I didn’t say it’d be a good time. I said we wouldn’t freeze to death inside our homes. If your neighbor is elderly or an infant and is at risk of hypothermia, someone in the neighborhood has a wood stove. There are places they can get warm.

Actually, my point is that we are not self reliant at all, but that we have more resilient communities. People come together in the Northeast, in times of crisis. Just look at what’s happening in Buffalo. People opening their warm homes to strangers who were stranded in the middle of the road. We aren’t so different. WNY is a lot more similar to New England than to NYC.

No, self-reliance is what produces Texas level disasters. Run your own power grid where the gas lines aren’t insulated. You’re on your own. You’re prepared, right? It’s bullshit. It’s toxic individualism. Nobody is an island. Even the off grid homesteaders can’t sustain themselves forever. How the hell did they afford that land, anyway? By chopping wood and growing potatoes? Give me a break.