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Arrogo’s Tomb
The wizard Arrogo, a student of the infamous mage Kelok, achieved minor fame developing original spells, some of which were extremely dangerous to the caster. While his supporters claim he developed spells still used today, unbiased experts claim his original spells have been lost. His detractors claim that this is a good thing, at least for wizards who prefer not to be imploded by their own magic.
Because of his love of magical research and dangerous machines, it is perhaps fitting that the legends claim that he met his end whilst researching a new spell. Those friendly to his memory claim that he perished while nobly expanding the boundaries of magical knowledge. His detractors insist he perished while making his last and greatest mistake.
Little is known of his tomb. According to legend, the tomb was hidden in the wilderness to keep grave robbers and pilfering adventures away from his treasures. There are, of course, the usual tales about the tomb of any wizard, namely that it is packed with great wealth and fantastic items. Naturally, there are also the usual tales of the elaborate precautions, terrible traps, and vicious monsters that protect the tomb.
- Here are some of the features of the adventure:
- Interesting encounters on the journey the tomb.
- Detailed color maps for encounter areas and the tomb.
- New monster (Iron Guardian).
- New spells (Arrogo’s Agony, Arrogo’s Angry Shards, Arrogo’s Flame of Essence, Arrogo’s and Leap of Faith)
- New Traps
- New Weapon (Kelok Crossbow)
- New Magic Items (Leaping Boots, Missile Brooch, Shard Shell, and Stone of Essence)
- Statistics are included for all encounters.
- Hero Lab support.
- Robust opportunities for role-play and combat.
- For character levels 2-4.
Mike’s Free Maps Collection #1
Description
This royalty free map collection contains 23 free color maps:
Crypt
Glyarnd Farmhouse
Graveyard
Inn Second Floor
Inn
Leldel Farmhouse
Mini-Maze
Orc Village Small Bridge
Outpost 1
Outpost Level 2
River Encounter
Road Encounter
Skeleton Tower
Small Village
Swamp Encounter 1
Swamp Encounter 2
Swamp Guard Post
The Beach
Town
Village
Woods Encounter 1
Woods Encounter 2
Woods Encounter
Legal Information
You may reduce, enlarge, re-label, crop or color the maps. The creator’s name (“Michael LaBossiere”) must be included in the final published maps if it appears in the original maps. You may not resell these maps. If you use this image in a publication (digital, print or otherwise) you must include this statement:
“Some maps copyright Michael C. LaBossiere, used with permission.”
Broken Mine for D&D 5E
Old stories tell of the wizard Kelsun, better known as Kelsun the Mad Prophet, who was driven mad by visions of a world-shaking disaster. Fortunately, his madness proved to be benevolent—he set out, in his odd way, to help ensure that items of power would be available to help rebuild civilization after the disaster. Unfortunately, his benevolent madness was…madness. He created strange dungeons filled with exotic traps and monsters to guard these items. As most dungeon creators do, he left cryptic and even bizarre clues regarding the locations of his caches.
One such clue was entrusted to an order of druids and, after centuries, they finally managed to locate the dungeon in question. However, as is always the case, they will call on the heroic adventurers to recover the item promised to them, a magical vine. In return, the brave survivors will be able to keep all the other treasures of the broken mine.
Broken Mine is a D&D 5E compatible adventure. It is intended for a party of 4th-6th level characters.
Here are some of the features of the adventure:
- Random encounters for the area.
- Detailed color maps for the adventure.
- Full statistics are included for all encounters—no need to look up monsters.
- Unusual traps.
- Hero Lab support.
Patient Time
A standard to response to criticism of the American health care “system” is that it is the best in the world. In a sense, this is true–if you have the money, you can buy the best health care (mostly). However, the quality of a system is not just a matter of what can be bought at the top. To use an analogy, if a restaurant was considered the best because its most expensive meal was the best, but everything else that most customers could afford was not so good, then it would be odd to consider it the best restaurant for everyone. Naturally, the American “system” could be praised as the best for those who have the resources to afford it, but that would be somewhat dishonest.
One serious issue with health care, at least for those who cannot afford to have their own doctor on call, is the matter of time. For most of us, there is a wait before we can get an appointment, then we wait at the office to see the doctor. This can be problematic for people with schedules that lack flexibility and people who need treatment sooner rather than later. I have good insurance, but it took me two months to get an appointment with a new primary care doctor. Having more medical professionals would reduce these delays, but this is a problem that has not been addressed.
