But once there’s no more gas/diesel how do you plow? By hand with a hoe, you’re lucky to be able to feed even yourself never mind anyone else. How many draft horses/oxen are still around? Or plows that don’t need machines to pull? Does anyone still have legacy strains of wheat or corn that aren’t 100% dependent on herbicides, insecticides and fertilizer to grow? Or for that matter, aren’t genetically designed to produce sterile plants? How many farms are in the middle of nowhere fifty miles from the nearest town; without trucks that’s going to be a difficult trip to the hardware store. Farmers might have silos full of grain to fall back on, but most of them are going to have nearly as much difficulty surviving the long term as the rest of us.
In fact, any scenario that leaves most people alive can’t be an apocalypse, because if most people are still alive they’ll just rebuild.
I guess maybe something that causes massive crop failures for several years in a row is going to end up with starvation. But even then the people that survive aren’t going to be survivalists hiding out in bunkers, but people who are organized. People don’t survive on their own, they survive as groups. You can have a bunker stocked with canned goods and firearms, but you have to sleep sometimes.
The only historic events that come close to an apocalypse are the population crashes that occurred in the Americas after 1492 with the twin blows of epidemics and conquest. I suppose a wide-spread nuclear war might do the trick.
My case is if electricity stopped working, permanently. Meaning nothing that wasn’t* strictly* mechanical worked. This is probably against the laws of physics, but it’s the scenario I’m going with, the premise of the TV show Revolution. Shit would be hitting the fan within a few days. 1800’s conditions without 1800’s infrastructure would kill a lot of people, quickly.
I think Humans would survive The Walking Dead type scenario quite easily. I don’t think the show is realistic at all. Long term, I think a Walking Dead scenario would be beneficial to mankind.
Let’s take some realistic apocalypses. Lets say Yellowstone blew. Or a huge asteroid hit the earth. Or a global nuclear war. Those are the only other things I can think of that would count as truly apocalyptic. And a shitload of people would die, right away. Global warming or ice ages are too slow to count as apocalypses.
Seriously, what apocalypse are we talking about where tons of people don’t die real quick? Thats kind of apocalypses’ “thing”.
The whole question is moot unless we know what exactly caused the disaster. The results of a fast pandemic are going to be different from a slow one, and the sudden breakdown of infrastructure more different still. One thing is certain though, once the support system breaks down, urban areas become uninhabitable quickly. Sterling’s “emberverse” novels posit dead zones around all the large urban centers, the radius of which is determined by how far a person on foot can get before dying of starvation- everything edible within that radius is consumed, and no survivors remain.
- I never understood this argument. Food can be grown with artificial light. That artificial light can be powered by nuclear, hydroelectric, geothermal, wind or solar power.
Also keep in mind modern agriculture is very, very inefficient. An acre of corn provides 15 million calories, enough to provide subsistence living for 20 people per year. Also keep in mind that in a true survival situation, there may be 4 corn growing seasons a year instead of 1. It takes maybe 2-3 months for corn to reach maturity. In a survival situation you may have corn grown indoors from January-March, then again from April-June, etc. And there would be incentives to investigate even faster growing corn crops, maybe you could reduce the maturity period down to 1-2 months instead. you could get up to 12 planting seasons a year out of corn I assume.
But most of the corn currently grown is used for industrial purposes or for livestock feed.
In a true survival scenario, agricultural land would be devoted to high calorie staple crops like corn and potatoes, and 100% would be devoted to feeding people (0% to feeding livestock or industry).
This would be done to keep people alive until society could rebuild. In an even worse scenario, food rations would be changed based on the level of human capital of the citizens. A 70 year old would get less food than a 21 year old. Someone with a graduate degree gets more food than someone with a high school diploma. Someone with a proven track record of innovation and hard work gets more food rations than someone with a record of unemployment and homelessness. It isn’t fair or nice, but I could see society doing that if things got truly desperate.
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Eh. Weapons last longer than 1-2 years, and anyone who can keep them functional for longer than 1-2 years will massacre the bow and arrow people. There is a gigantic incentive to keep weapons functioning. People follow incentives.
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Possibly, I’m not sure.
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Again, disagree. People in cities are more dependent, but they have higher human capital. Put two groups into a post apocolypse society. The amish and a bunch of city dwellers who are educated, informed and good at problem solving.
Come back in 10 years, and the city dwellers will probably be doing better.
