of the preemptive layoffs, and the consumers will be the ones to suffer. I have hope that there will be a bounce back with innovation and good services being rewarded once again once the big monoliths fail, but who knows.

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OnTheEdgeOfFreedom@reddit

| But we are going to see a lot of tech and services internally go to shit

I worked in tech for decades, everything from relatively cutting edge startups to the defense industry.

"Shit" is the most polite way I can describe existing IT and programming skills just about everywhere. Network security? Patch maintenance? Testing? Customer support? Programming skill? All horrifying. They have not been improving and that's part of why businesses are clamoring for AI; they think it will help.

I've seen code written by AI. It's not going to help. It's just worst stuff for cheaper. And what do you expect, when AI learns coding from coding examples on the web? Are you kidding?

"If builders built houses the way programmers built programs, the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization."

Commercial_Yak7468@reddit

I don't think we will see a terrorist attack before Trump takes office, but if I gambled, I would bet on there being a foregin terrorist attack on US soil after he takes office due the mass government purging and incompetence of his cabinet picks.

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Careful_Reason_9992@reddit

Trump’s incompetence? We already have known terrorists coming up through the southern border. And they’ve had 4 years to do so under President Alzheimers administration. Consider how many known got-aways (tons) have gotten through and its not out of the realm of possibility.

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feenxfury@reddit

incompetence of trumps picks and the promised Purge of government institutions

Trump's indifference to democracy is the problem that comes straight from him

it's reflected in his incompetent cabinet pics, his normalization of using vitriol for politics and pitting American versus American just to generate a show that he can run on

Don't be ridiculous about the border they've been making more stops there than before and the lack of a solution isn't even remotely. biden's fault it's completely Trump's fault for meddling with the Republican vote on that. bipartisan solution

get real bro

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New fear unlocked.

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Forsaken_Rip208@reddit

Inflation and degradation of institutions (aka slow collapse) and thus rule of law (again in degrees).

Societies that separate money from state will slowly diverge and a new first world/third world framing will be built thereon. Societies that embrace sound money will have true price signals informing trade and production, and thus a slow cascade of efficiencies will enable those societies to flourish.

A. No, it didn't fail. But it was too difficult for banking insiders to stimulate targeted industries, something every politician desires more than air and sex.

B. Growth for growth's sake is the wrong goal. Minimizing malinvestment through u manipulated price signals is the proper goal.

I don't want ECoNoMiC gRoWtH at any cost. I want sustainable, sound deployment of capital on sound projects. Stimulating growth via credit expansion will cause otherwise unprofitable projects to outbid profitable ones for resources (especially long term projects that suck resources away from the broader economy for decades).

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OldRangers@reddit

H5N1, Flu and other viruses

https://www.forbes.com/sites/phillempert/2024/05/01/the-2024-avian-flu-origins-impact-and-the-global-response/

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Slight_Mammoth2109@reddit

Fascism

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FrumiousBanderznatch@reddit

Most of the major cities will be replaced with vast pleasure domes, used exclusively by the excelceites, who are the neo-upperclass. While the displaced hoards of lower-class depth-grobblers will live underground in tiered cities, endlessly toiling away for nuggets of neo-plasmin.

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Careful_Reason_9992@reddit

Sounds almost like Altered Carbon

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Interesting-War-9904@reddit

You joke, but:

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/tech-baron-seeking-ethnically-cleanse-100000971.html

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Smokey76@reddit

Neo fuedalists, this is nightmare level shit, and explains Elons sinking money into Twitter, it’s ideological and his moves to be Trumps buddy, and you have Theils pet Vance a heartbeat away from the presidency.

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CrazyQuiltCat@reddit

I know, didn’t they used be the opposite?

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Interesting-War-9904@reddit

Max Chafkin wrote an excellent book on Thiel called The Contrarian that gets in to the political history of Silicon Valley. In short, it has always been conservative. It had a liberal facade for a bit but it’s not necessary to pretend to be liberal anymore.

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Govind_the_Great@reddit

Damn, sounds kind of rough. Warhammer 40k lasted 100k years so I wouldn’t want to see it. Even the elite are turning from war. It is quite a shutdown process at this point and so I’d honestly rather see TNA and try again in 1000 years than “succeed” at surviving into a future dystopia. Which is a weird clause since every retry at civ beyond this point is a myth. Even nearly completing a universal orbit, the caste system still screwed us over.

Trust me you do not want to see esylum, and there are no more kings or priests at all except as a universal equality measure. Mirror’s edge means we have the prime numbers to have infinite souls. Natural law dictates we only take one soul.

Mexico is one of the most violent countries, and yet doesn't receive the same amount of boycott than the rest of the Hispanic Americas. You need a Bukele.

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Magnumjaguar@reddit

We kinda have one in 2006. Felipe Calderón was the president who started all the war against drugs. That period was the worst. For me, Mexico is too big for the government have total control in the whole country.

I dunno man I just want to have running water and cheap food. And good public transportation

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Weary-Ocelot6697@reddit

I'm curious... Did you grow up in Mexico? My husband did and his family still is there, and to be honest, I feel like Mexicans are so much more prepared than most Americans to live without water, electricity, and with violence, because they're already used to it. Infrastructure sucks there, but the people don't rely on the government anyway like they do here. The individual resourcefulness seems so much higher. Your thoughts? (And it could be region-specific, as it is here!)

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Magnumjaguar@reddit

Born and raised. Still living here. I live in the northern east part. Yes we are resourceful but if you live in a city you still depend on the government. We have been always living in a crisis.

jimmychitw00d@reddit

Here is what I keep going back and forth on. I am in need of a newer truck within the next couple years. However, I don't have enough liquid right now to pay cash. On the one hand I worry about tariffs and more inflation making used truck prices go even higher. On the other hand I worry about taking on debt.

