Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com Transcript
Note: This transcript was automatically generated by artificial intelligence (AI) and therefore typos may be present.
Rob McNealy
Hey, today I am talking to john Stokes. He is someone I met in person down at SHOT show. But we’ve been talking to each other for a while on social media. He is the originally one of the co founders of ARS Technica. He’s a former Wired editor, and programmer author. And now he is currently the deputy editor of the prepared calm. So john, welcome to the show. How are you?
Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
Good, good. Thanks for having me on.
Rob McNealy
Well, I appreciate you taking the time. I think it’s very prescient, what’s going on today in the news around the world with this Corona virus stuff. But before we got to jump into that, give us a little bit of background and about what you’re working on right now and how you got there working with ThePrepared.com.
Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
So I was had taken a bit of time off, and I, I was kind of figuring out what I was going to do next. ended up starting to work on a prepping book because I had gotten into this through writing for the firearm blog and all outdoor I started for a second media. And so I had had a lot of exposure to the prepping scene I was a bit of a prepper myself. I was sort of moderately serious like not super serious, but we covered a lot of the prepping stuff on all outdoor and so I kind of got plugged into it and I learned a lot we had the founder of the survive survival sports, com Kevin felts work work for us on there, and so just a lot of that scene. So I liked it, and I was thinking, What am I gonna do next, and I was kind of done with the programming thing for a while I had, like a couple of years where I wanted to do like a CTO track kind of deal and like get into tech and get out of media. I didn’t like online media. So I started working on this prepping book and I was going to a website and I thought you know, something like the wire cutter, but for preppers because nobody had done this and this was a kick that I had been on for like four years, I want to do it like a wire cutter for preppers. And then I came across the prepared and it had been in existence for close, it was coming up on the one year anniversary when I found the site. And I was like, Man, this is this is like what I want to do next, I already have like a bunch of content written and this is something that I’m really interested in. I’m going to hit up the founder and see if I can invest. So, so I hit up the founder, I found them on Facebook and ping them. Sky john Ramy, who had previously been an ad tech and was a Silicon Valley prepper guy and so we started chatting and he’s like, I’m thinking of raising around this is bootstrapped and so so I was like, Look, man, you know, let’s let’s work together instead of me doing my own thing. Why don’t we? Why don’t we kind of like get together and join forces and so We did and I ended up participating around and coming on as the deputy editor. And I’ve been working on the site since and I think we closed around in January of 2019. And I believe I came on full time and like november of 2018. So it’s been a little over a year that I’ve been that I’ve been doing this full time.
Rob McNealy
So how’s it growing?
Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
Well, the answer prior to January of this year would have been modestly but but robustly the answer as I’ll you know, January was insane bananas. And then as of today in the past, like 48 hours, we just had to upgrade the server package like massively because we, you know, blown you know, we blown past like, like pretty much everything that we would have expected to do and unlike, you know, a probably the next two years. So, so there’s a lot of traffic right now there’s a lot of interest in what we’re doing. We just our timing was very good. Speaking of good timing, the blog was not a big part of the site. It was more evergreen content guides, deep detailed reviews, stuff that people would find via Google. And in December, we had done it we had tried to kind of boot up the blog a little bit in fits and starts. And then we built this big kit builder tool that will it’s kind of like lighter pack is actually modeled a lot after lighter pack, but it’s for preppers. And it’s to put together bug out bags and other kinds of kits and keeps track of weight and price. And so I did the API for that. So I did the back end. Um, it’s basically like sort of an SBA embedded in WordPress. And then I did the API for the app. And so I kind of I kind of focused on that let the blog languish and so I got back into the blog. In December and really started hustling the blog into December and then shop show was going to be like the big okay we’re seriously doing the blog thing now. And shacho courses also is the end of January is when this coronavirus stuff exploded. So I was actually going back from SHOT Show and I saw a really good friend of mine, Arielle and for your on Facebook, he was on my old RS writers, and he had been posted about the virus and was like, I’m gonna start taking a real look at this now. And so I thought, Okay, well I’ve already posted about this on Facebook I’m about to write about for the prepared. And so and I had really, I mean, we had kept in touch on Facebook, but I hadn’t followed his career since it’s ours because he when he started writing for me at ours, he was an undergrad at University of Chicago. commodify is principal data scientist at GlaxoSmithKline and has a PhD in bioinformatics and develops drugs for a living so he’s like, you know, like dead center of kind of who will want to track this. And so he started writing about, about a forest and like that work that he I was like super key super critical so I don’t know how to mute this anyway so so that the work that he did was was really critical and and it’s been taken off since then it’s been going completely nuts you know it’s the blog is basically just offering a virus all the time now I’m going to go back into doing some gear doing some other knockaround virus stuff because we are spinning up other people that can help with the load it’s basically just been me and some stuff from our butt but but that’s kind of the the story of the blog and the coronavirus coverage recently.
