It is a question I keep asking myself. Regardless of where you stand on current events – their cause or validity, one thing must be clear and that is we are in for massive changes in our lives. 2020 will go down in my mind as the year everything changed, but the reality for me anyway is that we have been on a path that started long ago. What comes next?
For various reasons, we have given up freedom in the name of public safety, but it was prompted by and continues to flourish in a spirit of fear. We have let regional leaders unconstitutionally control our lives and my concern is that this was just the start. This was a test and even more, draconian enforcement will be needed for the next phase.
But what will that be?
Prepping for what comes next
Prepping for me has always been about taking steps to protect my family from unseen disasters in our lives. A natural part of the prepping process has logically been to consider the most likely events you could be faced with and prepare for those first.
A casual prepper might be concerned about a job loss or natural disaster. These happen every year for an untold number of people outside of any sinister plan. Someone planning for these events is logically going with the most likely scenario first. If you can be prepared for the most likely scenarios, you will be somewhat prepared for the unlikely scenarios too.
I have tried for years to spread this simple truth to the readers of the Prepper Journal and I think we have been very successful. Just look around and there are plenty of people who see the need for prepping and the appropriateness of having supplies, resources, and skills to handle these “common” disasters but as I said in my last article, that is just the baseline. We cannot stop at the bare minimum you need and even having a years’ worth of supplies may not be enough.
Increasingly I am concerned that we are headed down a path that many will look back on and consider a disaster but will go blindly along without realizing we are that frog in the boiling pot. The next event will almost certainly be exponentially worse than this COVID “pandemic” in terms of loss of life, the changes to our society, and our way of life. I believe that events are being orchestrated in a way and we are the subjects. Whether it is a by-product of this pandemic or something that originated before the pandemic, it’s still unknown. What is more certain is the consequences are strangely similar to other plans made previously.
The restrictions we see now are not going to be completely lifted, they will be increased, I think. Why? Isn’t the new vaccine going to solve everyone’s problems? No. Could things be much worse? Yes. Even the WHO admits what most sane people already know that “this is not necessarily the big one.”
“And I will say one thing, and that may come as a shock to people, this pandemic has been very severe. It’s spread around the world extremely quickly and has affected every corner of this planet. But this is not necessarily the big one. This virus is very transmissible, and it kills people, and it has deprived so many people of loved ones. But it’s current case fatality is reasonably low in comparison to other emerging diseases. This is a wake-up call. We are learning now how to do things better, how to do science better, how to do logistics better, how to do training better, how to do governance better, how to communicate better. We’ve developed a whole new science of infodemiology and advanced behavioral science in this way.”
Dr. Mike Ryan
Additionally, he states that even with the vaccine “The likely scenario is the virus will become another endemic virus that will remain somewhat of a threat”
If the threat everyone has been using as justification for the actions they have taken does not go away, why would the measures they put in place be lifted? But what could be the next threat? What comes next? Could it be an even worse virus? Possibly, but I think they have other plans in place for us. This current event is letting them learn how we act and “how to do governance better”. The next event would build upon what they learned this year I think most logically.
What is a Cyber Pandemic?
It should be inarguable from the events of this year that a few things are true. First, we are all much more dependent on technology. I personally need it to work, to write and share this blog, to get paid by my employer, and to communicate with the people I work with. We need technology to stay in touch, to shop, some need it to buy groceries, to tell us where to go. Our reliance on technology is not going away, it has and will only continue to become more vital.
Another thing is true and that is certain entities get to determine what is truth and what you can say. Facebook, Twitter, and Google just to name a few “fact check” articles, censor speech that they deem is inaccurate or false, and silence voices on their platforms if they don’t like what they say.
Free speech is not “free” if you are only allowed to say what someone wants you to say. There are some options you can use besides those platforms though and nothing is preventing someone from creating a new Facebook or a better Google. However, total control cannot be achieved without completely owning all the systems. Think of how China’s great firewall would look in the USA.
A cyber pandemic could be the next thing that is unleashed upon us to completely change the systems we currently use today. An example cause for a cyber pandemic could be a worldwide computer virus that brings the entire internet down or renders many devices inoperable and for public safety, a new solution would have to be implemented.
“The only way to stop the exponential propagation of cyber-COVID would be to fully disconnect all vulnerable devices from one another and the internet to avoid infection. The whole world could experience cyber lockdown until a digital vaccine was developed. All business communication and data transfers would be blocked. Social contact would be reduced to people contactable by in-person visits, copper landline, snail-mail or short-wave radio.”
This new controlled solution that would be put into place in the face of that reality would ostensibly be more intrusive into your privacy, but it would be “necessary for the safety of our country”. A digital 9/11. You may not see that happening, but the World Economic Forum certainly does.
How can you prepare for the next thing?
It is important to clarify that there are events we can prepare for that require resources we would normally be deprived of in a disaster that we can put aside ahead of time for an emergency. The usual items are Food, Water, Shelter, and Security. If you are prepared for a job loss, you can store cash aside, sell stock or property to deal with the loss of income. You have some social safety net mechanisms to take advantage of.
A Natural disaster does not keep going. It has a beginning and an end. If you live through a hurricane, there is clean-up and rebuilding which can be made easier by preparations. You may have boarded your house up and stored provisions further inland where you and your family rode out the storm because you have been watching it and were prepared to leave days before it hit. These are the types of events preppers can purchase or plan their way of solving.
There are other events we cannot prepare for with resources I believe so we are not able to purchase anything ahead of time. All the beans bullets and band-aids in the world will not protect you in some situations. What you can do is observe and at least for now, research. You can be your own fact-checker. Prepping in this light will be more fluid and you will want to have options and information on your side.
How would we prepare to deal with the internet going down for a month?
- Would all shopping cease or would some internet brands still be deemed “essential”? (Amazon and Walmart) Even if they did, the systems UPS and FedEx use to deliver them need the internet – assume they would be essential too.
- Would all news be silenced and only the government would provide you with information? (Ministry of Truth)
- How would you work? Yes, many people still go to work, but I guarantee the internet is required for their business to run.
- How would you pay bills? – Could there be some form of debt moratorium?
- How would banks be affected? Could there be cash withdrawal limits?
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. This type of event would be extremely hard to prepare for. Yes, you could take some steps. You could have cash on hand, you could have a Ham Radio to talk to people remotely but for a large portion of the world, this would be crippling. Do you think the suicide rate is high now?
I do not want to end on a negative note because I try to write articles that give solutions. This one has me stumped so far. I think something on this scale would cause widespread panic and violence. I could see martial law declared. I could even see UN forces in some of the major cities to quell the violence – partly because we have said the police need to be disbanded – another curious artifact of this year…Coincidence?
Let me say this to all of you who have been prepping so far. Keep doing what you are doing but cast your gaze a little wider than your local emergencies. Think about what would happen in less likely cases. Imagine slightly more bizarre scenarios because you need to think about what you could do, might need, to protect your family. If this year has taught us anything, it should be that nobody knows what comes next.