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jusumonkey@reddit

*I am not a financial advisor and this is not financial advice*

IMO Vehicles are *in general* a depreciating asset and not the best thing to spend money on unless you can use them to make more money than they use. For my I have a 97 dodge Ram I keep barely running because I barely use it (A few things working in the garden, moving things too heavy for the car etc.). I don't need to take debt for a new truck when it just sits in the drive way 5 days a week you know?

But I do prep things for it like a spare set of rims and tires, a case of oil filters and 3-4 gallons of oil, A coolant change, ATF fluid and filters, 2 brake changes and gear lube for the differentials. Basic maintenance goes a long way for old vehicles like that.

I don't keep much in the way of spare parts or major components like I'm not prepared to loose a door or windshield or have the steering fall out on me but over the years I've done a lot repairs to keep it running nice so even though it's 30 years old it fires right up and rides like cloud 9.

People need to 1. Stop thinking this will be like 2016. The guard rails (and people) that were in place during 2016 are not in place this time.

I don't know why this one is so fucking hard for people, believe what Trump and Elon will say. If they say they are going to do blanket tariffs, believe them. If they say they are going to fire 75% of federal employee then believe them. If they say they are going to do mass deportation then believe them.

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Very_Tall_Burglar@reddit

Rise in authoritarianism for sure. I dont think itll be this huge civil war with massive bloodbaths... nah were just gonna see our freedoms implode, everythings gonna get really fucking expensive and the middle class will finally just die off.

We'll be stuck in rich vs poor until the Planet sees that ecological crashout

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Optimal-Summer-236@reddit

Loss of human rights and mass migration to states that protect those

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hauntedhouseguts@reddit

US—Lots of foodbourne illness. If the FDA is gutted, that includes federal monitoring of sanitation standards in drug, medical device, food, and pet food manufacturing (including dietary supplements). States do some monitoring, but that doesn’t (to my knowledge) include drug manufacturing, medical devices, or pet food. Food inspection quality will vary by state. More issues requiring recalls, but less likely for recalls to be issued if no one knows about them in the first place. Yes, large manufacturers self audit to some extent, but we saw how well that went with Boar’s head.

In addition, people will be cooking at home more— including people who don’t usually cook. This usually leads to illness when people don’t cook foods to proper temperature, contaminate ready to eat foods with raw foods, and don’t store foods at proper temperatures. Brush up on food safety. I’m also expecting some cbot from novice home canners taking bad advice from tick tock troll accounts.

Global temperatures continue to rise… a lot 4 more years of no action 😅 oops

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farmerlonely@reddit

Here’s what I’ve come across lately in terms of global risks:

Global Conflict: 70% risk. With everything happening in Ukraine, the Middle East, and rising tensions with Israel, Iran, and Lebanon, it feels like things are heating up globally. The risk of a larger conflict seems pretty high right now.
Economic Collapse: 25% risk. Despite the conflicts, the economy seems to be holding up okay for now. Inflation in the US is creeping up a bit, but nothing too alarming at the moment.
AI Takeover: 5% risk. Thankfully, AI isn’t causing any major issues (yet). Most of the headlines are focused on geopolitics instead of tech crises.
Pandemic: 10% risk. No big health scares on the horizon right now, which is a relief considering what we’ve all been through.
Global Climate Disaster: 20% risk. Climate change is always a concern, but it hasn’t been in the headlines much lately. Still, it’s something to keep in mind for the future.

I’ve been using this site that tracks global risks based on news and trends ai predictions and it’s been pretty eye-opening. Definitely makes me think about how prepared (or unprepared) I am for different scenarios.

What do you guys think? Are these risks overblown, or do they seem about right?

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muggimo3@reddit

Ai takeover 5% seems realistic

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Seppostralian@reddit

Naturals disasters will probably continue to intensify. Worse wildfires, hurricanes ETC. due to more and more global warming. Also anxiously watching H5N1, now that more and more states and regions are reporting human cases of the virus (Hawaii, where I'm currently located, just had the virus detected for the first time ever on the islands, it had previously not been present in the avian or human populace here)

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teenypanini@reddit

Did they find it in an animal or a person?

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Civil unrest- honestly I don’t see it happening in any significance like leading to civil war. But it’s going to suck for a while I think especially if some of the economic policies go forward. Not a political post by it might be tough but lead to a stronger self sufficient US… maybe. What I’m worried about is basically the movie act of valor coming to life. If the US goes after the cartels I can see a very open southern border being leading to terrorist activities if the cartels team up with other shit people to keep their drug money flowing. Overseas- nothing more than skirmishes until china takes Taiwan starting with a grid down situation or cyber attacks to hinder a US response. China could take down our systems and make the US have to deal with some bad shit and complete their invasion before we could get back up and running. At that point there’s no point in the US going over there.

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SiWeyNoWay@reddit

Apparently, project 2025 lays out that they want to declare mexico a cartel state, and therefore not a sovereign state, to justify attacking Mexico under the guise of going after the cartels.

Weather events you weren't expecting.

Crumbling infrastructure if your government has neglected it for too long.

Supply chain issues.

Economic failures.

All paralleled with some prosperity and Innovation.

I don't think we are headed for any irreversible collapse or shtp. But most of us will experience some major weeks or months ahead.

I'm still boiling water out here after helene & had a 10-day blackout with no internet or cell reception alongside that. The first several days were impossible for acquiring gas or groceries.

It's a four hour drive to the ocean; I never expected a tropical storm to hit my area with such winds and rain.

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mowog-guy@reddit

Respectfully, it's happened there before. So why was it unexpected? Some of the towns most damaged by flooding are on a flood plane in a valley alongside a river with curiously flat surfaces on one side.

USGS shows flood planes for all of those areas and many of them did exactly what those maps say will happen, and some even have photographs of the last time they flooded.

The infrastructure runs through those flood areas, roads, bridges, power, Internet all funnel through the same places where the surveys say flooding is likely to occur. People pay additional insurance costs because of it.

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Lubenator@reddit

Hi there, I'd be happy to answer!

Mostly, I'm referring that I didn't expect it. I'm more referring to both the wind and the rain here. I personally moved here in the last few years and am relatively young. It was my ignorance and nievaty that made me assume that being this far from the ocean would be safe enough.