The only apocalypse scenario I can think of that fits the OP is along the lines of Revolution. Or maybe a book series I read a while back where some millions of years ago one of the hyper advanced alien races attempted some grand experiment and really screwed the pooch when they actually altered the laws of physics rendering all their high tech gadgetry into paperweights. Under that premise, all the metals would still conduct, but with different properties. Anything more complicated than a tube radio would be junk and even the radio might need reworking to actually be useful.
Yes, except that happened because Alien Space Bats changed the laws of physics and cars and airplanes stopped working. The cities became death zones because everyone in them had to walk.
In a real life disaster, cars and airplanes and radios and trains and boats and firearms will still work. So you can load up trucks with grain and bring it to the cities.
The specter of silos full of grain rotting in Kansas while people in Dallas are starving to death doesn’t make any sense. A disaster that could disrupt transportation networks so thoroughly that we literally can’t move grain from one place to another, yet somehow the people in the cities are still alive to starve to death is impossible.
Mass starvation could only happen through massive crop failures, not transportation bottlenecks. Sure, nuke all the cities and you’ll have transportation bottlenecks. But then the people in those cities are mostly dead from the nuclear bombs and radiation poisoning and won’t starve.
Side question, but how the heck could a steam engine not work? You heat water, water boils, the steam produces pressure and pushes a piston. Where could the process possibly break down?
Millions of people would have to have the means to catch game before they can kill it, and most people lack the expertise or gear to catch anything faster or smarter than an opossum. Hunting may not be feasible in very densely populated urban or suburban areas, but it’s going to be an available option anywhere away from a major city for those with the skill and means to engage in it.
A Solar EMP would (according to the many EMP stories I’ve read) knock out the power grid to the point of an Apocalypse in half the World (the side facing it) or all of the world if it is a war scenario using high altitude nukes (in a MAD situation) vs targeting specific cities. http://energyskeptic.com/2015/power-transformers-that-take-up-to-2-years-to-build/
Replacing transformers for the electrical grid would require transformers that are either newly built or ones that were stored in Faraday cages. Most cars from the 90s on wouldn’t run because their computerized bits would be fried. Some military vehicles would still run, though, as they have been hardened against such a possibility. But to get from point A to Point B might be a tad difficult with all the dead cars on the roads.
Realistically, before you have to worry about starving you will have to worry about dehydration. No electricity means no pumps pushing water into your house. People will die from drinking contaminated water. Sewage will no longer be pumped away and cleaned up because no power.
Preppers talk about The Golden Horde. It’s what happens when people in the city realize there will be no more food deliveries and there is no more food where they are. Now with a zombie apocalypse the main enemy you can shoot with no moral problems, the secondary enemy (Bad Guys) you can shoot to defend you and your family. But how do you say “No, I can’t spare any of my food that I bought/grew/preserved for my family” when it’s a mom and 2 kids staring at you? It’s easy to share with 1-5 other people. But when it’s hundreds? Thousands?
(and the comments are way, way down the page where different flavors of preppers weigh in on the concept.)
We’re not preppers we just live in the Midwest which means tornadoes, floods and blizzards happen so we have things like extra food that is easy to prepare (canned goods), a generator for when the power goes out, and keep our vehicles full of gas (no power= no gas being pumped) whether to be able to make it work (if it has power) or to be siphoned for the generator.
Aliens use indistinguishable from magic powers to make the technology fail that the author doesn’t want people to have. The limits don’t really make any sense, and it’s a pretty common criticism of the books. You can’t find a logical reason for where the process breaks down because there simply isn’t one.
I live in a very rural area. I am prepared for most emergency trials. I have food enough for awhile. I have a generator. And a husband who hunts, fishes and grows a garden. We have a well (actually 2). I keep chickens. I preserve food every growing season. And I have a stocked pond. What my problem would be is getting to my kids. They are adults but I would still want them close. And, a biggie, I am type 1, insulin dependant diabetic. I keep extra, just because where we live. I don’t see being able to scavange for it very long into an apocolypse. Anyway you look at it I won’t survive long. But maybe my kids and grandkids could.
Modern guns would NOT last indefinitely. Here’s several reasons.
