If, right now, your phone began to startlingly chime away and display a notification warning you of an impending nuclear attack, would you take refuge? Would you make a run for it? Would you simply allow yourself to be turned into dust along with your friends and family? Most importantly, would you be prepared?

According to trueprepper.com, up to 23.4 million adults in the United States, or 9.1% of the population, self-identify as doomsday preppers: people who pour hours of work into preparing for various kinds of apocalypses, which range from justifiably worrying events like the nuclear attack to Hollywood nonsense like the Zombie apocalypse. No, that isn’t a joke. There are people out there who do indeed prepare themselves for the Zombie apocalypse. Some companies even sell Zombie survival kits, which sell for upwards of $800, reflecting the scar that the advent of doomsday prepping has left on the American economy.

Doomsday prepping and survivalism first emerged in 1950s suburban America, amidst the nuclear ego clash between the East and the West, as a way for the nuclear (no pun intended) family to be more at ease in the time of the Cold War. Families began constructing underground bunkers in their backyards, with the plan of sealing themselves inside in the event of a nuclear war. These bunkers were often small, with food and beds taking up most of the space within them. Eventually, entire companies centered around nuclear bunker construction began to form. Even today, you can pay Atlas Survival Shelters of Sulphur Springs, Texas (of course) $20,000 for a simple, concrete ‘backyard bunker’. Each bunker comes complete with two cots, which means there is room for your best friend or significant other who will eventually kill you over a can of peaches.

With the end of the Cold War in 1991, interest in doomsday prepping declined, but it shot right back up eight years later with the looming threat of the Y2K glitch. People again began planning en masse for a doomsday scenario, this time a societal collapse. Wall Street yuppies flew in Learjets to remote locations in the Adirondacks, mentally zany outdoorsmen stocked up on assault rifles and planned for war, and suburban families began discussing which family animal was first to be feasted upon. 

Fortunately or unfortunately for those who diligently planned for an apocalypse, nothing happened. The world was fine. No computer systems crashed, and once more the idea of Doomsday prepping declined in national interest. 

Yet, the seed of such an idea remained. Some midwesterners may have kept up with their military training, some businessmen bought spaces in extravagant nuclear bunkers that once housed the very thing they are now protecting people from, and some families began to purchase surgical masks to shield themselves from fallout, and foreman grills, to cook and eat their pets. 

Such people may have been considered paranoid or even crazy. That was until March 2020, when a global doomsday scenario did occur. When the world shut down for COVID-19, those fringe voices suddenly had the attention of the masses It is safe to say that the Pandemic was the most instrumental historical event to unite Americans under the prepper umbrella. 

And now, in 2026, almost 10%of the country self-identify as preppers. 

But why? Why would anyone want to go on living after a nuclear bomb wipes every skyscraper, tree and good restaurant off the face of the Earth? Why would anyone devotetime to preparing for a scenario that might not even happen? 

Nukemap is an interactive website that allows users to simulate nuclear warfare by dropping bombs on a digital map of the United States. Birthed by Harvard graduate and nuclear weapons historian Alex Wellerstein, users can see both the estimated number of casualties and the extent of the radioactive fallout of a potential blast.

Nukemap demonstrates that if China–historically considered one of the United States’ top adversaries–were to launch the Dong Feng 5 at DC (a likely target due to its status as the United State’s nerve center), 1,012,310 people would immediately perish in the blast, and a further 1,404,790 would be injured. There is an issue with this statistic, however, as Nukemap only allows you to drop a nuke on one city at a time. If multiple Dong Feng 5s were launched at every major US city, it is fair to say that nearly one hundred million would die, and countless more would be made horrifically ill by radiation poisoning. 

So, why even bother trying to survive? Most Americans live under 100 miles from major population centers, if not in them. Sure, life is fun and stuff, but life probably will not be fun after the world is ravaged by nuclear weapons. They will effectively turn America and mutually its adversaries into a field of dirt, made inhospitably cold by the subsequent nuclear winter caused by fog blocking out the sun. 

There would be nothing to eat or drink. National Parks would be wiped of their trees and mountains and rocks. All outdoor animals would die. And you would freeze to death. Wouldn’t it be better to just go in the blast?

Unfortunately, bunkers do not make it much better. Sure, someone may have food and other necessities, but not an infinite amount. They would eventually run out. 

The facts are that if you die in the blast, you go quickly, but if you survive, you either A. freeze to death in the wasteland or B. are consumed by the strongest member of your family. Me? I’ll go with A. Perhaps Tom Lehrer said it best, ‘For when the bomb that drops on you gets your friends and neighbors too, there’ll be nobody left behind to grieve.’

I used to be terrified of the possibility of a nuclear explosion. In middle school, I intricately planned for my life after college: I’d pawn all of my earthly possessions, use the proceeds to purchase land in rural Costa Rica and live out my days alone in a bunker. But one day, I realized that living in the middle of nowhere away from everybody and everything is not a life worth living. The meaning of life is to find your own meaning. And living under a security blanket in anticipation of something that is not likely to happen is a completely meaningless life. 

No thank you, Atlas survivor bunkers. I’ll take my chances in the city, where I can eat Korean food, socialize and go to movies. Only after I get the alert on my phone will I worry about what I will do on doomsday. Do I think we should even have nuclear weapons in the first place? No. Do I want to be alive after they fall? Rephrase your question, please. You should be asking me if I’d like to die in a barren wasteland.