For example, my son's school chose to build its location outside of the 200 year flood plane. It was destroyed.

Same with the dealership my car was being serviced at.

We had 500 and 1000 year floods in lots of places out here.

My original comment is hoping to highlight that climate related weather events are amplifying and become more frequent.

Despite having added dams and spillways, these floods were the worst on record. Breaking records set before there was infrastructure in place to protect. The badness itself was unprecedented and therefore unexpected. Areas that hadn't flooded before flooded. Areas that had flooded before flooded worse than ever before.

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Icy-Beat-8895@reddit

I don’t think large masses of people are capable of organizing anymore successfully. Crime has always gotten worse with each generation, so, what’s considered crazy crime today, will be considered common place in the future. But sometime in the future humanity will reach a critical juncture in which either they stop their crime and folly and stubbornness and work together for peace or the world would soon fall into a hopeless end. Everyone will realize this. At that time I think humanity will choose peace and unity. So, the world will get much worse over the next 30?years but will turn itself around because everyone’s back will be up against the wall and the majority will not want to kill off themselves anymore than they would right now—-which never existed when you get down to the heart if it all.

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Gregsdc84@reddit

Wonderful things

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Gas-Short@reddit

Predicting anything is just an individual publicly revealing their IRL fan fiction.

Do you have a good recommendation on where to start with learning organic farming?

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Akersis@reddit

My predictions:

I think we can expect some political balkanization and deepening social division. These last few elections have proven that vilifying people with different politics builds voter loyalty and turnout in unprecedented and unhealthy ways but as long as it is a winning strategy they will use it.

I think that the corrosive divide will have consequences that are magnified by all forms of media, and some of that will rise to the level of protest/civil disobedience but not a breakdown of law and order. For example teachers might quit en masse facing major changes to school governance and funding, which could lead to a lot of blame, tension, and children not getting educated—likely the most vulnerable ones.

A theme I have frequently seen is this desire for a disruptive government that will “shake things up” but even if they had the most optimistic of realistic outcomes those policies are likely to cause a lot of pain in the short term, and elections are always happening in the short term. The pendulum will swing the other way. People will judge what worked well and condemn what didn’t and both sides will distort perceptions.

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yellowodontamachus@reddit

Political balkanization is definitely a gnarly thought. From my own perspective, where I am in San Francisco, the divide is pretty obvious and it's not just politics—it’s in schools, neighborhoods, even down to where people grocery shop. Media stirs the pot, no joke, making everything seem more explosive than it might actually be. When teachers walk out and schools struggle, it’s usually the kids who are already at a disadvantage that get hit hard.

I often wonder if it’s even possible for any policy changes to impact positively without causing all this chaos and backlash. The cycle of expecting the next quick fix while pointing fingers seems like a treadmill going nowhere fast.

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Commercial_Yak7468@reddit

Agreed.

In terms of prepping, I think people need to generally prep for supply chain disruptions from tariffs and civil unrest.

Like people have been saying, save financially, and have at least a months supplies on you.

The thing I think about is, things won't collapse all at once, BUT with the heated political temp all it takes is one idiot to do something like shoot up a sub station to cause your area to be with out power for days/weeks. That is just an example, but have a month of supplies so you can be minimally impacted by the stupid.

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yellowodontamachus@reddit

Absolutely, having a month's worth of supplies seems like a smart move. From experience, when things got tense in 2020 here in San Francisco, it really highlighted how quickly store shelves can empty out. Beyond just food, think about water, basic meds, and maybe a little extra fuel if you can store it safely. It’s not about fearing the worst but having some cushion to avoid last-minute scrambles if things get chaotic, even just temporarily. Staying prepared eases some of the stress when the world around us gets unpredictable, which it seems to do fairly often lately.

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GothinHealthcare@reddit

I see it 4 fold....

1) Economic collapse.

2) Healthcare collapse.

3) Protracted political violence and civil unrest.

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lankha2x@reddit

I live far away from where the blocks of cities ordinarily burn. If they all went up I wouldn't smell the smoke at all. If rebels were to ever make it this far I'm well prepared to help them have a bad day.

If the warpigs get their way overseas I've some concerns for relatives in Germany I care for. And it could affect my plans to move back there later in life.

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appelative@reddit

I know whats coming. US economic collapse worse than great depression, but with hyper inflation and then the US dollar will fail (the Euro will go first). US will go bankrupt, no social security, welfare, disability, etc. Banks will fold up and no one will be able to get their cash. Mass riots in the streets, total disorder, national guard will struggle than fail to stop it. Mass looting and rioting. Around this time, not sure if it's before during my or after but there will be another global pandemic, much worse than the last, 350 million will die. Also there will be WW3, this has already started but US won't get involved for several more years. Israel will be attacked by many nations allied together, and US will not intervene, this will be called "The Great Betrayal." Eventually China/North Korea/Russia will join forces against US and there will be nuclear exchanges. A new currency and work order will rise in order to offer peace and hope. The currency will be digital. During all of this there will be massive earthquake, volcanoes, storms, and tsunamis, fires, and floods, with unfathomable loss world wide. It will be one thing after another. This has already started to begin. There will be severe droughts Due to the collapse of the dollar, the new pandemic, stock market collapse, war, and natural disasters, there will no supply chain. There will be lines around grocery stores. The shelves will be bare. It will be bad. It's already started though most do not notice l.

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drAsparagus@reddit

For those in the US, the USD collapse is inevitable. Not saying when, but the deficit unsustainable and govt spending is wasteful. With no solution in place to roll out immediately, the breakdown of society will happen rapidly when the lights go out. That's when things get ugly.

Could happen tomorrow. Could happen in 10 years. Could happen on Tuesday. That's ultimately why we prep. And invest in something besides USD.

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Walk_The_Stars@reddit

Do you have an actionable strategy to invest in something besides USD? Inflation is happening to currencies around the world, and USD has been one of the better ones in recent times.

