A couple of recent threads have me thinking. I’m rather surprised at the number of dopers who do not possess what I consider to be basic life skills that would come in handy regardless of the situation. What is more, I’m astounded that a few seem to be proud of the fact that they cannot do certain things for themselves. Let me present a scenario and please rate yourselves accordingly.
You find yourself in a smaller town surrounded by rural, or undeveloped territory. How you got there is irrelevant; as is why you are there. Perhaps you are on vacation, or at a job conference… whatever. You are relaxing in your home/hotel room/ cafe/ etc when someone points at the tv screen and shouts for everyone to come quick and listen. If you are alone your programming has been interrupted. You hear a hurried report that the US is under a biological attack and that our counter systems have failed. Initial reports indicate that the major city centers have been struck hard and are destroyed or too dangerous to help at the moment. They expect the power grid to fail in a few minutes due to a massive EMP and click. That’s it everything is out.
We will also assume for the moment that your initial survival is assured. There is bottled water about, stored food, and in your area at least, everything seems to be fairly safe. Emergency services are not responding, and the power has been out for long enough that it is clear it will not be restored any time soon. Regardless of your initial choices, it is now clear that you will have to rebuild in some manner. So, The grand question is: How useful would you be to yourself and others?
I appreciate the spirit of the OP, but I question its usefulness given that you provide the survivor so much in the way of raw materials. IOW, given a hotel that was correctly functioning prior to the zombie apocalypse, any idiot should be able to survive, and even more so if you have an entire small town. A more interesting scenario to me would be becoming marooned in the backwoods with nothing but a saw, knife, rope, a nearly-collapsing shack, and 2 weeks of food supplies. You know, a bit of technology and just enough of a material head start to collect your wits and scout the area.
True, but in the spirit of fairness I’m envisioning something like “the colony” on discovery channel. I don’t expect everyone to be Bear freaking Grylls. What I’m curious about is how the demographics break down without any real societal support. We could start another poll on raw skills, which would be a different animal alltogether. I wanted to present a scenario that would be somewhat fair to everyone. it is assumed in the OP that you’ve exhausted all the immediate perishable resources, so you now have to start from scratch.
I might be useful as food for the others, but I know nothing much about farming or building or hunting. If you can get the electricity up and running, I can help with the computer systems. I have a bad back, so much lifting and carrying isn’t going to happen.
We did this as an exercise at church camp one time, and consensus was simply to find my brother-in-law and help him as he rebuilds civilization from the ground up. He is one of those annoyingly smart people who can build or fix anything, and he has the tools to do it.
I can skin a buck, and I can drive a truck. This country boy can survive.
In addition to my mad skills at applying John Denver lyrics, yeah…I’d be pretty useful. Security/combat troops? That’s me. Hunting for food? Yup, can do. Basic outdoorsman stuff? Got it covered. Fixing stuff…not so much, but I can protect those that can fix stuff.
I have fairly good wilderness survival skills, and also organizational skills. My medical skills are higher than almost any NON-medical professional. I am also in the SCA, and do camping, so have lived in camp for a week+, and I have lived in fishing camp without any power, etc for almost 3 weeks. I am also a good shot, and not squeamish.
But, in a* long* term sitrep, things will be very bad, no matter how good you are. Food stocks will last only a short time, and although hunting/gathering can help for a short time, it’s no good as a long term solution, unless we have a LOT less people. We’d have to turn to truck farming- small farms with a variety of crops, also chickens & pigs. In some areas, goats, sheep and cattle could be grazed.
In any such sitrep, the main problem is making the food stocks last until the crops can be organized, brought in and stored. First week problem will be panic, looting, etc. Then disease.
I don’t know shit about farming, but given a cow I can make yogurt and butter and if I have milled flour, can make flatbreads. And I do know how to milk a cow.
I suppose I am not useless, but not the most useful of people, either.
Those are valuable skills, and not to be sniffed at. I could survive just fine in the wilderness, but I don’t know how to milk a cow. I just see cows as big moving steaks. Unleavened flat breads can be excellent long term foods.
I know how to use plants; both edibles and medicinals, wild and cultivated, and am adept at growing them. I can cook from scratch for a large group of folks, and don’t mind doing it. I’ve heated with wood only in my life, and can gather, build, keep a fire going, and cook with it.
I have basic first aid skills, don’t flinch at bloody wounds, and can act as a caregiver. Probably my best skill in this case would be that I keep a clear head in tough situations, and try to act in the best interest of the group. Honestly, it’s not something I developed, just was born with. I am willing to step up and take responsibility, and multi-task in order to direct people in a way that gets things accomplished.
I don’t know how to use a gun or be threatening in case of attack, though.
I can milk a cow, sheep or goat. I can cook and bake anything. I can make cheese and yogurt, I can make sourdough bread that has no need for yeast. I can turn honey, cornmeal, eggs and a bit of flour into a cake, especially if I have some fruit.
I know how to can and use salt, make pickles, smoke and dehydrate to preserve food, as well.
I know how to save seeds, prepare and preserve them and germinate them to plant for the next growing season. If there’s any access to a library, I can make the schedule for the planting and harvesting.
I can fish and prepare a fish for cooking. I can also dress a bird for cooking.
I know how to construct a solar oven (and bake in one), the best way to create and set up rain barrels and how to safely reuse a lot of grey water. I know how to safely use household bleach to sanitize water for drinking.
I can entertain and educate young children with little more than a chalkboard and chalk. (Or whiteboard and markers, I guess.)
