In some corners of the internet, you’ll find people sharing and comparing photos of their ‘bug-out bags’. These are backpacks or duffle bags stuffed full of things their owners believe they’ll need in an emergency, from water and bandages to flares and gas masks. Keeping such a bag packed sounds quite prudent, especially for people who live in areas prone to flood or wildfire, or who may need to escape an unsafe environment. Disaster can strike anytime, so it’s good to be prepared.
However, many of these bags are clearly built around survivalist fantasies of rugged self-reliance, rather than real-life emergencies. (The suspiciously high prevalence of weapons is a giveaway. You rarely need to shoot a forest fire). As one online wit pointed out, when the time comes that you really do need a