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drAsparagus@reddit

Precious metals are a fairly safe hedge against inflation. I prefer silver myself.

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OtherwiseAlbatross14@reddit

I don't think many people realize how bad it's gotten. The National debt is over $272,000 per taxpayer. The average taxpayer pays $13,367 in federal income taxes per year. If the government stopped spending money completely and we kept paying the same amount in taxes, that's 20 years to pay off the debt without even including interest during those 20 years.

We already spend more than the entire defense budget on interest payments alone.

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27Believe@reddit

What’s your alternative to usd?

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AlotaFajitas@reddit

Supply lines.

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tianavitoli@reddit

the end scene in sum of all fears 🤫

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Spiley_spile@reddit

An ever increasing income gap resulting in ever increasing stress boiling over into violence. More frequent and intense natural disasters, leading to an increase in mass human migration for survival. More communicable diseases and likely more social resistance to doing anything to protect each other from them. More crop diseases. More invasive species and mass extinctions.

StarlightLifter@reddit

Idk the rate at which global warming is accelerating - I think it isn’t completely unreasonable that we see massive, massive staple crop failures which would lead to the quick collapse. Other than that yeah it will be prolonged. We are already starting to see massive luxury crop failures (coffee, chocolate) so enjoy that while you can.

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RenThras@reddit

Global warming has happened for all of Earth's history. The "acceleration" is a bit dubious, but even in the worst case scenarios is a centuries long process and, as part of that, would make vast lands currently unsuitable for crops into workable land.

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RenThras@reddit

It's why I tell people "Don't prepare for the worst case scenario. In the worst case, we're all dead anyway. Prepare for the worst SURVIVABLE scenario."

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symplton@reddit

I'm going to be the thread optimist apparently. Before falling into a pit of despair, understand the following:

We have some really cool therapeutics in the pharma industry identified using AI and some of the genetic know-how learned during the pandemic to solve some interesting health problems over the next decade.

The science of managing, collecting and storing power is getting better and cheaper to scale, which means we'll have distributed and grid energy everywhere, and it'll get cheap as more avenues enter into the smart grid of now(ish).

We have an opportunity to setup a financial market in the middle east for solar energy collection and resale that might just give us a longer term economic model that benefits the climate and the region, giving nomadic tribes the faculties necessary to bring collected distributed energy from the sun to market during peak seasonal or economic demand periods.

We learned how much nature wants to heal when we all stayed home during the pandemic, and what sort of levers we need to pull or push to enduce growth, inhibit it, and heal it.

Next generation aircraft / flying cars coming online within the next decade are going to be battery powered, will pick you up at home, and fly you anywhere automagically.

Peace and prosperity thanks to Trump getting elected. I still can't believe he won. Thank God.

Now do your thing Reddit.

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ChaosRainbow23@reddit

PANDEMONIUM!

CHAOS!

Or more likely, a bunch more of the same. (War, unrest, supply chain shutdown, power and water loss, hunger, etc etc etc, ad infinitum)

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AvaSavage@reddit

Natural disasters (flood, hurricane, heatwave, drought and bushfires.) Supply chain issues combined with cost of living issues rising. Something even more deadly/disruptive like covid again.

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SofiaFreja@reddit

the only civil unrest will be whatever the Federal Government creates by sending military into our streets.

Promising to put 10-30 million people in camps is not exactly a plan for peace.

I think the promised economic policies of the incoming administration will cause even worse inflation, especially on imported food and necessities, and make land and housing even more unaffordable for most people.

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Pink_Slyvie@reddit

In the US? We just elected a pedophile rapist who destroyed the economy last time he was in charge.... It's going to be a bad 4 years. With ramifications for decades.

We are starting to see massive climate collapse. The best way to prepare is to build a community. This isn't something to try to survive by yourself.

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No_Forever6552@reddit

Attacks from many enemies both already in country and outsiders. Dems are being too nice after Trumps big win...something will happen before Jan 20. Millions of muslims who call us The Great satan are here already. Cyber attacks from china, russia, iran, n korea. Soldiers from china and russia are here. EMP from iran or n korea. Hundreds of thousands of criminals are being dumped into the US..see Tda, ms13 and others.

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Suprspike@reddit

Yes. Agreed.

It feels all too calm out there. No birds chirping, no sounds of the jungle.

Stock up on TP. Feels like a storm is brewing.

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AAAAHaSPIDER@reddit

Increase in tornadoes in the SE. Same with drought and hurricanes. More devastating fires all over. basically continuing the climate trends.

An increase in babies found in trash cans and woman dying. An increase in permanent birth control while it's available. More and more young women are swearing off men altogether (4B movement). Which will lead to an increase in whiny single men feeling like they are owed someone else's body. The more they complain the less women will want them.

I didn't used to have disclosure on my bingo card but the latest Congressional hearing has me confused and suspicious.

-China invades Taiwan, severely curtailing global microchip supplies

-NK invades SK, see above but for consumer electronics

-Russia uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine, causing a global flight to safety and liquidity crunch

-Iran and Israel have a major war, see above

-Commercial/Personal/Auto debt crisis in the USA causes GFC 2.0 with banks realizing massive losses on unsecured debt and being unable to recover

-Forced sales of homes during an economic downturn causing a dump in real estate prices, which in turn bankrupts additional forced sellers being forced to sell their homes at a loss

I always go with the idea that 99% of people have a vested interest in things not going all Thunderdome and figure they'll do whatever they need to do to preserve the status quo or revert back to the most recent "ok" time.

All that being said- what is the most likely train coming down the tracks that can't be avoided? IMO more inflation and government overreach trying to fight it.

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JAT465@reddit

A conflict between China and Taiwan will shut down Global trade routes.

The U. S will have a serious supply shortage for 2-3 years before we can be self sustainable... If we get involved in the Taiwan conflict. The U. S will begin WW2 rationing and 3rd world countries will overun our borders as their country resources dry up.... So prepare for everyday self sustainability for ease of living...