- Since about the time the M-16 was invented, most modern designs are made of plastic and often aluminum. These are simply not as durable as steel or wood; they were adopted because they are cheaper and lighter,not more durable. They’re cheap enough, in fact, that they can simply be replaced as needed. Up through the 1950s/60s at least most military firearms were milled from steel. This is highly durable, but most such military weapons are already 50+ years old. Once warfare begins over the dwindling resources, all newer weapons are going to run out of ammo and/or break, quickly.
- It is not simply a matter of “keeping a gun oiled.” Once you run out of that oil, where will you get more? It’s an industrial product no one else is making anymore. If a single spring breaks in the mechanism, how will you replace it? Same problem. Everywhere the U.S. military goes they bring large stocks of spare parts so they don’t even have to think about things like this. One guy on his own has no such luxury. Multiply that one guy times millions. Guns are not idiot-proof, nor are they perpetual-motion machines. The same rule holds for most parts for reloading. Percussion caps are 19th century tech, so not a huge deal. But powder? Very, VERY few people would know how to make any kind of powder that would actually work, black or otherwise. And who is to say the supplies to make it could even be found? Ultimately, a bow and arrow would be simpler, faster, and easier to make, and more likely to work too.
Bullshit. Total and complete bullshit from beginning to end.
Run out of ammo? Do you have the slightest idea how many rounds of .223 there are in the continental US? There is enough ammo to kill every living thing larger than a jackrabbit about 20 times over. And that’s just .223. Shit, I could wipe out the Mongol Hordes with just the .22LR ammo I could scavenge from every fucking pickup truck glove box in the US. You made deride “plastic” parts on firearms, but most of them are polymers that are a lot stronger and longer lasting than wood. Running out of oil for your rifle? Use rendered fats. Fuck, Vaseline would do. Sure, you’ll get more jams, but you have need to be blazing away full auto anyway. Single-shot kills.
TL;DR - Bullshit.
I have shot a number of guns. I have used bows and crossbows. In my limited experience, using a bow or crossbow is hard. Hard to learn, hard to aim. Arrows need to be available or reused ( not so sure that’s always possible). The village idiot can be taught to shoot a gun, maybe not with disgression, squeezing a trigger is easy.
And I agree about the amount of guns and ammo in the U.S. I have enough around me to last years. My husband reloads shotgun shells all the time. And the black powder guns and crap he’s got is ridiculous.
No, I don’t have any idea how many rounds of .223 ammo there are on the continental U.S. Do you? If not, by what statistical basis can you support a single thing you’ve said? You a) have no idea how much ammo exists, b) have no idea how fast if will get used up, c) have no idea how much ammo will be wasted on fighting with other people and on missing the target(s) completely. (Most people are terrible shots.) Just how many rounds of .22 LR does it take to kill a person not standing stock still within 50 yards, anyway? More than one or two, I’ll bet.
"I did not “deride” plastic parts at all. I said they would be inferior in the scenario I’m talking about. Had you not been in such a hurry to sound like a know-it-all, a little consideration would’ve shown that a) if a wooden stock breaks, I could literally whittle something usable out of a branch eventually with just a knife; b) if ANY plastic part breaks I would … what, exactly? Call the non-functioning factory on my non-functioning phone and order what I need to be delivered through the non-functioning mail?
As for using “animal fats” on a gun, please. They’ll be more valuable as food, not to mention they cook when they get hot, and guns in use … get hot. Sure, Vaseline might work, as would other stuff. And they will ALL be artificial products from a factory, and they will all run out eventually.
And just how good are the Amish going to be at defending their farms from desperate & armed survivors? :dubious:
Sure, using a bow and arrow is hard. There just won’t be any alternative. Using a bow and arrow is harder than using a gun, but MAKING them is a whole lot easier. A bow you have is better than a gun you don’t. As I pointed out above, you also really don’t know how much ammo will be “enough,” especially if there is open warfare over resources. And what seems like “a lot” looks veeerrrry different when it is all you will *ever *have.
Who said the Amish don’t have guns? The rules vary across communities, but quite a few of them hunt, just like anyone else. They’re pacifists, not vegans. One things for sure, ANY group that bands together the way the Amish (I’m assuming) would will have a better chance of survival.
Do you mean in the novels they simply shake their heads and say “it won’t run” with no further explanation? The problem with magic is boundaries. Reality fits together in a piece and you can’t simply change one bit without explaining what happens to all the other bits. 99% of spooky stories where taking a wrong turn somehow makes you end up in the Twilight Zone would collapse if you asked “what would someone who was watching from orbit with a powerful telescope the whole time see?”