Not that they could have afforded to anyway, but Afghans did not hoard. Situations in which survival is precarious require you to be nimble. That includes being able to pack up and leave at a moment's notice. If you manage to accumulate some possessions, you want something highly portable: cash (in Afghanistan, that meant US dollars), jewelry, gemstones. A year's worth of toilet paper weighs you down.
I have met more than my fair share of survivalists in the United States. Typically their instinct is to hunker down on a remote plot of land, stockpile weapons and supplies, fortify a perimeter and arm up to fend off potential marauders. They are foolish. When the crap hits the fan, the best armed man will not be able to fight off a dozen invaders. It's smarter to pack up and go if your area turns into a battle zone.
What you really need to stock up on are two items: personal relationships and IQ points. Both make the difference between life and death.
Good friends welcome one other into their homes. If one home is lost, they can squeeze together into a second one. A good friend might have a skill or a possession that you might needthey can stitch up a wound or drive you somewhere in their car.
You make yourself useful in a failed state by exactly the opposite means you would use in oursï ¿ ¼. In the United States in 2020, it pays to have excellent skills in one or two areas, to be the best at what you do in your specialty. Not in Afghanistan in 2000. Dangerous places work best for people who are renaissance men and women, those with a wide variety of skills. Learn to do a lot of things fairly well. Shoot a gun, drive a car, cook, sew. Translate a foreign language, ride a motorcycle, fish, hunt. You can sell those skills to people who don't have them.
Most of all, stay sharp and think nimbly. Hone your instincts. Watch for changes that might affect you and the people you care about. Prepare to drop everything you are doing at a second's notice and take off if need be. We are all descended from people who lived this way. Those who didn't died. Survival is in your DNA.
I don't think you'll need raw survivalism for the coronavirus apocalypse. But it's worth keeping in the back of your mind.
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