Grow own food, learn to repurpose and learn to fix everything .... Have a plan to defend and keep and secure what you have

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bishpa@reddit

I believe that our willful destabilization of the planet’s climate will be the main driver of the bulk of natural disasters, humanitarian crises and geopolitical strife, their resulting mass migrations of refugees.

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LeadingProduct1142@reddit

Good god. We had 4 years of trump and yall survived. If you’re prepping it will mostly benefit you in a natural disaster scenario. Communities will come back together and help each other out after some time passes and the event settles. But anyone who thinks that your rights will be Infringed I. The next 4 years is laughable. The wiles is not safe is America is not strong. We are not safe if America is not strong. Prep for what we but it won’t be the government coming for you. If you haven’t noticed the right wants you to have freedoms

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wtfredditacct@reddit

I don't think the federal government is going to cease to function, at least not to a degree that will effect the daily life of your average American. Nothing is going to happen at the state level, nothing is going to happen at the local level. Those are your vital services. They could completely dissolve the Department of Education and you wouldn't know the difference. I spent 21 years in the military and working with DoD civilians. The 80/20 rule is 100% true. Getting rid of the 80% freeloading might actually make things work better because they won't be trying to justify their existence.

It will look like federal disaster aid not being given to states where the governors are considered political enemies.

It will look like deals being made to massively enrich billionaires in the medium and long term, even if things are made to look nice for working class in the short term.

It looks like judges being installed who will support a certain political ideology above the written law.

It looks like generals being given loyalty tests.

It looks like sowing distrust in voting systems to justify voter suppression.

It looks like rampant misinformation, constant lying, making the public doubt that there is any objective truth.

It means people with no relevant education training being put in charge of important government organizations (Justice Department, Department of Education, CDC, HHS, FDA, and so on), and then hacking and slashing them because of either ignorance, spite, or delusions of knowing more than people with education, training, and a lifetime of experience working in the field.

How do you prep? I don't know. Keep your head down and try to make it through? Hope it ends someday?

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Gerantos@reddit

So... you're saying that events will proceed as they have for the past 40 years?

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somethingclassy@reddit

There should honestly be a sub specifically for this outcome. I’m not here because of the fucking apocalypse I’m here because a fat narcissist treasonous pig has duped half the country into voting for him and now he’s going to go full Emperor Palpatine.

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preppers-ModTeam@reddit

Your post has been removed for being "Not focused on prepping/Off-Topic - Political." Try to keep posts and comments on the topic of prepping and not on politics.

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Oh, one piece of good news: the Bible being the only book allowed in schools anymore means kids actually read it, as an act of rebellion, and realize what Christianity actually is.

Being idealistic youth, they start a crusade and rid America of all these spineless compulsive lying fake Christian conservatives who worship a felon rapist failed businessman with no morals or spectrum of human emotion.

My story is only about 95% correct though.

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ApprehensiveSpare925@reddit

Slow moving economic collapse in the US (stock market will lose about 85 to 90% of its value. It will take about a decade). High inflation in the US due to tariffs and monetizing the debt (taxes will be cut, especially for corporations/high income. Deficit will explode). Deep cuts to SS, Medicare etc to help pay for the tax cuts (won’t be enough, deficit will still explode). Mass unemployment, banks failing, food shortages, mass social unrest due these things.

thorgrif@reddit

I see things happening that have happened in the last few years. Not new, but maybe in different areas.

There will be more hurricanes , floods, earthquakes, etc. There will be more wars. There will be more power outages, and more pandemic with supply chain issues.

Ww3 is going to be knocking out water,electrical,food supplys etc....

Unrest and societal shock from “Disclosure” relating to unknown aerial and subsurface water vehicles.

It’s unclear precisely what impact tho as they have been slow rolling it for years now …

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Local-Bit-5635@reddit

Global war and the collapse of USA

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Govind_the_Great@reddit

~18 months solar flares knock out power infrastructure for weeks. (Have about ten gallons of water per person rotated, with a camp stove or campfire for cooking, >20 grams of protein per day as well)

I can’t speak to the political climate as that is a wildcard. However if they keep pushing for war know that eventually it will escalate to heavy and hard chemical / biological / nuclear potential. HOWEVER there are smart people who won’t allow those bombs to drop if they can avoid it.

Expect families to continue to degrade, and for there to be a huge war of domestic opinions on gender identity. Hopefully we can talk it out instead of turning towards genocide.

The economy will continue to degrade, if we aren’t on our A game money itself will become instantly worthless. Meaning your job, your car payments, gasoline, food, and water are going to be harder and harder to sustain. Ideally optimizing for a smooth transition into a post-scarcity quickly.

Basically other than providing food, water, and shelter covering emergencies, a major prep is to get involved with local community farms and agriculture. They will learn you how to grow heirloom seeds hopefully. Farmers become kings in the coming months even as produce continues to swell in price.

If we are fast enough we avoid dustbowl III, and generally the flares, volcanoes, comets, space invaders or whatever comes to mind as something to be paranoid of is just a myth.

NickMeAnotherTime@reddit

Things are simple from here on out: 1. Young people will continue to struggle to get jobs. 2. All modern electronics will be capable of spying on you. 3. People in "modern" will become more dumbed down, fatter and fearful. 4. Billionaires will continue to increase their wealth and influence. 5. War will erupt in many areas of the world, but in the mainland US or China. Only other countries will suffer this burden. 6. Globalization will revert significantly when war erupts. 7. Everything will become more expensive as a result. 8. Food production will slow down, global warming will continue to ramp up. 9. The EU and Europe will be in free fall. 10. Disease will become rampant, due to global warming.

When will all this happen? Next 10-15 years. What can you do? Ensure self reliance, build up your community and resources similar to the Amish. Migrate to areas which are less exposed to drought as a result of climate change.

We've had a few good years boys!

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jenni5@reddit

I agree!! Do you have a sense of where is best to be stationed to be safest? What countries can I go to that will be open for people and safe from war and climate change

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NickMeAnotherTime@reddit

Best is probably northern Europe, New Zeeland, Argentina. From a climate point of view. They all have downsides from other points: economic, war proximity etc.