After a long wait, a patient typically gets very little time with the doctor or medical professional. For example, I have usually gotten 10 minutes with my primary doctor or nurse for my physical–I spend far more time in the waiting room. This is not to say that these doctors did not care–they did and did the best they could with the time allocated.
Part of the reason for the short time is that most medical professionals have too many patients and too little time–as such, they can only allocate so much time to each patient. In other cases, the medical facility is a for-profit business first and a place of medicine second–the faster customers can be dealt with, the more customers can be seen, thus increasing profits. Whatever the reason for the short time available to patients, this can certainly impact the quality of care, especially if a patient has questions. Because of this, patients are often on their own in terms of educating themselves about their health concerns. Obviously, having people with no medical training doing this can be problematic (and it helps explain the huge market for dubious supplements and remedies).
Since part of the problem is the need for more medical professionals, steps should be taken to encourage and enable more people to enter the field. Since part of the problem is the for-profit approach, this should be addressed–while it is often assumed that the purpose of life is to make money, applying this to medicine results in worse rather than better health care. This is not to say that medical professionals should not be generously compensated for their work, just that the for-profit business model of medicine needs to be modified. At the very least.
Patriotism & Football
Embed from Getty Images
After President Trump tweeted his way into the matter, the question of patriotism and protest became a hot issue in the public eye once again. A reasonable way to begin the discussion is to consider the nature of patriotism, which has been said to be the “last refuge of the scoundrel.”
One caricature of patriotism consists of shallow flag waving, the uncritical obedience to the dictates of the ruling class and the exaltation of popular prejudices. Unfortunately, this caricature is often the reality and is, unsurprisingly, what is often pushed by the ruling classes upon the masses. This is, of course, not the only viable account of patriotism.
One alternative approach is to go with the easy and obvious definition—patriotism is the love of one’s country. This simple definition leads to the philosophically complicated question of the nature of love. One way to look at love, at least a positive form of love, is that it involves a devotion to the higher principles, a commitment to what is truly and properly best for the loved one, and an exaltation of the best ideals. This sort of love has a strong moral component and is dedicated to what is truly best—something that might run contrary to what the loved one thinks they want. In the case of patriotism, the love would be for what is best about the country and would commit the patriot to doing what is truly best for the country. This is likely to make such a patriot unpopular for it often requires the patriot to oppose the dictates of the ruling class and to fight against the popular prejudices. While the definition of “patriotism” is a matter of semantics, the idea that it is a love for one’s country that commits one to trying to do what is best for that country (in the moral sense) seems rather appealing and should be adopted. I will now turn to the matter of the NFL players protesting (or showing solidarity with protestors) during the national anthem.
One standard criticism advanced by Trump and others against the protesting players is that these wealthy players are ungrateful. As others have suggested, “ungrateful” seems to be the new “uppity” although most critics are reluctant to utilize the n word. Ironically, some are quite willing to call black players by the n-word while also asserting that they have nothing to protest.
While the players should certainly appreciate their good fortune, to reject what the players say because they are wealthy would be a mere ad hominem fallacy. This would be the same error that would be made if the tax plans of rich, white Republicans were dismissed out of hand simply because they were made by rich, white Republicans.
A more substantial version of this attack is to argue that the players have no grounds for protest about how blacks are treated in America because they are proof that their criticisms are invalid. While this is better than a mere ad hominem, it is easy to counter. First, wealthy black athletes have still been subject to the sort of unwarranted police violence they are protesting. Second, the unusual success of these athletes does not invalidate the truth of their claims about what happens to other people. To use an analogy, if famous athletes urged people to take action against a serious disease, it would be a foolish objection to say that they are wrong because they are healthy athletes and do not suffer from that disease. It does, in fact, make the most sense that the famous should protest—they are the one who will get the most attention.
Another criticism against such protests is that people watch sports to be amused and to have a break from serious issues. While this does have some appeal (people do deserve leisure time), one reply is that people who are oppressed do not get a break from oppression. If the fans want their break, they should certainly recognize that the oppressed want their oppression to end. There is also the fact that the protests, as conducted now, do not actually disrupt the game—the players still play and the game goes on.
