Don't just buy some gear, throw it in a closet, pat yourself on the back, and move on. You are not prepared unless you practice with your supplies and plans. —The Prepared

Preppers are often pretty negative on people who, after realizing disasters are worth taking seriously want to go out and buy a bunch of stuff. And it makes sense: there is a lot of marketing aimed at preppers, pushing all sorts of things that are marginally useful, and it's healthy to have some pushback. On the other hand, it seems to me when thinking through disaster scenarios it's just really useful to have stuff. And if you're only up for putting a short amount of time into this I think it generally makes sense to allocating that time to figuring out what you need, buying that, and then moving on.

Our world is complex and supply chains are long. A disaster doesn't even have to be very big (ex: one broken ship, and a bad law) before people with the most precarious supply start seeing empty shelves. Having bought what you need in advance instead of waiting until you see a disaster coming means you're not competing with everyone else for the stuff that's already in stores, which is (a) selfishly good because you're not risking missing out and (b) altruistically good because you're reducing demand during a shortage.

This is not to say that practice and knowledge are not important, but I think they should be lower priorities for most people than getting the basics together.