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jenni5@reddit

so overall with climate, econ and war proximity -- where is best

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NickMeAnotherTime@reddit

I don't have an answer for you. It's too subjective and it depends on too many factors.

For example Nordic countries with their war proximity might or might not have to contend with: 1. actual war refugees flooding their country 2. Nuclear war in the region, 3. Be dragged directly in the war

ItsNotGoingToBeEasy@reddit

Um, no. States aren’t made of loyalists. American identity is sadly divorced from anything larger than the individual. Just look at the moving rates.

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ScientistCool7604@reddit

When do you think this would happen, and what would be the tipping point for this to occur?

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FirStrtr81@reddit

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CarFeeling9748@reddit

Increased storm intensity. Global warming isn’t a joke and hurricanes kill people.

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Moratorii@reddit

I'm late to the party, but here is a non-exhaustive list of things on my radar (and I am so, so sorry that it's long):

Immediate problems:

Tariffs. The proposed tariffs if enacted will likely double the price of any goods that require electronics. Nothing electronic can be 100% manufactured in the United States, even if we open a ton of chip manufacturing facilities and even if they all start producing at 100% output before January, because the raw materials come from overseas. There are no companies that will eat that cost and lose profits. They will charge the US more, and in turn charge everyone else more due to a lack of competition. The knock-on effect from those tariffs will be that secondhand markets will grow more expensive as well, and people will likely automate snapping up any cheap electronics so they can resell them at a higher price. Not all electronics are pure entertainment, either. Trump had enacted tariffs briefly in his first term, and between those and the stimulus checks that's probably why the economy is sucking right now.
Firing of federal workers and shrinking of federal departments. Everyone hates the fed. No one understands how much of society functions because of the fed. There's an example floating around of someone gloating that the fed finally will stop "paying scientists to watch bugs have sex". That research is how we increase crop yield and discover potential cures for diseases. The level of cutting that has been proposed would require a total shutdown of every branch of the federal government besides the military, medicare, and social security, and would still fall significantly short. So they will fail to cut as much spending as they want to cut, and will likely make everything run worse. Mad that the USDA didn't stop Boar's Head from having filthy food production conditions that caused listeria outbreaks? Yeah, expect a lot more disease in food production when there's nobody checking anymore. Additionally, expect a knock-on effect when you suddenly fire a massive workforce.
Forced RTO for the fed. Again, everyone hates the fed. Some of the jobs worked remotely have no physical office in order to save money and in order to widen the talent pool. Forcing RTO, something which Elon is a huge fan of, will shut down some fed work entirely and massively increase expenses elsewhere when they are forced to buy and maintain property and rehire local talent.
Ending of OT. Trump has run on ending OT pay because he absolutely hates when he has to pay OT. It is entirely unclear whether this would end OT period, if OT would be paid at the normal rate, or if OT would be unpaid. Either way, this would make some jobs plainly undesirable. I'm content working 70 hours in a week with that generous OT. I'd quit on the spot if it went away.
Tiny tax breaks that don't come close to relieving increased costs. Due to the aforementioned increased tariffs, decreased OT pay, and likely loss of jobs, the relatively tiny tax breaks that poorer Americans will get will come nowhere near denting the sky-high prices. We will likely see an increased number of people taking on debt that they can't repay and applying for federal assistance, something that we can also expect to see cut back on.

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Moratorii@reddit

Longer term problems:

Mass deportations. Like it or not, part of why our food is cheap is because of illegal immigrants working for under minimum wage. Americans have demonstrated an unwillingness to work those jobs at even double the minimum wage. You can expect prices of food to tick up, and also expect dysfunction as Stephen Miller has declared a desire to try and deport naturalized children as well. For a child who was adopted overseas, this would mean that they would be at risk of deportation to a country they never lived in. While it may cause an immediate morale boost to be "taking care of the illegals", long-term it would be expensive to build internment camps for processing them and cause a negative hit to your food supply chain. Same folks tend to also work in meatpacking. We'll likely see an increase in the use of prison labor, the legal slave labor, which will cause an increase in police surveillance in order to try and pick up additional workers.
Famine. RFK Jr. is likely to push for "organic farming" as the only way to go, which can work for small scale operations that sell at a premium-but at a large scale, it doesn't work. There was a recent famine in Sri Lanka from attempting to switch to fully organic farming-mix this with 1. and you have a serious catastrophe.
Rampant disease. RFK Jr. is also anti-vaxx and anti-fluoride. In Calgary, I think (don't quote me, it was somewhere in Canada), they removed fluoride because of a similar concern about additives in drinking water and saw an alarming increase in dental disease, alarming enough to decide to reintroduce fluoride. In countries where they don't add fluoride, their toothpaste tends to have a ton more fluoride in it to make up for the deficit. Expect to see a massive increase in dental problems in children, something which already is poorly covered by insurance and exacerbated by poor diets. The efficacy of flu shots will drop significantly as the federal government stops subsidizing it to provide free flu shots, resulting in yearly catastrophic spread of the flu unchecked, especially as people have a strong anti-mask sentiment. We may get to see polio come back, that'd be fun.
Rampant drug problems. We already have this issue now, but drug problems come from desperation. If you make little to no money, you can't afford any entertainment. With games costing a fortune because of tariffs and private industries jacking up prices, there may not be much else to do besides get high as cheaply as possible. This be incentivized by 1. as those druggies can then be arrested and tossed into work camps, since the goal is output and not quality.
Stupidity. With the DOE likely to get chopped, we'll see illiteracy soar. Some states will be able to afford to make their own version of public school, but it will wildly vary in quality. Think, "Jimmy grew up in California and wants to be a doctor, Tommy grew up in Nebraska and thinks the Earth is 6,000 years old and flat" on steroids. Lots of homeschooling where the parents have no time or money to provide an effective education, increased taxes for any states trying to offer a public option which will exacerbate the other problems. Our education system sucks: the alternative on the table is worse. We'll also likely see a demand for student loans to go to private loan servicers or a gutting of payment plans, which will result in soaring bankruptcy and homelessness while simultaneously guffawing that those doctors probably got art degrees. College will become something exclusively for the rich, further dividing the country by intelligence.
Overpopulation. Due to 4. and 5., you'll probably see a lot of people having unprotected sex. The lack of abortion access will lead to dead women and tons of kids. What else do you do when you're broke and poor, if not drugs? Sex, probably, and the poor education on safe sex will mean tons of unprotected sex. A lack of social safety nets (see 2. from the short-term problems) will also mean that there's not a lot of services to help with the burden of child-rearing. America already has a big problem with super short parental leave and PTO (honestly we'd probably see that cut further), and without public school this would mean forcing one parent to stay at home, or force single parents to abandon their children (possibly get arrested, see 1.).