As might be suspected, some people try to counter the protests by contending that they should not have to deal with the protests because “they did not own slaves.” One reply is that while they did not own slaves, they most likely benefit from the system that arose out of slavery and that now serves to systematically oppress some while conveying unearned advantages to others. Oddly, this position does seem to acknowledge the existence of a problem, since the person is claiming they are not part of that problem. However, there are those who deny there is a problem.
One approach is to assert that the protests are pointless because there is nothing to protest—everything is just fine. This is obviously not true and can be rejected in the face of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Somewhat ironically, when people engage in racism while denying racism, they merely prove the existence of racism.
One interesting criticism is that the protests are just empty theatre, perhaps even some sort of marketing ploy aimed at improving viewership (albeit at the risk of alienating some fans). This criticism does have some appeal. However, there is the interesting fact that the playing of the national anthem at games was originally itself a marketing ploy that somehow became something more. It would be quite appropriate if the protests were marketing and even more so if they became more than mere marketing. In any case, even if the protests are marketing, this would not show that they are thus unpatriotic or unwarranted. At worst it would call into question the motives of those involved.
As far as whether the protestors are patriots, this question can only be answered by knowing their motives and goals. If they are protesting what they regard as injustice and are doing so to make America better, then they are engaged in true patriotism: they are trying to make the country they love be the best it can be. And that is a far truer patriotism than someone who just wants to wave a flag and uncritically praise their country be she wrong or right.
Love Across the Possible Worlds
While true love is the subject of many tales, the metaphysical question of its foundation is rarely addressed. One interesting way to explore this question is to bring in another popular subject of fiction, that of possible worlds. Imagine, if you will, a bereaved lover seeking to replace their lost love by finding an exact counterpart in another world. This raises the issue of whether it is rational to love the metaphysical counterpart of someone you love. I contend that this is just as rational as loving the original person and will argue for my case by using appeals to intuitions and analogies. In the interest of fairness, I will also consider and refute the transcendent argument for true love.
The metaphysics of Rick & Morty includes the existence of an infinite number of alternative worlds, each of which with its own Rick and Morty. The Rick and the Morty that are, one presumes, the true stars of the show have been forced to abandon their original reality a few times. However, they always end up living with “their” family (Beth, Summer and sometimes Jerry). While Rick often purports not to care, he repeatedly shows that he loves “his” daughter Beth and granddaughter Summer. However, as he and Morty themselves know, the Beth and Summer of their adopted world are not their Beth and Summer. They are daughter and granddaughter of the Rick of that world—a Rick who is (typically) dead.
CW’s The Flash show also makes use of the multiple world plot device as well, one that dates to the early days of comics. The DC comic universe features a multitude of different earths, most notably Earth 1 and Earth 2. Earth 2 was the home of the original Batman, Superman and others—it was used to maintain the timeline in which, for example, Superman was on earth in the 1930s. In a series of episodes of the TV show The Flash, Barry Allen (the Flash) travelled to Earth 2 and met the counterparts of people he knew and loved on his world, most especially his beloved Iris. On Earth 2, the normal Barry Allen 2 was married to Iris and Barry Allen 1 (from Earth 1) pretended to be Barry Allen 2 and was rather obsessed with her and her father, despite being explicitly told that the people of Earth 2 were obviously not the same people as those of Earth 1.
While people tend to feel how they do for no rational reason, there is a rather interesting question as to whether it makes sense to love someone because they happen to be the counterpart of someone you love. While this would be an interesting matter for psychology, the metaphysical aspect of this case is a question of whether the counterparts are such that it is rational to love or care about them because they are metaphysical counterparts of someone you love or care about.
For the sake of the discussion that follows, consider the following sci-fi scenario: Sam and Kelly met in graduate school, fell madly in love and were married shortly after their graduation. They were both hired by Kalikrates Dimensional, a startup dedicated to developing portals to other dimensions.
During an experiment, Sam was pulled into the blender dimension and ejected as a human smoothie. Unfortunately, he had neglected to keep up his premiums with Life Ensurance and had no backup. Distraught, Kelly considered cloning him anyway, but decided that without his memories and personalities, it would not be Sam.
