Surviving the Apocalypse

This blog has been a little scary recently: Since January I have written about political disinformation, combatting vaccine misinformation, managing overwhelming stress, the harmful effects of social media, and the risk of a worldwide AI takeover. That's a lot!

For a bit of relief, I recently finished Dr. Athena Aktipis's book A Field Guide to the Apocalypse: A Mostly Serious Guide to Surviving Our Wild Times. Aktipis argues that although there are many potentially civilization-ending threats in our world today, there is also good reason to believe that humans will survive them. Her fundamental argument is that people have faced civilization-ending threats many times before, and the ones who survived those events were those who had the evolutionarily favored traits that enabled them to get through them! Apocalypticism (a sense that the world as people know it is coming to an end) was prevalent 2000 years ago in the near east, but also earlier in Mesopotamian civilizations, and later in the "Great Awakenings" of the 1700s in America. During times of major social change, people often have trouble seeing the way forward. So, in this, we are no different from our ancestors.

Aktipis suggests several specific techniques to help us get through our "apocalyptish" times: good communication, collaboration with other people, strategic "all-hazards" preparations to reduce our personal risk, and a good sense of humor to help us get through the challenges. She has done research on decision-making using the Prisoner's Dilemma, a classic game-theory scenario in which two people each receive a slightly bad consequence if they cooperate with one another, a moderately bad consequence if they both betray each other, a very bad consequence if they cooperate while their partner betrays them, and the best possible consequence if they are the betrayer while their partner cooperates. In this scenario, people who act in their own self-interest will betray their partner and hope that the partner cooperates. Yet the best overall outcomes for the pair of participants are produced by both people cooperating. This is therefore seen by economists as a paradox of human behavior, where self-interest does not produce the best possible outcomes for an overall economic system. Aktipis points out that there is a simple way to counteract the perverse incentives of the Prisoner's Dilemma, which is to allow for communication between the participants. As soon as people can coordinate their activities, they readily arrive at the optimal solution for the group as a whole. Therefore, communicating more frequently and more completely with other people is one strategy to help us reduce apocalyptic risks.

Social coordination is a second important risk-management strategy. At the societal level, the failure of self-interest is known as the tragedy of the commons, where people are unwilling to invest personal resources to reduce shared risks. And one reason that many of our current societal threats seem so threatening is that they are shared risks rather than individual ones. We can't manage these risks well if we rely on individual decisions, with each person acting as an autonomous unit. Fortunately, people have an innate tendency to join up with others -- I wrote recently about the "tend and befriend" reaction to stress that presents a different path than the better-known and more conflict-oriented "fight or flight" response. Aktipis notes that people can live pretty well even during an apocalypse, as long as they have a small group of other people with whom they can pool resources and whom they can trust. (Her metaphor is that things are fine inside the house, as long as one person at a time is available to hold the door against zombies outside it). In larger-scale simulations even if some people decide to cheat in an attempt to maximize their own gains at the expense of others, the group as a whole will ostracize them. And people are very socially attuned to look for cheaters. 

The third strategy involves taking concrete steps ("prepping") in advance of an emergency, such as having an independent source of light and heat (a stove, fireplace, solar generator, etc.), keeping some fresh water on hand in jugs (and/or having a basic water filtration method), having a "deep pantry" of shelf-stable food at home, and maintaining basic medical supplies. She gives interesting examples of emergency materials that one might want to carry in an everyday bag or purse, to keep in a car, to have in a house, or to store in a "go bag" that can be taken with you in case of a natural disaster. I liked the idea of "all hazards" preparation focused on basic needs (shelter, heat, food, and water), and materials that are relatively easy to come by (e.g., if you are a camper, you probably have some of them already). Her suggested timeframe for survival is just 72 hours, which is enough to get through many small-scale disasters, and in the event of a larger one gives you enough time to plan and assess your options. If you aren't totally self-sufficient, that's also fine: Strategies 1 and 2 will help you to pool your risk with others. Part of risk pooling is also to think about keeping some extra resources on hand, which you can share with others in need. Aktipis recommends a rule of always sharing when you can, and always asking when you need something -- with the one exception of not sharing with specific people if it's clear that you can't trust them. But a general attitude of openness and sharing is more conducive to collective survival than an attitude of scarcity and self-protection; the worst thing you can do in an apocalypse, she argues, is to sit on top of a pile of resources and try to defend it with a gun. The problem with that strategy is that it makes you the enemy, and other people will readily band together to remove you as a threat.

A final strategy involves keeping your spirits up, and your wits about you. I have written repeatedly about the negative effects of stress on the body, and some of the ways to combat it. But in the event of a true crisis, being a little bit light-hearted about the severity of a dangerous situation can paradoxically help to ensure that you will survive it. She recommends things like music, jokes, and conversation to maintain a positive outlook, friendships, and maintaining a good baseline of physical health, as well as an attitude of hopefulness and "embracing the suck" rather than wishing things were other than the way they are. To this I might add sources of strength like faith, family, and generosity towards others. One of the key functions of hope is to keep us looking forward, and it has an evolutionary advantage: Lack of hope leads to "endgame effects" in which it does start to look advantageous to betray others for your own self-interest, and the overall structure of social support begins to unravel. 

The single most important message of Aktipis's book is that whatever happens, people need to be in it together. Arguably, a lack of "in-it-togetherness" is part of what's causing our more-apocalyptic-than-ever worldwide problems. For example, global pandemics are more likely than in the past because of increased travel and trade, but also because individual behavior change is needed to prevent negative collective consequences. System-level factors account for most of the errors in health care, and are produced by lack of communication and coordination between health workers. And many political conflicts -- and even wars -- can be explained by perceived differences in values between people on opposite sides. Connecting with other people is arguably the single most important thing we can do both to survive crises and to prevent them.

How do we go about this? Since the 1960s, sociologists have recognized an effect in which people in large groups experience diffusion of responsibility, preferring to keep to themselves and manage their own affairs while assuming that someone else will take care of any collective problems. Programs like insurance and government safety nets are designed to address collective risks, but these programs have grown so diffuse, and the risks have become so large and inter-related with one another, that we can no longer depend on them to save us. Aktipis therefore argues for a healthy dose of self-insurance, both to reduce our own risks and to have the ability to care for ourselves in a minor emergency. And closer social ties are useful in numerous other ways.

She also argues for risk-pooling in smaller groups, similar to the role played in past times by fraternal societies like the Masons, or still played for many people by church communities. Other groups like the fellow parents in a PTA, members of a club or sports team, or neighborhood associations might play this role for people as well. Basically any group that you could ask for help in a crisis, who might bring you food if you are ill, and who you might be willing to support with your own money or labor, can fill this role. An employer probably does not do the trick, because your relationship with that organization is mainly an economic exchange; however, a set of friends or coffee group among your co-workers may be effective. If you accept Aktipis's argument, you might want to prioritize finding this type of social support group. Her suggestions include joining relevant groups, talking to everyone you meet, and becoming practiced at identifying common interests with others. This is how people have survived past apocalypses, and these skills will serve us in good stead for future apocalypses as well.