Six Ways To Die

Six ways to die (6WTD) is a tool proposed by Vinay Gupta to help individuals and groups quickly identify urgent needs of individuals in a crisis. It explains what basic infrastructure needs to be in place for people to survive to the next day.

The six ways to die are:

• too hot (remedied by cooling and shelter)
• too cold (remedied by heating and shelter)
• thirst (remedied by water supply and water purification)
• hunger (remedied by food, agriculture, organic and sustainable farming, and permaculture)
• illness (remedied by medical knowledge, health practitioners and medical aides)
• injury (remedied by emergency medicine and medical treatment)

We can make rough estimates of the threats in each area. We can then select for systems and behaviors to keep people safe. If people are not dying of one of these causes, they are unlikely to be dying at any rate above baseline mortality.

The Simple Critical Infrastructure Maps system expands the Six Ways To Die model to address the minimum functional needs of Groups, Organizations and States as follows:

• Individual: Too Hot, Too Cold, Hunger, Thirst, Illness, Injury (solved by Shelter, Supply and Safety/Services)
• Groups: Communications, Transport, Workspace, Resource Control
• Organizations: Shared Map, Shared Plan, Shared Succession Model (to change leadership)
• States: Effective Organizations, List of People, Map of Territories, International Recognition, Legal Jurisdiction

Please see Vinay's presentation Dealing in Security: Simple Critical Infrastructure Maps for full details.

Finally, this model forms the core of the State in A Box (SIAB) approach to State Failure, which envisages pushing much State responsibility down to the municipal and urban levels, and some of the remaining complex function (currency, identity) up to the international level, leaving a simplified-but-stable State which is capable of continuity in complex contingencies. This way of working is aimed at fragile states.

Article adapted from Appropedia's article on the subject. See that page for more information as well as links to Vinay Gupta's other websites and projects.