Driven by her loss, she developed a safer portal system and then developed an Indexer that would scan and index the possible worlds. She programmed the Indexer to find a world just like her own, but where “she” rather than “Sam” would die in the portal accident. The Indexer labeled this world Earth 35765. Timing it perfectly, she popped through her portal just as the Kelly of 35765 would have returned, had she not been blended. The Kelly 35765 smoothie ended up in Kelly 1’s world, while Kelly 1 took over her life. Kelly 1 might have been happy with Sam 35765, but she was murdered and replaced a year later by the bereaved and insane Kelly 45765. Given this scenario, would it be rational for Kelly 1 to love Sam 35765?
One way to look at this matter is to use an analogy to counterparts in this world. To be specific, there are unrelated people who look exactly alike other people in this world. And, of course, there are also identical twins. While a person might be fooled by a twin or a look-alike, they would probably not love them simply because they looked like someone they loved. The same, it could be argued, can be applied to counterparts in other worlds: they look like someone you love, but they are not the one you love.
I certainly agree that it would be irrational to love someone simply because they looked like someone one already loves. After all, the look-alike could be utterly horrible or at least utterly incompatible. As such, it would be foolish to love such a twin solely based on appearance. That sort of shallow love would be irrational even in this world.
However, it can be rational to love a counterpart that exactly resembles the original. Such a counterpart could have the qualities that would provide a rational foundation for love. For example, if Kelly 1 loved Sam 1 because of his personality, values, laugh, and such, then if Sam 35765 had these same qualities, then it would make sense for Kelly 1 to love him. After all, he has the same qualities. To use an analogy, if Kelly loves Cherry Breeze pie because of its qualities, then she is obviously not limited to loving the first Cherry Breeze pie she had—any adequately similar Cherry Breeze pie would suffice.
Now imagine that there was one Cherry Breeze pie that Kelly loved above all others and that this pie could be duplicated to such a degree that every aspect of the pie would be indistinguishable from her most beloved pie. In this case, Kelly would love that exactly resembling pie as much as the original.
There is the obvious concern that there would be a fundamental difference between any counterpart and the original; namely that there would be no history or relationship with the counterpart. So, while Kelly 1 might love the qualities of Sam 35765, she has never done anything with him and thus has no history or relationship with him. She could develop that history and relationship, of course, but that would be falling in love with a new person. While it is true that Kelly 1 has no past relationship with Sam 35765, she selected the world in which Kelly 35765 and Sam 35765 did everything that Kelly 1 and Sam 1 did—there would be no distinguishable difference. Kelly 1 knows everything that happened between the other Kelly and Sam and will act exactly as Kelly 1 would have.
Going back to the pie analogy, while Kelly would have no established relationship with the new pie, the fact that it is (by hypothesis) exactly like the original pie in every way (other than being new) would intuitively entail that Kelly would love the new pie as much as the original. Everything discernable about the relationships with the pies would be the same other than their bare difference. If Kelly declared that she loved the original but did not care for the new pie, her claim would seem to be utterly unfounded—after all, she could point to no qualitative difference that would warrant her assertion.
It could even be contended that, in a way, Kelly does have a relationship with the pie—since it is exactly like the original pie, it would fit seamlessly into the relationship she had with the original pie. As such, it would be rational to love the exact counterpart of someone one loves.
Since I made the error of referencing true love, I opened the portal to easy and obvious objection to my position. One basic element of true love is that one person (Kelly 1) loves another (Sam 1) and not that person’s qualities. This is because qualities change and can be possessed by others. Intuitively, true love will not fade and cannot be transferred to another person that simply has the same qualities.
For example, if Kelly loves Sam because of his brilliance and humor. Then she would love someone else who had the same brilliance and humor. This sort of interchangeable love is not true love. If what is loved is not the qualities of a person, there is the question of what this might be. What is wanted is something “beneath” all the qualities that makes the person the person they are and distinguished them from all other things. Fortunately, philosophy has just such a thing in stock: the metaphysical self. This, as should come as no surprise, takes the discussion into the realm of Kantian philosophy.
Kant split the world into noumena and phenomena.[i] The phenomena are the things as they appear to us. This is what we experience-such how good a person looks in a swim suit. We can have empirical knowledge of such things. The noumena are the things in themselves. Kant claimed the noumena cannot be known because they are beyond our experience.