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Moratorii@reddit

Have I mentioned the stupidity? This is a combination of 2. and 5. Not a lot of Americans understand what goes into growing their own food, and have in fact pushed pretty heavily against it. Tomatoes are the easiest to grow-they also are pest magnets. You have to know the right time to plant in your growing zone (subject to change), the right crops to plant in your soil, and have the time and patience to weed and maintain those crops. You also have to plan ahead to grow enough that you could last on your own supply until the harvest next year. Lettuce grows fast. Lettuce isn't nutritionally dense. You can keep chickens for eggs, but you do need to know how to care for them, and also be prepared for some of them to die. Some HOAs and towns will let you do none of this. A community garden won't give you enough food to live on.
Climate change. Regardless of your personal feelings or beliefs on it, scientists are freaking the fuck out about this and we've been seeing worse and worse storms at a greater rate than normal with bizarre weather. Even if you think it's a crock of shit, you still have to prepare for it and consider moving. Unhappy that your town got demolished by a hurricane? Yeah, imagine that happening with no warning (they want to get rid of NOAA, which is what tracks and provides information on inclement weather) unless you pay a subscription to a private weather company, and then imagine no FEMA or disaster relief period (FEMA is on the chopping block). Insurance companies are pulling out of heavily hit areas due to how expensive it is, or are otherwise doing whatever they can to deny claims. Can you afford to fully replace your roof every year? What about your first floor? You can also expect major crop loss from droughts and wildfires, exacerbating 2.
Civil unrest. The masses are easily distracted by social bullshit. Imagine how much time and energy was wasted bitching about pronouns, things that we all use in every day of our lives, because of imagined bogeymen. As all of these problems worsen, the incompetent government will seek scapegoats, and it'll probably be minorities, queers, and immigrants who get it first. Stephen Miller's also expressed to the NRA a desire to build a private military from sympathetic people in red states to "invade blue states" for deportation purposes, see 1., which will likely embolden some people to want to hurt other people. Could go either way, could be one-sided, could be all out war. The uncertainty is something to prepare for regardless.
Global deterioration. No country will want to work with America once we pull out of deals that we just got back into. It tells the rest of the world that if we agree to something, we can and will go back on it 4 years later. That kind of schizophrenia makes us untrustworthy for our allies, and easily manipulated by our enemies. The tariff problem, for example? China could also impose retaliatory tariffs to discourage buying from American companies and instead strengthen relations with Europe, Africa, and South America. Other reactionary governments could be emboldened by America and enact their own isolationist policies, resulting in further problems for global stability.
Rotted legal landscape. All of our judges are life appointments, and Trump likes to appoint them young and dumb. By the end of his 4-year term, even assuming that we continue to have normalcy after, we can expect 50-60 years of terrible legal decisions shaping the government. The supreme court declaring that the president is essentially a king is one decision that already happened and will forever be a stain on the government that will add to the accelerated decay.

These are just a handful of the issues. There's many, many others, too numerous to count. The worst of it is that we will likely not see any immediate issues. Not for years, maybe even decades. It might not be until you're old and worrying about your grandkids that this ramps up into a nightmare. Or it could accelerate so fast that any prepping is out the window. I'm not optimistic as even one of the terrible policies on the horizon will make things measurably worse, but even if they've been lying through their teeth and they'll do none of the things they said they would do-things are already bad now, and we'll still have the stench of "the president is king" hanging over the country.

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Moratorii@reddit

Oh and as an addendum: AI does so far an okay-to-bad job at replacing workers, but businesses will likely try to shoehorn it everywhere to squeeze out a few more pennies of profits before everything collapses. Misinformation will be a breeze with AI, and we can probably expect the internet to border on useless as people try to make a quick buck on AI generated content, drowning out actual written work in an ocean of masticated bullshit. No social safety nets mingled with less jobs will only further add to the instability. Much of the AI hype is from the illusion of power that it has, all while it wastes massive amounts of energy and steals all of our data to repackage and sell malformed versions of ourselves back to us.

In sum: we're fucked.

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randompossum@reddit

To be blunt; I now have 4 years to finish my bunker and stock pile supplies. Potentially 8 more on top of that.

I think the only real catalyst to concern about for civil war in this country is the left trying to take “assault weapons”. That will get very messy very quickly. Now that republicans have control they will be able to not let that get traction and replace Thomas with a pro 2a judge. Soto is also old so she will be replaced in the next 10 years anyways.

Nuclear war will end in the earth cracking and everyone dying. The big three will fire everything they got at each other and it will cover the earth in debris blocking out the sun for years. No point planing for that other than through prayer lol.

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Drjerryhathoway@reddit

The Great Reset

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squishysquishmallow@reddit

I’ve lost the ability to imagine the future after 2020. I used to be an optimist about the future and 2020 was so out of left field it still sometimes feels like it wasn’t real. So who knows? Next year could be an average year, work, pay bills, pay taxes. Or it could be forced shutdown by government? Announcements to stay 6 ft apart. Being prohibited from visiting dying loved ones in the hospital in their final moments.

