A Field Guide to the Apocalypse, by Athena Aktipis

[rachelmanija]

A peculiar entry in the field of apocalypse prepper books, written by a risk management and game theory specialist whose narrative voice sounds like a bizarre cross between a tech bro, a leftist, and a character from Sex and the City.

The book is pretty scattershot, but its general thesis is that humanity has been through many apocalypses before, we should consider the idea of apocalypse as a disaster like many other disasters rather than the One Thing That Ends Everything, it is better to prepare in a low-key manner than to either move into a bunker or not prepare at all, and building community is not only a better survival method than planning to shoot your neighbors but is the single best prep you can do.

There are two parts of this book that I've never seen anywhere else, and I think both of them could be extremely useful to certain select groups.

One is an explanation of game theory - something which tech bros, right-wing preppers, libertarians, and other anti-social types love, as it says that stabbing people in the back is the ideal strategy - which goes on to explain that most human interactions don't work that way, and it's not a useful model for human interaction or prepping. She instead proposes a different but equally abstracted model that shows how two hunters who cooperate will do better together than if they either don't cooperate or actively sabotage each other. I liked this very much and think it might be very useful to anyone who would otherwise fall prey to the deceptive logic of game theory.

The other thing she does, which again I have never seen in a survival book, is lay out step by step instructions for how to build a community that will work during a disaster. She gets into issues like who to approach, why, and how. She points out that asking for help with some small matter is a great way to start community-building, and also to find out who is interested in being helpful. This part is great and while it's only a chapter, it's a chapter I've never seen before.

My big issue with the book is her tone, which is pretty annoying. And a lot of the book is stuff you've seen before. But those two chapters are useful and unique, and well worth the whole book for people to whom they'd be useful.