Couldn't help but think that the big social media like FB Or ReddIt might be behind such spam attacks.

I read this: https://www.theverge.com/features/23764584/ai-artificial-intelligence-data-notation-labor-scale-surge-remotasks-openai-chatbots

Much of the public response to language models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT has focused on all the jobs they appear poised to automate. But behind even the most impressive AI system are people — huge numbers of people labeling data to train it and clarifying data when it gets confused. Only the companies that can afford to buy this data can compete, and those that get it are highly motivated to keep it secret. The result is that, with few exceptions, little is known about the information shaping these systems’ behavior, and even less is known about the people doing the shaping.

I guess it's about prepping being addictive, and I guess "apocalypse swapping" is basically rationalizing such an addiction with whatever is the most pressing threat at the moment.

To quote the article:

This ‘looking forward to the end of the world’ mindset, can lead to a strange Prepper behaviour that I call ‘apocalypse swapping’. In apocalypse swapping, a prepper who believed say in Nuclear War, shifts their believed in apocalypse to an entirely different one – say Meteor Strike, after their belief in impending Nuclear War collapses. Normally a person who believed in impending Nuclear War would cease to believe in the end of the world, after their fear of such a war diminished, however the apocalypse addict simply moves to another apocalypse so they can keep their prepper behaviors and belief in the end of the civilisation intact.

One prepper I know has, over twenty years, moved from a passionate belief in imminent nuclear apocalypse, to imminent asteroid strike, to imminent ‘Artificial Intelligence takeover’. It doesn’t matter to her if the reason for stocking up her cellar or practicing karate have changed completely. She seems only to be contented when she has an apocalypse to believe in. She has in the past become depressed and demotivated during her brief transitions from apocalypse type to the next. She needs the end of the world to give herself a sense of identity, purpose and self-esteem. In this sense, whichever apocalypse she believes in doesn’t really matter, what does matter is the discipline and focus of the prepping life. A daily routine of ‘being ready to face the end.’ She is, I should add, one of the happiest and most energetic people I’ve ever met.

I'm personally prepping more for disasters. Most of my friends who are into the same lifestyle basically want to have a certain standard of life/living in the aftermath of a disaster. I mean, I don't want to be living in some tent city relying on government rations.

Amateur radio can go the distance off-grid, particularly HF. However, you and the other person/s need to be licensed in order to use those bands. Why licensed? That gives you the opportunity to practice your skills and develop your gear before disaster happens. Also, even if HF can propagate through the ionosphere, it is still dependent on band conditions. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's dead. It's also one reason that having a lot of practice will play a big part in your success.

Otherwise, for 50 miles, a good fixed station with a directional antenna for BOTH stations and good line-of-sight (depends on terrain) is possible using VHF or UHF. Or, a repeater can also help you go the distance if you are using a portable (handheld) or mobile radio. These will of course require a power supply (can be off-grid solar + batteries), as well as a good antenna setup.

Maybe also because of the learning curve. Those who find to bothersome to set up accounts on their preferred instances will just give up and stick to whatever toxic platform they're currently using. In other words, I'd like to think of fediverse users as smarter than most.

My idea of "survivalist" is someone who has the knowledge to live off the land (or whichever situation you're in) with minimal or only the essential tools. I guess there are some negative connotations to survivalism.

I find myself mostly working during the nights. But that's just my body clock, and I have the luxury of working remotely from virtually anywhere.

Could they have foraged for food and mistakenly eaten inedible vegetation?

Oh, sorry. My browser automatically puts NYT in reader mode, and I think I still had that few remaining free items when I read the article, so I saw the paywalled stuff. I now changed the link to the archive.org version, as @wanderingmagus suggested.

Stuck in a freeway traffic jam with no gas stations (restrooms and restaurants too) nearby.

Actually also, the lockdowns we had from the pandemic had been one way to stress-test preps. No easy way to go out and but groceries? Simple, just consume from your food stocks.

Thanks for this. So just around half a year to prepare before it's ready for planting?

What's curious is that there is air conditioning in houses and other establishments anyway. What makes bomb shelters particularly advantageous in escaping the heatwave? Is the government doing this to somehow acclimatize citizens toward using bomb shelters in preparation for something else other than the heat wave?

That's why in my prepper community, I encourage regular use and practice. Not just with comms but with other aspects like security, food preps and storage, water purification, etc.

And also having a community in the first place would be helpful, whether they are your amateur club, fellow preppers or even your own family members who are into having the ability to communicate when the grid goes down.

In prepping, our toools are not just stuff to be stored and forgotten only to be brought out when SHTF. They need to be used and skills need to be sharpened.

I guess for those who don't prep. Or to bring stuff for cleanup, reahbilitation, or recovery post-disaster.