Why subscribe to Unprepared?
If you didn’t have power for three days, what would you do? What if you didn’t have power for three weeks? What if your kitchen catches on fire? What if you blow a tire? What if World War III breaks out?
The world is an increasingly weird place. Do you feel unprepared to handle it? Stop worrying and take control!
My name is Josh Centers, and I want to help you prepare for whatever with down-to-earth sensible advice. You won’t find political screeds or conspiracy theories here, just in-depth guides and how-tos on surviving life’s emergencies, both big and small. I’m a former editor at The Prepared. You’ve also seen me talk prepping in USA Today and on Voice of America.
What You Get for Your Money
My current publication plan is to have at least two posts per week, consisting of how-tos, news roundups, and other items.
There may be more. For instance, if the stuff hits the fan and you need to know, I’ll let you know ASAP. My goal is maximum signal with minimal noise.
What People Are Saying
“Josh is a crisp clear writer that has a knack for communicating vital information in a crisis without alarmism.” — Julie Fredrickson, subscriber and founder of chaotic.capital
“Good stuff - thank you!” — Erica Ryberg, subscriber
“This is great, I subscribed for this article and am really glad I did.” — Pekka, subscriber
“Centers has a real talent for distilling a certain kind of prepper ideology into its most absurd form: The man wrote a jingle with his wife that went, in part: ‘For World War III, I bought a couple of buckets and hit the Dollar Tree.’" — Molly Osberg, The New Republic
(We’ll forgive her for getting the lyrics wrong.)
“It turns out one of our listeners has a blog called Unprepared, about being prepared…I love that…it’s good that there’s someone parsing it and being like, ‘I pay attention to this all the time.’” — My Favorite Murder podcast
“Rebranding and de-crackpotting of prepping as a normalized, mainstream, and non-partisan tendency is long overdue. This newsletter is a solid outpost in the future of prepping.” — Venkatesh Rao
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Unprepared’s Values
No alarmism: We will discuss alarming facts about the world, but we will try to do so in as level-headed a manner as possible while trying to avoid causing undue alarm or stress.
Everyone is welcome: No matter who or what you are, we believe that preparedness is everyone’s responsibility. To that end, we minimize political editorializing and focus on facts. We ask that you be respectful in our comments and in our community outside Substack.
Facts above all: Our first commitment is to the truth. We seek expert and reliable sources for our information, and will properly label anything that could be useful but we find questionable. We will make mistakes and when we do so we will correct them to the best of our ability.
No conspiracy theories: From time to time we may be forced to speculate in order to prepare for likely scenarios, but such speculation will be clearly denoted and will relate to a direct and realistic threat, such as war or natural disaster.
Responsibility: We will always err on the side of safe, legal, and responsible behavior. Our mission is to preserve life and we will do our best to uphold that mission. Sometimes you may be forced to take risks in order to survive, and we will assess the risks as best as we can, with the understanding that we may not know your particular circumstances.
Humility: John Rambo isn’t real. We’re not necessarily “tough guys” and we’re not robots. Real-life survival situations humble even the toughest hombres. Preparedness is for everyone, regardless of your physical abilities.
Monetization: This publication is primarily funded through our paying subscribers. We work for you! We sometimes use revenue-generating affiliate links when the opportunity arises, but we do not base our recommendations on affiliate revenue.
Value: We respect your budget and as such we will always try to recommend the least-expensive product that does the job well. That may not always be the cheapest product. A cheap product that works poorly is a waste of your money.
No paid reviews: We do not accept money to review gear. Period. From time to time, we may accept review units for evaluation, with the understanding that no promises are offered regarding coverage. If we do not like your product or don’t know what to say about it, we likely won’t cover it, because there’s no point in wasting our readers’ time on a product we don’t like. We will return products per the vendor’s specifications.