I can see more terrorist attacks. Globally for sure. Domestically, maybe.

I can see increased domestic US split regarding politics, social issues, race, class, immigration etc.

In the US our economy is ~70% consumables. But 78% of people ate living paycheck to paycheck with 29% say their income doesn’t cover expenses.

Not only is that not sustainable there is no possibility for the growth needed for a functioning country.

Unless things change, and quick, our economy is poised to crash. Hard.

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AdditionalAd9794@reddit

Civil unrest, sure, escalation oversees, you bet, it'll have minimal effect on your day to day life.

India and Pakistan nuclear tensions as well as Middle Eastern conflict escalation are also plausible.

Regarding a global conflict, one thing to look for is China securing its oil supply from the Middle East either through greater control of the Malacca Strait or overland through a pipeline in likely Afghanistan. Currently 80% of their oil supply moves through the Malacca Strait and is one of their key vulnerabilities if they ever went into a full global conflict.

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were_eating_the_dogs@reddit

Nastier hurricanes and the possibility of a recession. Not really sure what I should buy. But I have a gut feeling it's gonna be bad.

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Distinct_Mix5130@reddit

Honestly 2 things I'm suspecting, obviously third world war, alot of people are also suspecting this, but even if it's not as big as a world war, there's definitely alot of war coming sadly

And I'm also kinda feeling like murica is slowly heading towards civil war, or maybe a coup, cause kinda feels like half of the country hates the people in charge rn

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fougueuxun@reddit

the coup has already began…

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pickledstarfish@reddit

War is awful but good for economies, so we’ll probably start or butt our nose into one of those.

The government will use that war as an excuse to take away more of our freedoms like they did with the privacy act.

The political and cultural divide will get bigger.

The economic divide between rich and poor will also het bigger.

Housing prices will continue to be bullshit.

Unprecedented natural disasters that we aren’t prepared for/don’t want to pay for will continue.

People will continue living in denial that any of this is happening.

Ultimately life will go on for the most part. For some it will get worse and others will benefit, but one thing we can count on is that we will all probably continue to fight each other and nothing will get resolved as per usual.

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rekabis@reddit

Widespread fascism, the corruption of democracy to a hollow shell/veneer of itself with alt-right conservatives permanently ensconced in power, conflict escalation in the East leading to possible nuclear retaliation in the region, possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan when America becomes sufficiently weakened, any attempt for American leftists to regain democracy leading to civil war.

And this is ignoring environmental effects. When (not if!) the AMOC collapses, we will see the starvation of billions as weather systems shift and agriculture in many regions - from mass/industrialized to backyard gardens - fails due to unreliable rainfall.

I’m probably going to be lucky in that regard -- even the statistically most likely due date for that, the early 2050s, means I will be probably dead of old age by that point.

But for those under 30? My condolences. If you are still alive by that point, you’re probably going to be seriously fucked.

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kkinnison@reddit

"civil unrest" is so unspecific, sure, i guess. about the same chance of protesting. Might want to clarify a bit more

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mountainvalkyrie@reddit

I'm not OP, but I'm assuming massive protests that are violently repressed by the police and, if things get really hot, the military. In some areas, it could mean different social groups against each other, though.

In the US so my response is US-centric:

Prices are going to increase and wages aren't. Housing in the US will remain scarce and overpriced.

COVID still isn't widely considered endemic by epidemiologists and people will remain blase about it (I am going to blame the Biden administration for pre-emptively delcaring victory over it). Vaccination rates will fall and it will cause long-term health issues which will become large public costs. People are completely fatigued and will not handle the next pandemic nearly as well, not that they handled COVID as well as they should have.

Climate will continue to deteriorate, especially if the US is not going to act as a norm-setting leader on that front. Florida will become uninhabitable.

Political unrest will increase which will likely look like mass protests and isolated attacks against government buildings/agencies/officials.

Right-wing extremists will feel emboldened and commit isolated mass casualty attacks against their favorite demographic to hate.

Digital platforms will continue to move to rent-seeking behaviors: streaming services will increase in price, physical media will cease to be produced, ads will be in everything.

Pay off as much debt as possible and live frugally. Get your vaccines before each school semester starts. Move out of the hurricane hot zone. Learn to do trauma first aid. Buy physical media or pirate if you can't.

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Galaxaura@reddit

I'm preparing for higher food prices in the US. Produce specifically. Higher prices on goods coming from China or other countries have tariffs placed on them even higher than they are now.

I'm also prepping for retirement in terms of being sure that the firm managing mine is prepared. We have a meeting set soon again to ask questions.

I'm preparing to help my community and neighbors should hard financial times arise. We started a group for help.around the yard and garden. There's about 5 of us who spend a few hours in a given day to help make work faster and less strenuous if we have a task to do.

I expect there may be something. Presidential vote certification and inauguration day are obvious one. The People Rally on Jan 18th may trigger something as well. That said I do not expect months of nightly riots like they had in Seattle.

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The Biden administration’s influence on the U.S. economy has led to a mix of successes and challenges:

•   Jobs: Unemployment has remained low, with strong job growth, especially in sectors like manufacturing.
•   Inflation: Inflation spiked to high levels in 2022 but has since started to come down, partly due to measures like the Inflation Reduction Act.
•   Economic Growth: The GDP has shown moderate growth, recovering from pandemic lows.
•   Stock Market: Early gains during Biden’s presidency gave way to volatility in 2022 but have shown resilience recently.
•   Energy Prices: Gas prices peaked in 2022 but have fallen back, although they remain higher than when Biden took office.

Overall, Biden’s policies have focused on economic recovery, labor support, and tackling inflation .

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Raddish3030@reddit

Democrats will try really really hard to seize your guns and try to get you to eat bugs. Sorry, sustainable protein for your own good.

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ElectronicCountry839@reddit

There's going to be a major solar storm related blackout and damage to satellite infrastructure eventually.

There aren't enough transformers to replace the losses from a major incident.

Lucky_Whereas2422@reddit

A quick and significant economic growth.