Rob McNealy
Well, you know, we you know, I’ve talked you know, at length about you know, prepping and things like that and I’ve been in prepper kind of minded person for a long time. You know, I’m not like oh, I discovering prepping like in the last week like everybody else’s right now on Twitter. Then, you know, we organize that conference every year called off chain, which is a mash up of crypto and preparedness and things like that. So I actually am not freaking out because I feel pretty comfortable with where I am with our preps and things like that because, you know, we we just like to have an extra amount of insurance at all times because you never know when there’s going to be a natural disaster or something like that. But it’s interesting right now with the way Corona is, is that previously or prior to this, you know, white collar people and people that prep usually kept it quiet. Because they didn’t want to be seen as like this like Kook or tin foil hat guy or this redneck kind of guy. And it’s interesting, like literally, like in the last month, I’m starting to see like, oh, everyday people that are like, Oh, yeah, of course prepping is what everybody should be doing. And I’m like, dude, where were you guys like five years ago. It’s like, you know, it seems like everybody’s like now really Realizing that you know, being prepared for things is actually kind of a thing you should be doing. So, and you guys kind of come at it, I think from a little more of the prepping side of it, at least with what I’ve seen on your website, is that you guys are a little more intellectual about it. And not just that kind of that weird stereotype or critique that people have about, you know, preppers in general. I mean, are you deliberately coming at it from a different perspective? Do you think?
Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
Yeah, we, we really didn’t want to do anything that looked like a traditional forever website. And in fact, my personal goal, and I think I think john, the founder shares this goal is that it’d be great if at some point in the future, the word prepping wasn’t even on the website. This should just be like a normal part of adulting. It should be a thing people do. It shouldn’t be like a niche activity or a subculture. People shouldn’t have to learn a new lingo. It’s there. You know. There’s not um there was a car enthusiast scene, you know, back in the day muscle cars and stuff now just, you know, there’s still a car scene but like people just own cars, you have a car, you know, I mean, I could think of half a dozen analogies, but this shouldn’t be a niche activity that has its own lingo and subculture you know, people are into it in secret or in public or whatever. It’s just part of what you do. It’s like buying home insurance or buying there’s a fire insurance community there’s no home insurance community there’s no you know, anything like that it’s just something you do. So that’s that’s very much where we come where we come out of bro.
Rob McNealy
Well, I see that every year during like hurricane season where all of a sudden they show the you know, the the typical grocery store shelves are completely empty, and I’m thinking if you live on the coast in Florida, this should never be happening.
Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
I grew up in Louisiana and on the Louisiana Gulf Coast. I know what it’s like to put your stuff in the car and sit for hours in a hurricane evacuation line have evacuated a couple times. My family evacuated for returned after Katrina. I worked in the Katrina shelters in Lake Charles, Louisiana where I’m from. So yeah, Hurricane perhaps tracking hurricanes during hurricane season, having having fuel having stuff on hand to be ready to bug out. This was just what you did when you lived there. It was there was no subculture there wasn’t like a term for it. We didn’t call it anything. You just were ready for a hurricane.
Rob McNealy
So coronavirus, there’s been a lot of media attention given to this and it’s interesting how, at least on social media, it’s somehow becoming a partisan political issue which to me is absurd. But yet I you’re seeing out there where some people are saying the the coronavirus is overhyped. Some people are saying is under hyped Where is your take? Or what’s your take on it? Where are you coming from on the corona? Is this something that Americans should be worried about now?
Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
Yeah, you know, I think whether it’s overhyped or under hype depends on your filter bubble. I mean, really, it’s just this is a moment that has highlighted for me the degree to which we all kind of live in different information silos, dependent on where you get your news, who you follow, what kind of voices you listen to, you’re going to have a different headspace about this. And, and this information, you know, the silos, they’re not they’re not disjointed, they leak into each other. So, you know, I have a, I have a very carefully curated list that I have for this. Some people discover it and so you can subscribe to it on my Twitter feed. I follow people you know, I’m constantly adding deleting people and there has been a political aspect to it since the beginning. You know, frankly, there are some people and infectious disease, morality, virology epidemiology who have been more or less alarmed. There have been some people that have come from a certain political slant that you can tell from their bios that are constantly telling everybody to calm down and not panic and this is no big deal and they’ve set themselves over against the alarmist people. You know, that that’s how it is. People have different opinions on things, especially about the future. So So I’ve watched this evolve, I’ve watched virology and infectious disease Twitter and epidemiology, Twitter evolve, and kind of converge on on a more heightened state of concern heightened state of alarm. I’ve watched my media feed I have a lot of I have a media network from you know, 20 something years and online media. Watch the film take up this topic and begin talking about it and worried about it. I’m starting as of the last 24 hours to see this really spread in a big way in my normie feed on Facebook used to I would post something from the prepared I’d get like three likes you know now the the kind of stereotypical, you know, suburban moms and dads and just normal people are are picking up our posts and our Rulon coronavirus page and our sharing is blown up just in the past 48 hours so so there has been a lot of different depending on what subset you are going to where you listen who you listen to your political affiliation and yeah there there is I’m aware that rush limbaugh is telling people that this is some kind of democrat plot the tank the election, tank the markets and you know, something like this. I know that that’s going on. I’m not engaging with it, publicly, like on Twitter and stuff because you know, a nobody got time for that. Like I’m we’re here trying to get people ready. And I don’t care what kind of politics you have. If you’re if you’re super Trumpy if you’re, you know, Bernie Sanders stand Elizabeth Warren, I just don’t care. I want you to be ready. You know, I want you to have the right information and I want you have your head in the right place about this. As far as being concerned about it. I am. I’m really concerned. I mean, I think that i think that’s cool closures in this country and in a lot of areas are kind of I really think that’s a lot. I think it’s gonna happen. As far as a, you know, voluntary shelter in place for a lot of people is going to happen, it’s already happened and there are already people that I’m in touch with that are bugging out, leaving the city, you know, going out to the country if they’ve got like a relative something like this that’s already quietly happening, just the way that the Costco runs have been kind of quietly happening this week. So So more than that, going to pick up more that’s going to happen. How far this is going to go, very difficult for me to say, I try not to you can always you can always, very plausibly model a worst case scenario, you just can and I am a guy that has followed every crisis in the last, you know, two years like in a detailed way. So when we were nose to nose with North Korea and the summer of 2017. I was like I had an appetite, Twitter feed, national security Twitter feed, I followed a super closely and you how close we came or ran stuff from last summer. I followed that really closely. I was on you know, pins and needles with it. Like every one of these different crises that we’ve had recently. I’ve been right in there. I followed the experts, and I know how bad it can look and I knew how it can dissipate. I’ve seen it all happen you know you never press the red button because something always happens but I also was an investor during 2008 and I followed 2008 closely and unfolding there so I’ve seen like a real legit crisis happen and what I’ve learned is you can’t predict the future there are some drugs we’re about to have a blog post on this now the blog is backup I have a post and the camera I’ve got edit there are some drugs like an anti malarial drug and some other drugs that are very very promising at at a rest in the disease that goes with this so so we I’m not we’re not gonna have a vaccine anytime soon. year would be an absolute minimum. But we may find other therapies that work so summer could still I don’t I don’t put a lot of faith in the idea that one weather is going to knock this out. But it could it could be could tamp it down some combination of summer weather and a malarial drug which is already made it scale could be ramped up and could help and could forestalls little worst case scenario. So there’s a range of possibilities. But I think minimum minimum baseline is going to be, you’re going to be at home for a week or two, your kids are going to be at home for a while. You may have to remote work, stuff like that. I think that that stuff is very, very, very likely.