I know more than basic first aid. I can’t set a broken bone, but I can immobilize a limb in a way that preserves bloodflow and prevents further injury until the person gets to someone who can.
I can attend a woman through childbirth safely, I’ve got sufficiently familiarity with techniques to deal with the most common complications of childbirth to get mother and child through.
But an EMP attack might disable a large number of vehicles, is my concern. And eventually fuel supplies are going to become a problem, and I have mobility issues. I’m not walking long distances, I’m not running anywhere. If I can get to where the food is to prepare it, or the food comes to me, it’s all good. If I can get to the person who needs help or they can be brought to me, it’s all good. I’d gladly set up and run the daycare center/community dining hall and teach people my skills so that the work can be shared.
Can you follow instructions? (I don’t want to say “orders” although it’s almost the same thing - clearly cooperation will be a big part of survival in such a situation and voluntary compliance is best if it can be achieved). Because a LOT of the survival stuff that needs to be done isn’t that complicated but does require human labor. With the energy grid down and no doubt the gasoline going quick we’ll be back to human muscle power very quickly. If you can follow the directions of those who have more knowledge and skills you are a valuable and welcome addition to my “Ark”
Somehow I don’t think computers will be the highest priority (thought we will sorely miss the research capability of the internet). Again, can you follow instructions? We will need much labor on the “Ark” and not all of it will be strenuous. When we process plant foods there will be sorting and washing to be done, which could be done sitting down if that’s what you need, and we’ll find someone (maybe AClockworkMelon?) to lift anything that needs lifting for you. Can you look things up in a library? Because we’ll definitely need to ransack the local library for information and how-to books, perhaps you’ll even be looking up stuff in people’s home book collections. Can you mind children? Can you change a bandage? Can you sort through worn clothing, trim it down, maybe help sew it into blankets or coats or the like? Do you think you can learn to pluck a chicken? Can you extract seeds from ripe vegetables so they can be used for next year’s crops? Can you help cook food for those doing the heavy work?
There are may useful things you can do if you can follow directions and not all of them involve hard manual labor.
Really, an excellent survival strategy: find someone who knows what the heck needs to be done and throw in with that person.
If the world goes to hell I’m seriously considering high-tailing it out to my friend’s spread - he has 70 acres, his home already has wood-burning stoves designed for heating, he has more tools than three Home Depots, and he knows how to build and repair just about anything. His land would require some serious clearing as it’s mostly overgrown right now but that’s sufficient for a small farm. I mean, I’m good, I have useful skills, I’m in good shape, but seriously, he’s even better suited for this than I am and throwing my lot in with him just makes sense. Oh, and he has guns. And his brother is a gunsmith - can both make and repair firearms as well as make ammo.
Cool - you’re official hunter/guard/militia for my Ark.
I feel like I’m repeating myself: Can you follow instructions?..
Welcome to my Ark. You are our medic until someone with more skills in that area comes along. Someone with fewer skills will be assigned to be your assistant in tending the wounded and sick, and please do pass on your knowledge to them.
Excellent - after you pass on some of the basic medical skills you’ll be hunting at least occassionally with Oakminster
Especially the first winter. The first couple years, but the first winter will be terrible.
We need both less people and sufficient people. Even outside of the massive urban casualties in this scenario there will be a nasty die-off in the first year or two as people sustained by modern medicine succomb to chronic illness (insulin dependent diabetics, for example, will probably all be dead within a few months at most, two years or so at best). People will be injured and some will die of those injuries. People will fall ill and die of it. Plus, we’ll need people for manual labor.
You can milk a cow AND make yogurt? Butter? How about cheese, can you make cheese?
Welcome to the Ark, you are now in charge of the dairy.
The milled flour might be a bit of a problem - I know how to grind grain by hand but its hugely labor intensive. Perhaps I’ll set AClockworkMelon to looking for hand grinders. Perhaps our handymen types can construct some sort of basic mill.
[quote=“elelle, post:11, topic:551054”]
I know how to use plants; both edibles and medicinals, wild and cultivated, and am adept at growing them. I can cook from scratch for a large group of folks, and don’t mind doing it. I’ve heated with wood only in my life, and can gather, build, keep a fire going, and cook with it.
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Welcome to the Ark - you are now in charge of the kitchen. Some of our less able bodied citizens will be assigned to you as assistants, along with a few people do perform any heavy lifting required, and you will have to coordinate with Anaamika the Dairymaid.
[quote[I have basic first aid skills, don’t flinch at bloody wounds, and can act as a caregiver. Probably my best skill in this case would be that I keep a clear head in tough situations, and try to act in the best interest of the group. [/quote]
Excellent. You will be coordinating with and assisting DrDeth and/or any other medical people who show up.
Quite alright - Oakminster will take care of that for you.
See - this is doable. It wouldn’t be easy but it’s doable. You need a few key people with knowledge and skills, and a bunch of people to follow directions and pitch in to help.
What else do we need? A sanitation engineer. Seriously, we need a good plumber so we can have sanitary waste disposal. That alone will seriously improve our chances by guarding our health.
I voted “Other” since I would likely be a detriment. I am the Gilligan of the sdmb. If there’s a way to trip over just the wrong thing, I will find it and we’ll all die.
Sanitation engineer? I can build a compost pit/pile, which then serves to fertilise crops. If it’s a rural area, very doable, without sanitary issues in an urban setting.
jsgoddess: nah, here, cut up these last onions we have left, get out yer cry, and let’s go on ahead.
I just see cows as big moving steaks. Unleavened flat breads can be excellent long term foods.