I am not a prepper, but I always found immediate dismissal of their stance odd. If you see clouds on the horizon, reasonable people start preparing. Some preparations take longer than others so longer than others. And this does not account for the fact that one the steady lull ( in US and most of Europe ) of the past 70 or so years is not the norm in our world.

Well usually when people refer to someone as a prepper its the specific type of person that is buying hundreds of guns, tons of dehydrated meals but still living on city water - like they're preparing for a disaster movie but not anything real. Specifically the idea that you would be able to stay in place, with all your hoarded disaster crap, during the end of the world is kind of funny.

The kind of prepping in "prepper" culture though is bullshit. People living and having actual experience in such dangerous places don't prep like that.

I mean preppers are mostly cosplayers and I don't criticize people who go to comicon either. If you're not hurting anyone there's nothing wrong with having an unrealistic hobby or one without a lot of practical utility (even if the premise of the hobby is having practical utility).

But the western Roman empire fell and cities depopulated and folks switched back to subsistence farming for hundreds of years.

And plenty of places have been at war and had much of civilization's usefulness diminished from days to decades. Not to mention straightforward natural disasters.

My prepping is limited to buying toilet paper at costco and having bags of beans and rice and such in my pantry and just... knowing how to do things in general.

calling someone a prepper is an adhom, just like calling a greenie a tree hugger. just another way to dismiss something that is emotionally confronting so one can continue to feel some comfort in their own bubble.