Rob McNealy
So it’s interesting. So my perspective on things like this is I monitor and I’m open minded, and I’m a skeptical at the same time. And so I have a I’m very curious, and I don’t tend to overreact. Some may know that my wife is actually a medical doctor who actually works as a government contractor to the federal government. And so and I’m a former EMT, and so I do view things through the eyes of, you know, a person who’s worked as a first responder for a long time and on this issue, and I tried to be very rational and in you know, controlled about how I view it. Mike, I think the big unknowns that I think a lot of people that I’m seeing around the coronavirus is the fact that one of many of us don’t trust China. And I think the big unknown is what’s Bs, what’s real and what’s happening in China, because you see all these random, you know, clips then you don’t know the context of the clip. You don’t know where it came from things of that nature. But that’s what has a lot of ups like me concerned is I don’t know, I don’t know what’s real are the numbers on that little tracker app that’s out there. Are those real? Are those are being underreported? Are they being over reported? The one thing that least between conversation with my wife and I about this is that at least in my lifetime, I can’t remember where large population centers in China have been completely locked down. In this quarantine. I don’t recall that’s ever happened. Before So, in my mind, this isn’t just SARS, this isn’t the flu, this is something different. It definitely has some government officials over there concerned because they’re taking much more extreme action than I’ve ever seen. So the question is that I would have for you, do you believe that the numbers and reporting about this in China are accurate being underreported over reported or accurate or you know, are normal.
Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
So we have a reporter in Beijing. That is that is done some work on this for us, and this is the source. And she’s, she writes for a mainstream outlet is fluent in English in Chinese is native Chinese. And we’ve talked to her about this, I followed this, and my take home on that is that, of course the the the absolute number is going to China in terms of the magnitude or garbage They’re not real, but directionally in terms of when things are swelling and when they’re dropping, that seems to be broadly like probably right. I think that it seems likely that the extreme lockdown measures that the Chinese have done, have arrested the spread and stop the growth and use cases outside of Dubai. I think that’s probably likely i think it’s it’s likely that things may be getting better and move on right now. Again, now, these are people that have been locked down for weeks, they have been under very like welded doors welded shut it not able to go out for groceries, extreme quarantine measures, that’s going to have an impact. Social distancing is apart from hand hygiene. Social distancing is the number one thing that you’re going to do to turn the arrow around in the absence of a vaccine to turn the, you know, the arrow is the, the viral coefficient, which says how far it spreads. And so you want to get that below one. And so to get it below one, if you don’t have a vaccine, you’re gonna have to keep people from spreading it to each other, like physical separation. The Chinese have done an insane amount of that. And it’s probably worked outside of just so so. So my point there is that like directionally when you look at the China, of course, there’s, there’s far more cases far more death than they reported. But I think it is very likely that that things are getting better and some of the cities because of the extremists of the measures, big questions are Can we do that here in the West? Can you do that? Can you lock down a Chicago when people have got guns and you know, stuff like this? open question. To me, I think, if people are scared enough, you know, maybe But I really don’t know. Other questions are about the Chinese health system now in the world, the world, the who is ranking of health systems, they’re pretty far down there, you know, below us. But then but then, you know, these Asian countries have been fighting, have been prepping for SARS mer stuff like this for a while and they’ve got ventilators they can China can ramp up hospital production stuff like this. So there are a lot of unknowns there. I think it’s more instructive for me to look at what’s happening now and what’s unfolding in South Korea, what’s unfolding in Japan? Iran less so but still, that stuff is going to tell the tale because yeah, you’re right. China is largely a black box, a lot of noise. Very difficult to get signal. But But now things of things are in a different a different realm. Italy. Keep an eye on Italy, you know.
