Deep Survival
[This book] combines hard science and storytelling to illuminate the mysteries of survival, whether in the wilderness or in meeting any of life's great challenges. [It] describe[s] the art and science of survival, will change the way you see your world.-Back cover.
Stats for nerds
12recommend
18mentions
15people
2010–2026years
83% recommend17% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Some do, others sit down and cry until they die. Read “Deep Survival “ to get inside the heads of people going through severe hardship.
- This reminds me of a great book: Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why.
The author looks at case studies (and some stats iirc) of a bunch of people in life-threatening situations, some who survived and others not. He looks at how they acted, gets into the psychology of why people act that way, and pulls out some lessons.
One of them was "think for yourself, don't just follow instructions." One example was 9/11, during which some people in the towers were told to just stay where they were. Some of those who ignored that instruction made it out.
- Just don't tie yourself together by rope while on mountains. One goes down, everyone goes down.
Deep Survival is a great read. I picked that up from it.
Human infants will die without physical touch. We are social creatures by our DNA.
The worst punishment in older times was banishment. It was usually a death sentence.
- I read “Deep Survival” a few years ago pre-pandemic and was pleasantly surprised it wasn’t a book of survival stories. The main takeaway for me was that sure, nature doesn’t care if you live or die, yet surviving in modern life is an illusion - a papering over of the brutal, unfeeling and inescapable “nature.”
The author wrote of survivors coming home after a harrowing near-death experience and realizing that survival is one day at a time, even in the comfort of your own home. Once you taste true survival it may haunt you. Survival is an easy concept with subtle and deep physical and mental consequences.
Kind of reminds me of David Foster Wallace’s “This is water” - https://youtu.be/eC7xzavzEKY
- The neighbourhood I live in has exactly one artery in and out.
This artery has multiple splinter-off points after a point, but there is a choke point where if things go bad you have no choice but to wait or fight for your chance of which escape into the wider//bigger world of roads you want.
I'm not sure why I noticed this whilst I live here yet I did.
Perhaps reading "Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why" had something to do with it.
- What you are doing is a core tenant of survival training. When in a situation that seems doomed (ie: lifeboat in the ocean, lost deep in the woods, etc), you don't focus on what will happen tomorrow, you just do what you need to do to survive the next 4 hours. You repeat this over and over until things get better.
Check out the book "Deep Survival" by Laurence Gonzales if interested.