On Kant’s view, it would be sensible to stick with the phenomena and not speculate about the noumena. But, Kant claims that cannot resists the sweet lure of the transcendent illusions of metaphysics.
The metaphysical self is the illusion that is needed here. Like David Hume, Kant thinks we have no impression of the metaphysical self. What we do have are impressions, via introspection, of the empirical self. The inner eye never sees that metaphysical self; it just encounters things like feelings and thoughts.
Unlike Hume, Kant argues that we must think of our experiences as if they occur within a unified self. This provides with a frame of reference for thought and it is thus useful to accept a metaphysical self. Since it is useful and we need the metaphysical self to make sense of things, Kant concludes that we should accept it. While Kant did not take the step of arguing for true love, I will do this now.
Applying his method to true love, true love would be impossible without the metaphysical self. As such, it is a necessary condition for true love. The metaphysical self is obviously beyond the realm of scientific proof. However, true love is irresistible because it seems to be a critical belief for our happiness and our conception of ourselves. As such, while Kelly 1 might feel that she loves Sam 35756, this would be irrational: Sam 35756 is not her true love. As would be imagined, in a tragically poignant Twilight Zone style sci-fi story, she would come to realize this.
While true love is appealing, the objection can be countered. This should not be surprising, since the argument itself acknowledges that it is appealing to an illusion. But, of course, what is needed is a substantive reply.
While the idea of a metaphysical self behind all the qualities sounds fancy, it is merely a repainted bare particular. It is bare because it does not have any qualities of its own beneath all the qualities that it possesses. It is a particular because there is only one of each (and each one can only be in one location at a time). In the ideal love of the objection, one loves the bare particularity of another as opposed to qualities that can change or be duplicated by another.
Fortunately for my position, there is a rather serious problem with this notion of love. When we interact with the world we interact with various qualities. For example, Kelly can see Sam’s quirky smile and experience his keen intelligence. But it seems impossible for her to be aware of his bare particularity. Since it has no qualities there would seem to be nothing to experience. It would thus be impossible for Kelly to be aware of Sam’s bare particularity to love him. As such, love must be about detectable qualities.
While this is less romantic than the idea of metaphysical true love, it is more realistic and intuitively appealing. When one person talks about why they love another, they talk about the qualities of the person. Some dating services also make a big deal about testing people for various qualities and using them to find compatibility and love. Scientists also talk about the emotion of love as being driven by genes in search of suitable genes to combine with. Given this evidence, it seems reasonable to conclude that when Kelly loves Sam, she loves his qualities. As such, if it was rational for Kelly 1 to love Sam 1, then it is just as rational for Kelly 1 to love Same 35756. There is, after all, no discernible difference between the Sams.
In the above essay, I considered the issue of whether it is rational to love the metaphysical counterpart of someone you love. I contended that this is just as rational as loving the original person argued for my position by appealing to intuitions and using arguments from analogy. In the interest of fairness, I also considered the transcendent argument for true love. Thus, love is not only possible, it is possible across worlds.
Cherry Breeze Pie
Ingredients
Crust
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
1/3 cup butter or margarine — melted
or 1 pre-made graham cracker crust
Filling
1 package cream cheese — (8 ounces)
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 can cherry pie filling — (1 pound, 5 ounces)
Directions
- Cook butter and sugar in saucepan over medium heat until mixture boils. Remove from heat and mix in graham cracker crumbs. Press mixture evenly and firmly into 9-inch pie plate to form a crust. Chill. (Or just buy a pre-made crust).
- Beat cream cheese until smooth. Gradually mix in sweetened condensed milk, stir in lemon juice and vanilla. Spread in crust. Refrigerate 3-4 hours or until firm.
- Top with chilled cherry pie filling. To remove pie pieces easily, place hot wet towel around sides and bottom of pan before cutting.
[i] Kant presents this distinction in I. Kant (1965), Critique of Pure Reason (trans. J. Ellington), New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Reasoning & Natural Disasters II: Inductive Reasoning
Fortunately for my adopted state of Florida, Irma weakened considerably as it moved northward. When it reached my adopted city of Tallahassee, it was barely a tropical storm. While it did some damage, it was nothing compared to last year’s storm. While this was a good thing, there can be a very minor downside when dire predictions turn out to be not so dire.
