The Survival Game
A few days ago, Glenn Beck posted a video warning built around three words: "Prepare for impact." He said it isn't something he says lightly. The last time he felt this strongly was 2007, and we all remember what happened in 2008.
Here's what got his attention. Last week the British government launched a three-year national campaign called "Be Ready," asking every household to keep enough water, food, medicine, a flashlight, a radio, and cash to get through at least three days on its own. The European Union has been asking its people to do the same since last year. Germany, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland all have versions of it.
Then he brought it home. At the end of September, the Pentagon announced a program called FORTRESS, which sets a goal for major military bases in the continental United States to run for ninety days without outside power, water, fuel, or supplies. He pointed to the arrests near RAF Fairford in England, the base American bombers have been flying from during the conflict with Iran, which the British government has since said was almost certainly directed by Iran's Revolutionary Guard. And he mentioned the air defense systems now deployed around Mar-a-Lago at the Secret Service's request.
His point was simple. None of these stories alone means the sky is falling. But put them side by side, and you see governments telling their own people: when something breaks, you're going to be on your own for a while.
He went further than that. He connected it to his broader view of where Europe and America are heading, and to next week's election. We're going to leave that part to him.
What stuck with us was his practical advice. Don't panic. Don't change your life. Make your Christmas plans. But if they say three days, do two weeks.
And honestly, that's where we got stuck. Three days is a bad snowstorm. Most of us have lived through three days without power. We know how it goes. It doesn't really scare anybody.
So we wanted to push the question further. Not to predict anything. Nobody here is announcing the end of the world. We wanted to turn it into a game.
Here are the rules.
An electromagnetic pulse goes off high over the continent. Everything that runs on electricity stops. Not just the lights. The phones, the internet, the water pumps, the gas pumps, the card readers, the furnace. Most cars stop where they are, and the ones that still start can't get gas. The trucks that would fix the grid are dead too. And nobody, not the government, not the power company, not you, knows when the lights come back on.
We're going to play it in five rounds. In the first round, there's no warning. It happens right now, wherever you are as you listen to this. In every round after that, you get a warning from someone you have every reason to believe, someone at the level of the president, and everyone hears it at the same time. One day's warning. Then one week. Then one month. Then a full year.
In each round, we want you to answer three questions. Where are you when it hits? What do you do with the time you have, in order? And what do you grab, keep, or protect first?
Grab a piece of paper. Not your phone. In this game, your phone is about to be a dark rectangle, so you may as well start practicing.
And play it honestly. Don't give the answer you think a prepared person would give. Give the answer you'd actually give. We'll do the same.
We'll also talk about what game theorists would say about each round, because it turns out the hardest part of surviving something like this isn't the supplies. It's people, including us.
Stay with us to the end. There's one more question waiting there, and it's the one that matters most.
Download - The Survival Game
Episode Link:
https://www.rabbitholesandmeditations.com/e/the-survival-game/
