Today, we are going to have a look at the prepper lifestyle.
We're going to head to central Texas, where a good friend of mine,
John Stokes, a former technology writer, lives. He started a tech Web site
called ARS Technica. He now helps run a Web site called theprepared.com.
Obviously, this virus has kind of turned all of us into preppers hoarding our food and toilet paper
and everything else. And so we're going to get some tips from a pro on how to live like a prepper
and how to deal with this virus head on. So off we go see John Stokes.
Hello. Hello, can you guys hear me?
Yeah, man, I can hear you, but I can't see your beautiful face.
Started the video. There you are
Got some Texas on the wall back there.
Coming in hot man coming in strong I like it.
And also there's this wall which has like axes and other tools on it.
You guys going to be doing like video tutorials and stuff right? And so you're gearing up to do some of that.
Yeah, That's the plan. We're gonna do some, um, some lessons.
That is quality.
So, yeah. I'm John Stokes. I'm deputy editor at theprepared.com. And I was originally
more of like a classic Boy Scout. I was a life scout. I grew up in hurricane country,
Gulf Coast, Louisiana. Knew what it was to bug out for a hurricane.
Evacuate that kind of stuff. So I was more along that vein. We sold ARS Technica in 2008,
in May of 2008. And then so I was kind of a newly minted investor, a member of the investing class.
And then boom, Lehman happens in September, the kind of one-two punch of the financial crisis
and becoming a father. Those both tipped me over into a serious prepper territory.
And we see that a lot at the prepared. The first kid is a period when a lot of parents get into this.
I kind of became aware that, you know, hey, man, the world sort of runs on short term credit.
And this is a weird vulnerability that I didn't know existed. I didn't know that if you couldn't get short term credit,
then there may not be groceries, there may not be clean municipal water, stuff like this.
And so then you start thinking, what are the other vulnerabilities? Just like with the Great Depression,
there was a generation there that hoarded things. And that was, you know, it was thrifty.
It's going to leave its mark.
How did you approach getting into this whole world?
You know, I had started a outdoor Web site called all outdoor.com for a friend of mine
who had a company and an ad network. And they're like, we want to make our own content site. So I started this site for them.
Mostly it was outdoor gear hunting, shooting, fishing, that kind of stuff.
And so I started rolling in the preparedness stuff. And the audience liked it. And I just started writing about it
and researching as I wrote about it, I was fortunate in that the same people that owned that site
also own survival survivalist boards.com. And so I had a connection to the more traditional side
of the survival community. There's a little difference between survivalists and preppers.
So I was a little more plugged into the survivalist side, but also some of the prepping stuff that started too.
Have you seen a ton of people, a lot more new people coming to the site?
Yeah, there's been a lot of interest. We've had a lot of new people sign up
and join and there's still maybe some residual stigma around the word prepper.
But in terms of the number of people that are engaging in, what we would recognize as now as prepper activities,
that's going to go through the roof and it's going to stay elevated.
This is the kind of medium term food supply. There's some short term stop that's that's in the refrigerators
downstairs. We bought an extra fridge. We got a lot of canned food.
That's a barrel of rice. I got a cheese wheel, actually got two cheese wheels and
What kinds did you get
Dutch Gouda cheese wheel like a 20 pound wheel. And then I got like
a sheep's milk slash, goat's milk blend, cheese wheel.
It's protein and fat in there. And it keeps for like 25, 30 years. We've got batteries
and a charging station. So I do a lot of rechargeable batteries here.
That's kind of a little mini attic storage space that with air condition.
So that's where there's a lot of long term food. And so this was a playroom
that we turned into like a little mini classrooms for the kids because now they have to go from home.
Bunch of games behind me. I've gotten into board games for this,
you know. Can you prepare for a virus the same way as like a natural disaster or something like that?
We tried to start with a baseline of. You don't make any assumptions.
So when we look at the bug out bag, there'll be a lot of stuff in there. That's of the nature of, OK, I'm stuck out and there's no services.
I've got a clean canteen here. This is a single walled, clean canteen. It's not the double walled because
you can boil water in it. A tarp, toilet paper, headlamp, sleeping pad de trucks ration block. This is a titanium pot.
There's a tinder strand in here so you can light a fire with the stuff. Contractor bags, ranger bands of fasteners, I’ve got a folding saw.
You want to start with a baseline of super core stuff. Having some lighting having ability to make a fire
or having water, having some food, and then you tweak up from there and prepare for certain
other kinds of emergencies.
I think the thing to do is, is to not get complacent and to be ready to take the next step.
I really have actually spent a lot of time the past two weeks repacking these bags and making sure that we're actually ready to go.
I'm looking into our home insurance. Are we insured? If I have to leave this property and come back and it's trashed
Do I have everything documented? What What about documents? I'm getting those together.
A will. So I am hoping for things to get better in the spring.
I'm hoping for us to turn the corner and for us to go back to. To reopen society.
But I don't know what's next. And so I'm spending my time as best I can. Preparing for an even worst case scenario.
And they'd be my general recommendation is if you’ve got time. Whatever you can do, you don't have to do all the things.
Maybe you're just exercising. Maybe you're going around your apartment, your house, and you're looking for.
OK. If I got up in the middle of the night and I had to leave because it was unsafe or for whatever reason,
what am I going to take? Put that stuff together. Do it Now. You got a minute? You can do it now.
The important thing is not to get too attached to any one thing.
Not to get too attached to a piece of property, to a piece of stuff.
You don't want to have that cloud your judgment about what's the safest for you.
Hope for the best. Keep prepared for the worst.
Well, man, I appreciate you spending the time and giving us this advice. I'm sorry. It sort of took this thing
for us to like see each other face to face again. We gotta do this under happier circumstances?
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Thank you so much.
All right. Thank you, guys.