Rob McNealy
Yeah. One of the things that my wife and I have kind of looked at is, the United States is very different than Asia and Europe, you know, if those different, you know, those countries decide that you’re going to stay put, they will enforce that. Whereas Americans are a little more persnickety about constitutional rights and things like that. And I keep thinking, you know, I’ve seen people where they have tuberculosis or something, they shouldn’t be going around in public because they’re supposed to be under self quarantine. And they’re like, well, I ran out of smoke. So I had to go to the store, right. And in between our, you know, our homeless populations and Americans just happened to travel a lot more than I think a lot of a lot of places around the world like China, people don’t move around quite as much as we do. And I think, you know, I think Americans are going to be less likely to do self quarantine for me and I was talking to some people in a group that I’m in I’m in a group right now that is talking about prepping for this and look at it like this. Americans send their kids to school. when they’re sick, and they go to work now sick because they think nothing of possibly infecting their friends or coworkers, because it might be inconvenient for them to stay home or have their kids stay home. And I’m not sure that’s going to change just because of this. And it goes back to, you know, people are, you know, you know, going down, you know, partisan lines and saying some people like, Oh, it’s no big deal and all this other stuff. And I’m like, there’s there’s two factors that have been most concerned, you know, because we don’t you’re right. We don’t know yet. how bad it is, because until it starts getting into other countries, and where we have probably better information and communication coming out. It’s hard to evaluate, you know, what this really looks like. And I agree with you, I think the extreme powers that the Chinese government haven’t or you know, the the quarantines and the extreme measures they’ve taken probably are effective. I don’t think the American government can do the same thing and I don’t think Americans will put up with it. And that’s what has me concerned about here. That is actually might get more if it is as bad as we think it is, it might get more out of hand here than it would say it in China. The other the other thing that I’m sorry, good. Oh, the other thing has me concerned is is the economic impacts of this. I’ve been trying to do some research about how much of our supply chain, it comes from China. And the numbers range from anywhere from 20 to 50%. Of all the stuff we get is manufactured in China right now. And my concern is, is that depending on which store you’re talking about, we only have between 30 and 90 days of inventory isn’t like their buffer, right. That’s about what the American supply chain holds currently. The question is, how long is China going to be shut down from their production levels? And how is that going to impact the United States? And so, to me, even if, say, we don’t have a viral outbreak that gets out of hand here. How does the economic impact of the Chinese government and their political production. How does that trade impact? You know, our economy, for instance, a big chunk of our building materials are supplied from China right now. And right now a lot of our economy is being driven by the the current housing bubble that we’re in. Well, even if, you know the price of materials goes up 20% or 30%, that could do a lot to put the brakes on the housing market, which could really hurt the economy. Have you been looking at any of the economic potential economic impacts of coronavirus outside just the normal viral part of it?
Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
Yeah, I mean, I’m an investor. I pay close attention to this. I’m very concerned about it. I’ve been talking to other finance people investor types. They were largely not concerned before Sunday night, Sunday night there was some kind of shift in as aight guys, I think well, I’ll be One of the things was that the stock market futures just started to get really ugly. And it was clear on Sunday night that it was going to bloodbath on Monday. There was a big shift in the Zeitgeist on Sunday. I woke up Sunday morning, I had conversations with with market types. And they were like, yeah, I’m a little worried about this, but but we’re gonna handle it. And then Sunday night, you know, it turns into Well, you know, there’s a lot of deer in my neighborhood that I could do. So it’s like, seriously things things change fast for a lot of people. And, and, and so I bill I’m worried about this. I it’s hard for me to model a lot of a lot of what I think is that this is a we’re not destroying a lot of productive capacity. This is not like a war where factories getting bombed or something like this. It’s it’s one of these things where they’re there may be some kind of V shaped recovery. Once people go back to work, factories reopen, that kind of thing. And I think the system will knit will knit itself back together more rapidly than people think. That said, everybody with a brain is now looking at their dependence on on single sources in China and Asia. And thinking, Okay, well, clearly, I’ve got geographic risk. I knew that I had geographic