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Just to be a devil's advocate: fear is an evolutionary response and is there for a reason and is sometimes highly rational. Talking yourself out of fear to conform to society's expectations is not always smart.

It's great advice about storing water for an emergency.

I disagree. Someone who really prepares by storing food, having a place underground to survive for a period, and takes sufficient precautions could live. It would be expensive and difficult to prepare, and even then may not work, but I don't think it's true that people can't try to prepare at all.

People will probably not agree with me, but I think:

1. You are not overreacting, although AI sometimes tells me that risks of nuclear disaster aren't that high and I'm over-estimating.

2. You can control things somewhat by preparing as much as you can to survive such a situation

But... preparing to try to survive nuclear war will require radical action possibly, especially if you live in a risky area that is more likely to be impacted.

What is preparation? It means getting the Potassium Iodine tablets, it means having food stored, it means having solar backups, ideally it means having a place where you can survive underground, and it means not living anywhere near a likely target. It requires major changes, expenses, and enduring hardship if you are wrong or right, but also feeling exasperated you spent money and wasted time if nothing happens.

I feel like there are two competing ways to look at this situation. 1) The elite control society, and they would not want to make society unlivable for them and their children, therefore nuclear war is an idea primarily to scare us and control us. The other option is 2) no one is steering the ship, the elite are greedy psychopaths and who knows what the hell will happen, and eventually conflict likely is going to happen and it will be ugly.

In World War 2, before Hitler came into power, some Jews in Europe were like "I'm worried about this situation, the political situation here is generally iffy, I'm getting the fuck out of here" and left and went to America... and then didn't die as a result. Fear sometimes is what saves people, even if it seems crazy. I realize immigration to a new place is much harder in today's world (especially to the USA, but in a global conflict, the USA probably wouldn't be a great place to be).

Some advice about moving away from a major city may not be enough. Don't be near a major city, military base, critical infrastructure... and then, that actually will only save you in a limited strike situation. In a worst case situation, everyone near the strikes is dead, and only people far far away survive (not near the countries in conflict), and even those people would struggle with food shortages, radioactive fallout spreading across the globe. Just being in rural America not near bases or cities may not be enough.

You either use that fear to prepare, or you accept that there is a possibility death could happen from a lack of preparation, as can death happen at any time, and take up Buddhism or meditation or religion or ways to carry on and accept that death is sometimes a part of life.

There is a YouTube personality, who also shills products and is sort of an alarmist, called Canadian Prepper. He's worth checking out, but I would shop around and not just buy from him. Many of his videos are informative but also alarmist, but could also one day prove prescient.

It's still a bad thing unless people decide to make college free for all people, and at least in the US, the country can't even afford universal health care.

If someone is taking the SAT and getting 1000, they are so much better off going to a trade school and becoming an air condition repair person or learning home repair. Many of those people with 1000 will not graduate college, will not graduate with substantial debt, and will be trying to get office jobs in a country that already has too many people wanting that and not enough skilled people doing physical work.

It's not what people want to hear, but everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Some people are terrible at intellectual things, some people are terrible at things requiring dexterity, some people are terrible with things requiring emotional intelligence.

Another "forbidden topic" that I'll likely get in trouble for (for no reason) is that people who have children at older ages are more likely to have less healthy or even disabled children. There are costs to society of "let's try to have everyone stay in school and delay marriage and children until people's 30s."

Yes, we need to reduce income inequality and food insecurity and make sure everyone has wages that are livable, but the whole everyone gets a trophy thing is bad resource management. Yes, food insecurity and wealth is part of the issue, but everyone has access to a library. 1000 is so low, it's barely doing better than random guessing. Teachers are very happy to help out kids who don't understand things; they often can't motivate students to do anything on their own these days.

If a kid is getting a 1000 on the SATs, there's either no ability or no motivation or some combo, and college will not change that. Advanced schooling should not be encouraged by society for people who can't even understand a tiny amount of the basics.