Preppers are patriots

Preppers Are Patriots

Luck, it’s said, favors the prepared. Pure propaganda, if you ask me. Luck favors no one—that’s the point. Personally, I’m not prepared for anything, least of all this newsletter (kidding), but that puts me in the minority. A full 51 percent of Americans are, as Jasper Craven writes in his new piece, in some way “prepared for disaster.”

As, it seems, they’re expected to be—the US government advises every citizen to build a disaster kit. Consider, too, the names of two of the better-known suppliers of emergency gear: 4Patriots and My Patriot Supply. It’s prepperism as patriotism! Pledge allegiance to the flag, serve in the military, eat a hot dog, and buy this generator of questionable quality today!

Important fact about 4Patriots and My Patriot Supply: They hate each other. I suppose, in the modern era, that counts as patriotism too. Jasper gets into the details, which are devilish, but what I’ll say here is, happy new year. I mean it. Is there anything more America-in-January-2026 than a story about disaster preparedness? Then again, I have great hopes for this year. Preparedness is for losers, for people who can’t live in the moment. I’ll take my chances. Wish me luck!

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Disaster Larping

The term “prepper” has lately come to signify a certain class of wealthy, libertarian-minded mountain state residents with doomsday on the brain. But as you move toward the Pacific Ocean, and toward a particularly menacing threat called the Cascadian Subduction Zone, the word can apply to almost anyone. In the Pacific Northwest, most people have stowed at least a couple gallons of water in preparation for the Big One—a 9.0 earthquake that has a roughly one-in-three chance of striking the region in the next five decades.

Here, “prepping” is so common that the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management does training exercises—including an obstacle-laden bike race meant to mimic post-disaster conditions. Competitors range from first responders to regular Joes who want to be able to help their communities after the worst happens. In 2022, WIRED sent our senior commerce editor and Portland resident Adrienne So to participate in the race. Her resulting feature is both action-packed and informative, and it prompts questions about what it means to be prepared for events we aren’t capable of imagining. Whether or not we live within the radius of the Big One, our cozy existence might one day be threatened by any number of Exodus-style horrors. Are you prepared?  Share your plans, or lack thereof, in a comment below the story, or send me an email.

One of the most pointed-to ills of the AI boom has been water usage, with writers and social media users often calculating the thirst of a single chatbot query in units of bottles. A few weeks ago, Molly Taft, WIRED’s science writer, wrote about how we need to reframe our understanding of this particular piece of the AI puzzle. Their article gets pretty detailed, since reality is naturally much more nuanced than social media makes it seem. In the comments, some readers pointed out what they saw as flaws in Taft’s analysis—for example, should we include or exclude indirect water usage? Others, like a user going by Belmontian, pointed out how incredibly difficult it is to ever get an accurate measure, because “future use of AI will not be limited to a few individual queries and photos generated. AI processes will be running constantly.”

Tell us about your favorite WIRED stories and magazine-related memories. Write to samantha_spengler@wired.com, and include “CLASSICS” in the subject line.