risk, but I didn’t care. But now I care. This isn’t going to happen again. And we’re going to diversify. And so that’s going to have all kinds of impacts on the cost of goods and employment, the US and stuff that’s really hard to think through. But my top line is that is that at some point, depending on how bad this gets, I mean, there are scenarios where you’ve got medical bankruptcies that, you know, frees up the credit system and vaporize a big chunk of the economy. You know, you’ve got people you got a scenario where a lot of people are staying home. looking after their school’s out, like, let’s say that we did what just happened in Japan today, where they announced that all the schools are closed, somebody’s gonna look after those kids. So that’s a lot of people stay at home and a lot of people missing paychecks, a lot of people aren’t financially prepared. There could be a really large impact. But I mean, I think the government’s going to need a government up to and including negative rates and helicopter money, they’re going to do what they can do to get people spend and again, so we have we have maybe some tools there. I don’t know. I tried to maintain some optimism as an investor that that we can snap back pretty quickly. And I also part of this is my experience with 2008. You know, I was bearish for too long. I was bearish into 2010 so I missed a big a big turn up on the market. And you know, I finally got religion near the end of 2010. I was like, Okay, well, this you know, this is real. There’s a real recovery here. This is happening and And I got back in. Um, so I’ve seen how fast things can turn around how suddenly they can turn around. And the big thing to remember too, and this is what people miss, I think with a lot of the doomsday scenarios and the doomsday prepping is when you bet against against the market and you bet against civilization and economy, you’re betting against the combined efforts, the best efforts and billions of people to make this thing go. Humans collectively are trying to make it work. We’re all trying to make it work, whatever for some definition of making it work. And I don’t want to bet against that. I don’t want to gamble that that all those billions of individual efforts at trying to trying to make something productive trying to make money trying to hustle trying to feed themselves are going to go to pot You know, they’re going to amount to nothing so so I like I said I maintain some some optimism but but there are scenarios. I think you’re right Our hospital system is very under resourced. We have a lot of problems, like I said, with people missing work, medical bills, all this kind of stuff is bad already. And this virus is going to whack it hard. And we’re going to see how that shakes out. And it could get really ugly. We don’t have a lot of capable centralized response and not a lot of capability to respond to this. Then there’s the election. You know, I wrote the big, big wired up as a big in terms of length, it was very long. I think it also did pretty well in terms of traffic, but it was it was a it was immediate, immediate editorial about the possible impact on the election and how, you know, do we really want to send people to polling places to stand in line and breathe on each other and touch the same touch screens in November if we’ve got a viral epidemic raging over here and fill out hospitals, I don’t think we do. So there’s that aspect. I said we should move immediately to vote. By Mail, I do not hold out a lot of hope of anything like that happening. I think what is probably realistically going to happen is we’re going to have a big fight over if if there is a big if if the summer doesn’t stop it, and if we’re not able to tamp it down and if we’re still like very substantially fighting this in November. I think that we’re going to have a big argument over whether or not to postpone the election, because there will be a lot of urban dense urban areas where people are not going to want to turn out for this and we will probably not postpone the election. I just I think the the baseline scenario is escalating, nothing gets done, there is no vote by mail. There is a fight over putting it off, but nothing enough is put off and then we just have a situation where rural turnout is is a lot better than urban turnout. And you know, who knows which way things swing if the Rules types are still are still looking for for another Trump term or if they’re sour on them because of the coronavirus response. I don’t have a crystal ball. But but either way you slice it, it’s going to 2020 is going to be even more contentious than we all kind of thought it was. And I know a lot of people, myself included, were looking for trouble around the election in 2020 thinking, well, things are going to get are going to get spicy, and we’re going to be at each other’s throats. And we may see some instances of domestic you know, crazy breakout here. And and I think we were already worried about that I was already worried about it. Now even more worried about it.
Rob McNealy
So before we wrap up here, what would be the things that you say now? What advice would you give to someone who is not already prepared? What would you be? What would be the things that you think people should stock up on right now while there’s still things on the shelves?
Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
Obviously, the big one is prescription meds if you’re on something, try to get a stockpile of that by hook or by crook. What are you going to do? You know, I’m not not that I’m telling people to go on the dark web and you know, order drugs. But like, seriously, I wouldn’t even know how to find the dark web personally. I mean, you might get some garbage. That’s like fake fentanyl. I’ll send you a URL to really, really yeah, don’t do that. I know nothing about the dark. I know nothing. But uh, but yeah, however, you got to do it. If you got if you’re on if you’re on something, if you’re on heart meds, whatever it is you’re on, and a sudden stoppage of it is gonna is going to wreck your business. Figure out how to get some more. Um, that that’s, that’s the number one thing. The number two thing is you need to eat hygiene. You need hygiene products, especially for a pandemic. So they talk About I think it’s the three is or the three ages of survival or four there’s there’s hygiene and heat and hydration, you know, and that’s actually not the right order. I think it’s like heat hydrate hydration Anyway, there’s some orange thread. hygiene is one of the big ones that kills a lot of people in any kind of survival or disaster situation. hygiene is huge. So you want to get toilet paper, which was being used as currency in Hong Kong and Hong Kong, walk down joining get toilet paper, feminine hygiene products, bleach, alcohol, things to clean your body things to clean your space that you’re in. If you’re in a confined space with a lot of humans for three weeks, it’s going to get nasty and you want to keep it clean. Um, personal protective gear. If you don’t already have a mask, you’re not going to get one. Those are out nitrile gloves are still in stock, pick those up. They’re probably more important, more important than the mask anyway. So that kind of stuff. So, hygiene stuff prescription meds, plenty of water potable water, I do not think the grocery stores were going to be in a situation where there’s no groceries. At least after some initial panic surge there may be like a spell where everybody runs out on possibly this weekend, everybody runs out and just cleans out the grocery store. The trucks are going to keep running there will probably still be groceries. So so that’s why I put food you know less underneath water you know, PPP stuff like that. still get food, start with two weeks but but get a month you know, get three months if you can, however much you I’m telling people that shoot for 90 days, the very people are going to get there but you know, try to shoot for 90 days but do what you can and and just think about the fact that you’re going to be eaten for a month, two months, three months regardless. Try to get it all at once and then eat your way through it as opposed to just go into the store wants A week or you know, every couple days you want food, you know you want entertainment things that distract yourself. Boredom is has been a big problem in the Chinese lockdown and and the other thing that’s happening per source in China is that people just go on social media, and they drive each other crazy. They share rumors and conspiracies and weird stuff and their mental state deteriorates. And they just thought it’s a bad scene. It’s a bad scene if you’ve got a couple of hundred million people in lockdown, which is what happened in China, and they’re all on social media driving each other nuts. You want to have something else to do besides Facebook, besides Twitter, besides whatever you’re into, to be able to unplug from the news and get off that stuff. And, and, you know, spend time with with with whoever you’re locked down with and connect with people. So game board games. puzzles, books, any that stuff those are all now Congratulations, your board game addiction, your puzzle addiction, video games, whatever those are now pandemic preps, you know, you’re, you’re blessed to go forth and like, you know, load up your Steam library or Nintendo downloads or whatever. Because you really just want to, you want to maintain a good mindset. You want to be able to make high quality decisions, you’re able to see what’s going on clearly. And you don’t want to be in a panic or in a frenzy hopped up on a bunch of weird rumors about what’s going down at the local supermarket or somebody found this or you know, the virus is here or there you just don’t you don’t want to be into that stuff. So, so look out for your mind. You know, protect your your physical person, your body, keep yourself clean, keep your space clean. Keep yourself fed. keep yourself hydrated.
Rob McNealy
Sounds good. Jon Stokes. Where can people find out more about you?
Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
ThePrepared.com, visit and check us out. My personal website is just like a bare HTML page john Stokes. com jail in St. Louis, calm you can find out more about what i what i do want to meet you there. But really ThePrepared.com is where I’m spending all my time. Every every waking minute now with this fiber stuff.
Rob McNealy
Very good and I will make sure that I have all that linked up on our website at Rob McNealy calm. JOHN, thank you so much for coming on today.
Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
Thanks for having me.
