The answer is both obvious and difficult: we have to change the culture. Look at Japan. That's an example of an urban, highly developed nation that, during their latest disaster, did not display the sort of selfish behavior that we have come to expect of American society. I'm not sure whether the urban Japanese has any more of a sense of community than we do, but many of them certainly acted like they share their society with other people (a part of being in a "community," I suppose), instead of stooping to conduct that at best are unnecessarily asinine, and at worst are downright the criminal, for the sake of survival.

I have the feeling that everyone reading this will do the decent thing in an emergency. No one on ETS will jump the queue in a store, smash windows, loot, leaving the neighbors to rot when you can share an important piece of news without cost to yourself, etc. We will influence the people we know by the strength of our character, and hopefully they'll come to value preparedness and community. They, in turn, will influence others. This is slow, and maybe each of us will get only one convert every ten years. But that's better than the alternative.

Well, one can dream...

DB