The problem is, of course, that people might take such dire predictions less seriously in the future. There is even a term for this: hurricane fatigue. When people are warned numerous times about storms and they do not prove as bad as predicted, people tend to get tired of going through the process of preparation. Hence, they tend to slack off in their preparations—especially if they took the last prediction very seriously and engaged in extensive preparations. Such as buying absurd amounts of bottled water. The problem is, of course, that the storm a person does not prepare for properly might turn out to be as bad or worse than predicted. Interestingly enough, inductive reasoning is the heart of this matter in two ways.
Inductive reasoning is, of course, logic in which the premises provide some degree of support (but always less than complete) for the conclusion. Inductive arguments deal in probability and this places them in contrast with deductive arguments—they are supposed to deal in certainty. That is, having all true premises in a deductive argument is supposed to guarantee a true conclusion. While there are philosophers who believe that predictions about such things as the weather can be made deductively, the best current reasoning only allows inductive reasoning regarding weather prediction. To use a simple illustration, when a forecast says there is a 50% chance of rain, what is meant is that on 50% of the days like this one it rained. This is, in fact, an argument by analogy. With such a prediction, it should be no more surprising that it rains than it does not.
While the computer modeling of hurricanes is rather complex, the predictions are still inductive in nature: all the evidence used in the reasoning can be true while the conclusion can still be false. This is because of the famous problem of induction—the gap between the premises and the conclusion means that no matter how strong the reasoning of an inductive argument, the conclusion can still be false. As such, any weather prediction can turn out to be false—even if the prediction is 99.99% likely to be accurate. As such, it should be expected that weather predictions will often be wrong—especially since the models do not have complete information and are limited by the available processing power. That is, there is also a gap between reality and the models. There is also the philosophical question of whether the world is deterministic or not—in a deterministic world, weather would be fully predictable if there was enough information and processing power available to create a perfect model of reality. In a non-deterministic world, even a perfect model could still fail to predict what will happen in the real world. As such, there is both a problem in epistemology (what do we know) and metaphysics (what is the nature of reality).
Interestingly enough, when people start to distrust predictions after past predictions turn out to be wrong, they are also engaging in inductive reasoning. To be specific, if many predictions have turned out to be wrong, then it can be reasonable to infer that the next prediction could be wrong. That is certainly reasonable and thinking that an inductive argument could have a false conclusion is no error.
Where people go wrong is when they place to much confidence in the conclusion that the prediction will be wrong. One way this can happen is through a variation in the gambler’s fallacy. In the classic gambler’s fallacy, a person assumes that a departure from what occurs on average or in the long term will be corrected in the short term. For example, if a person concludes that tails is due because they have gotten heads six times in a row, then they have committed this fallacy. In the case of the “hurricane fallacy” a person overconfidently infers that the streak of failed predictions must continue. The person could, of course, turn out to be right. The error lies in the overconfidence in the conclusion that the prediction will be wrong. Sorting out the confidence one should have in their doubt is a rather challenging matter because it requires understanding the accuracy of the predictions.
As a practical matter, one way to address hurricane fatigue is to follow some excellent advice: rather than going through mad bursts of last second preparation, always be prepared at the recommended minimum level. That is, have enough food and water on hand for three days and make basic preparations for being without power or evacuating. Much of this can easily be integrated into one’s normal life. For example, consuming and replacing canned and dried goods throughout the year means that one will have suitable food on hand. There are also one-time preparations, such as acquiring some crank-powered lights, a small solar panel for charging smart phones, and getting a basic camp stove and a few propane canisters to store.
This does lead to a final closing point, namely the cost of preparation. Since I have a decent income, I can afford to take the extra steps of being always ready for a disaster. That is, I can buy the lights, stove, propane, and such and store them. However, this is not true of everyone. When I was at Publix before the storm, I spoke to some people who said that it was hard for them to get ready for storms—they needed their money for other things and could not afford to have a stockpile of unused supplies let alone things like solar panels or generators. The upfront cost of stockpiling in preparation for the storm was also a challenge—there are, as far as I know, no emergency “storm loans” or rapid aid to help people gear up for impending storms. No doubt some folks would be terrified that storm moochers would be living fat on the public’s money during storms. However, storm aid does sound like decent idea and could even be cost saver for the state. After all, the better prepared people are before the storm, the less the state and others must do during and after the storm.
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