Are you willing to learn a new field to supplement the accounting skill?
I think we would all have to learn new things to be fully useful. Warehousing however could be a huge task no matter what form of government we take.
If it is just a mass human die-off and all the material goods of this world are left behind we should have a huge amount of resources for an extended time period.
Willing? - sure, within limits (I will not babysit children. Period.) But even the ancients had accounting, so it’s not like we’re talking about telephone sanitizers here.
But many of my skills are broader than just accounting - like organization, data management, etc. I’m sharp, I learn new things pretty quickly. My limitations are mostly physical - I can’t lift or carry much, I’ve got lots of aches & pains & general weaknesses from injuries, etc.
I’m a security professional, which may not be needed too badly, but I worked on a dairy farm as a kid and I love the woods and am not a bad shot with a rifle (I suck with a bow though). I’m fairly handy at carpentry also. PLUS, I’m already around Baltimore… I’ll start scouting sites.
I like the Tennessee Valley region, but to be honest, I’d prefer being in India or something like that. Plenty of ready and available farm land, equipment, etc. True, it’s not very modern, but then again, we’d need old-fashioned tools if we didn’t have electricity. And their are five rivers in Punjab; we could build fine civilization there methinks.
Cops will be out of luck, do we have any?
Lawyers will need to learn and additional trade to go with their knowledge.
The Military get to protect us from dangerous animals and prepare for the unexpected. Alien/Zombie attacks, etc. Mostly they use there non-combat skills.
I suspect criminals will have a tough time of it in a small society.
As I said earlier we can give part time employment to Bricker, Campion and a few others as the Judicial.
Most lawyers will need to go work with John Carter or learn a useful tech skill. I think programmers greatly outnumber the lawyers on this board. We will need to retrain most of them. I suspect this will be our major pool for power plant operations and other tech jobs. Our actual computer need should be greatly reduced. Programmers and Lawyers both have logical minds and above average learning skills. Retraining should be simple.
As far as locations:
Here is a list of US Nuclear Plants http://www.nucleartourist.com/us/address.htm
Looks like Baltimore is viable. Tennessee has some advantages; I think they have hydro power, which is probably even better than Nuke for our purposes.
Weirdly, for a lawyer, I have a lot of odd post-apocalyptic skills.
I can card, spin and weave raw animal hair into fabrics - also dye it. I don’t really sew though - only decorative things, which won’t be all that useful.
Plus I can grow food and cook it - and preserve excess in various forms.
I can’t hunt, but I’m good at fishing - and preserving fish once caught.
Also I’m a fair carpenter - both for buildings and tables and things.
I can throw, fire and glaze pottery (as well as build the equipment necessary to do those things - even in a society that might lack electricity).
I can tend smaller livestock (not cows and horses, but goats and chickens and sheep for sure).
I can use a boat. Without killing myself or others.
I have teaching experience.
I’m useless with anything mechanical or that plugs into a wall, though.
I really suspect the carding & spinning will be invaluable and you would have to spend a lot of time teaching. I also believe we will all have to learn some tending skills and carpentry skills. Thankfully I have the last.
My wife has animals skills and pottery skills. I suspect that with the surplus of plastics we won’t need pottery for a long time but we better maintain the skill anyway. I would think she would want to learn the carding as she likes to knit.
In addition to brewing, I have some small skills with firearms and explosives. These will come in handy when we have to defend ourselves from, or need to take over, a neighboring group. Bosda might also find these skills helpful in oppressing the plebes.
I also can cook, sew, bake, butcher a pig, start a fire by rubbing two Boy Scouts together, and other basic survival skills. Just don’t ask me to deal with cows, other than as hamburger.
Sounds like we got ourselves a community.
I forgot to add, I’m also a brewer (of wine) and pretty good with the garden and have been known to repair the hell out of a car every now and then.
Plus, I can help reproduce. In fact, I’ll volunteer to be the Chief of Reproduction, or COR.
A few more questions:
Will the gene pool be large enough to maintaining standard pairings?
Will we need to have children outside of standard marraige patterns to increase diversity?
Will this cause strife?
My manufacturing and electrical background won’t do much, those are covered pretty well. Retail and customer service skills don’t seem very in demand, either.
Has Bricker determined if prostitution is legal in our brave new world yet?