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Metus comments on Open thread for December 24-31, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Recently I ordered some free info material from my government in Germany about preparing for catastrophes and correct behaviour in case of one. It was surprisingly informative to read and I missed the long list of cited sources at the end but still I am willing to believe their advise.
This made me then wonder: What other quite 'fundamental' info of that kind is out there? I am wondering more specifically about info about infrequent but important events - either positive or negative - because that is where human rationality tends to fail horribly. Edit: I am not talking about survival/emergencies specifically. My question is not clear because I can't quite put my finger on what I am looking for yet. Recently I got something like a "summary to good health" from my health insurance which, among other things, lists dietary advice, exercise and all preventative tests they are paying for. I liked that very much, too. Maybe I am looking for extensive but not very deep overviews so I can check if I heard about all of the popular things I can do to help my life? Edit2: I am thinking about advice like "Take a first aid course, not many people do it, but it might save the life of someone important to you." The recurring theme seem to things not many people do and/or things that are relevant only in infrequent situations like buying a house for personal use, marriage or catastrophes.
It sounds somewhat like the boring advice repository which for some reason did not ring with me. Maybe it was the unsystematic, inconsistent nature of it?
Big wodge of information about first aid, emergency preparedness, and what to do if the emergency happens, posted at Making Light, which has smart well-informed commenters. I would assume that it's an accurate summation of what was known when it was written.
Now that seems interesting, I will take a look at that.
I always recommend that people who are even remotely interested in this kind of stuff take a wilderness medicine course. Wilderness medicine is all about decision making under conditions of limited time and information, so it seems like the kind of thing that would interest LWers.
You'll have to specify "fundamental" better. What are you looking for? How to stop bleeding? How to start a fire in the rain? How to build a house with no tools other than an axe? How to run a farm with no engines or fertilizer?
In the US at least there is a large community/meme/circle of "survivalists" who are preparing for life after TEOTWAWKI -- The End Of The World As We Know It. They have active forums and LOTS of information about what to do after a catastrophe.
See my edit. I know of that community as I read about them in a mixture of social and practical fascination. I ordered the info material mentioned because I was curious what my government specifically advises to do in different scenarios they deem plausible and they range from 'simple' house fires to large-scale contamination of air by biological or nuclear material.
Is there an English translation? It sounds interesting.
There is a direct translation of a older version of what I ordered: Link. Also available are translations in Turkish, French, Italian, Polish, Russian, ...
However, there are equivalent organisations in all modern countries, the relevant agency in the Unted States is FEMA with their info website ready.gov. I didn't look into it very much as I do not suppose that there are huge differences in quality of information.
One thing that comes just now to mind but I can't recall being mentioned is to complete a first aid course. In Germany everyone who wants to have a driver's licence is required to complete a course in lifesaving immediate actions which is a subset of a proper first aid course focused on injuries usually sustained in a car accident.
I doubt that many people remember much of this after even a couple of months, though.
That is why first aid certificates are only recognised if you take a booster course every year. Nonetheless, the rationale behing this rule is to increase the ability to save a life in case of accident. Me taking a proper first aid course is something I could do to save the life of a person I care deeply about or just some stranger.