Does the British Government know something we don't?

I refer to their recent announcements that the British public should essentially take these actions.

1. Water Supply: Households are advised to store a minimum of three litres of drinking water per person, per day (3 days worth I think), with up to 10 litres per person, per day recommended for a more comfortable level that includes cooking and hygiene.

2. Non-Perishable Food: Stock non-perishable food that does not require cooking—such as tinned meat, tinned vegetables, and dried fruit—to last three days.

3. Emergency Kit Items: A battery-powered or wind-up FM radio, a torch with batteries, a first aid kit, blankets, wet wipes, hand sanitiser, a portable power bank, and cash in case electronic payment systems fail.

To be fair, these are measures that Australians are regularly reminded to have in place for cyclone season (half of summer) , storm season (all of summer), bushfire season (all of summer and more now due to climate change) and flood season (potentially all year now with even winter sometimes delivering "rain bombs" as heavy wet weather systems that just stay in place for days).

But still, the timing seems significant. Various serious regional wars are intensifying or looking like breaking out again. Civil unrest is hitting many nations. France is a major one of quite a few current examples. And I hope France finds a resolution that truly helps the poor, the working class, the pensioners and so on. I suspect even the middle class is struggling now. It is clear that inequality is too high and the rich are making too much profit and paying too little tax. This is happening everywhere in the West now, not just France, and certainly in many other countries too.

I restate my question, "Does the British Government know something we don't?", to your knowledge or in your opinion? Or is it as the government says and these are just practical measures for national resilience for various risks such as cyberattacks, extreme weather etc.

If the Lichess servers go down for good, I'll know that the France situation is getting really bad...

The Lichess server has gone down twice in the last 20 minutes. Maybe the riots have reached the server building(s)?
Holy Moley...

the server was just down but i don’t know for how long since i just got back to it

@kipel73 said ^

the server was just down but i don’t know for how long since i just got back to it

For me, it was only down a few minutes each time. Only a minor inconvenience, unless it gets much worse...

i read in the other forum that they were going to do a reset or something to fix a problem

@kipel73 said ^

i read in the other forum that they were going to do a reset or something to fix a problem

Good. I'd hate for my little joke to actually be reality. ;-)

@Blivot , cyberattacks, including attacks on water supply systems or food distribution systems, are much more likely now than 6 months or a year ago. If someone hasn't realized that yet, they just aren't paying attention to world events.

@Blivot said ^

I refer to their recent announcements that the British public should essentially take these actions.

1. Water Supply: Households are advised to store a minimum of three litres of drinking water per person, per day (3 days worth I think), with up to 10 litres per person, per day recommended for a more comfortable level that includes cooking and hygiene.

2. Non-Perishable Food: Stock non-perishabl...

Those are standard measures in many European countries.

It's because Russian cyber attacks might shut down water, electricity and so on.

And hacking seems to be getting better and better because of AI so cyber attacks are more likely to succeed

@NeuralGnat said ^

@Blivot , cyberattacks, including attacks on water supply systems or food distribution systems, are much more likely now than 6 months or a year ago. If someone hasn't realized that yet, they just aren't paying attention to world events.

Well, there are the issues of many everyday life problems, divided attention, multiple threats and limited subject matter knowledge of each individual across the whole spectrum of threats. New threats are appearing rapidly and many threats old and new are growing exponentially.