But in reality what we see when there are disasters, whether we're looking at small-scale societies or we're looking at historical examples like the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco or more modern examples like Hurricane Katrina and many of the storms that we've had in the Gulf Coast region recently, people help each other.

Yeah, maybe there are a few bad actors in there that are trying to take advantage of the chaos, but that is the exception.

In general, like, people go into a very generous mode, where they're helping each other, they're building social connections, they're looking for what needs to happen for everybody to be taken care of and jumping in and doing it.

Based on what we know about how humans respond, that is absolutely the more likely scenario in any sort of apocalypse.

And also, if you expect that it's going to be everyone just being selfish and horrible to one another, then you can actually create a self-fulfilling prophecy because you're not going to be going in with that attitude of cooperation, and you then might make yourself a threat to the people who are wanting to cooperate.

So I talk about some of, like, the game theory underlying that and how, by understanding the strategic landscape of how, like, as humans we adapt to our expectations about what others are going to do, that, that is a really important piece of kind of figuring out how you should handle things when your environment changes a lot.

Okay, so you've convinced us all to read your book, but I've heard you're also taking your message on tour.

Tell us more about The Apocalypse Road Show.

Yeah, so The Apocalypse Road Show is kind of, like, half a book tour for A Field Guide to the Apocalypse and half just, like, a really, really fun opportunity to go on the road with colleagues and friends and musicians to bring a hopeful message of how we can all survive the apocalypse.

A lot of what we're doing with the road show is kind of enacting the principles from the book.

You know, as humans, like, we're really fundamentally social, and we deal with many problems as a collective, and we're really good at that when we can communicate effectively, when we trust each other, when we can cooperate.

But that doesn't just come out of nowhere, right? Like, you have to create space for it.

And so that's a lot of what we're doing with The Apocalypse Road Show, and if you want to learn more about it, you can go to ApocalypseRoadShow.com, and we have all our dates up there and everything, and then we're posting a bunch of fun content on Instagram, so you can see some of the things that we've already done with our shows there and where we're going in the future.

Well-and I have to ask you: what's in your go bag these days? Or do you have multiple go bags?

There's a lot of misconceptions about prepping and preppers and all of that, and I always try to be, like, "Being prepared for disasters is just something that we should all do."

Even if you don't have a go bag, you should have a shelter-in-place kit so that if you have a disaster where you have to stay home, you have what you need to survive for 72 hours.

And I like to tell people, like, "Actually start with that-it's easy."

And if another pandemic happens, you'll be fine because you can just stay home, and you also don't need to put strain on the infrastructure that is there to help deal with the acute crisis.

Right, you've already got your toilet paper; you're good to go.

You have your toilet paper-exactly. Make sure you have your toilet paper.

So, yeah, in my go bag, I have a lot of stuff, honestly, but I focus on having an emergency blanket; water or a, like, LifeStraw so you can clean water; matches, a lighter, et cetera; and some food.

And then you work from there, you know, with local maps.

You have some things for fun, like some cards or a harmonica.

You can go to Ready.gov-they have all of that on there, too-but I have a bunch of pages in my book that explain all of the things with pictures: what you need and extras that you might want.

My favorite part of, like, being prepared is my car kit, and I use that all the time.

Sometimes I'm driving, and maybe it's not even a big crisis, but maybe somebody gets a cut, and then it's like, "Oh, I've got Band-Aids in my trunk."

You know, it's, like, nice to be able to be prepared like that.

And then I also have, like, a little adventure everyday-carry that I take with me when I go hiking or kayaking or, you know, somewhere where the unexpected might happen, and I use that all the time.

And for me, there really is this sort of continuity of, like, having a sense of adventure and being willing to, like, take some risks in terms of, like, going out into the world and exploring-I know that I have my everyday-carry adventure kit, so for the routine kinds of things that might go wrong, I'm ready.

And I like to think, like, we can take that kind of energy, that, like, sense of adventure and being, like, "You know what, like, I've got my go bag and my shelter-in-place kit, so, like, I don't have to be as scared in this world."