It’s not enough to just have a gun. You need organization. The group of the most people with the most guns is going to become the next government, eventually. If you aren’t part of it, you’re fucked.
My hunch is that at least in stable democracies some kind of government would assert itself. At the beginning people would look to leadership from respected community figures with relevant skills: police officers, doctors, engineers. Such people would organize a local government. Gradually as communications were restored these local governments would connect with each other and also establish order in pockets of anarchy. Most people would be very scared and be happy to submit to any kind of authority especially if it was reasonably benign.
Survival may not be that difficult provided some kind of order is established because the entire energy and resources of the community would be focussed on survival. I would imagine food, water and other supplies lying around would be quickly centralized and some kind of rationing system set up. Lone gunmen hiding with a year’s supply of food wouldn’t really have much of a chance of surviving so they would be forced to become part of the system as well. The existing food stocks would give people time to scout the surrounding areas and set up a system of basic agriculture and hunting which would support a fairly large population. So long as there is a reasonable amount of arable land and water many people would survive.
I am with Lemur866 on this. Civilizations do not collapse in an instant, not even if there is some sort of natural cataclysm. And cataclysms are not usually what end civilizations anyway (though they may, but also may not, hasten its decline). Often a cataclysms can be dealt with quite well.
It happens slowly, over decades or even centuries. It is usually so slow that the people involved do not really know it is happening, just that things tend to get a little bit worse year upon year (and sometimes they even get a bit better for a while, before the general downward trend reasserts itself). There is no heroic action to be taken. The best most of us can do to prevent the collapse of civilization, or slow it down (or, come to that, assist in its rise,if it is still in its rising phase) is to act ethically and do our jobs as well as we can.
It is only from a distance, centuries later, that historians can say with any confidence when a civilization was either rising or collapsing. And even the historians cannot put any meaningfully precise date on when it ended (or began). It is nice to be able to say that the Roman Empire ended in 476, when Romulus Augustulus was deposed, but, in fact, few peoples lives changed very significantly as a result. Much of the land that had once been part of the empire had not seen much in the way of civilization for a very long time. In other areas people continued to live with at lest some of the amenities of civilization, and continued to thing of themselves as Romans, for several more generations to come.
- How are police officers, doctors and engineers going to produce food and water?
How? There simply isn’t going to be enough food for more than 10% of the population. So how are you going to organise a government when 90% of people are dying?
Why would a starving person submit to an authority that can not provide food?
Are you joking? Why does it matter whether all the energy and resources of New York city is focused on finding food and water when the resources simply don’t exist? You can’t find what does not exist, and expending energy doing so will simply cause you to starve faster.
Yep. And there are about 2 weeks worth of food, water and other supplies lying around in a city. What do you do after that?
Why? How?
Why as in "Why the hell would someone with 8 weeks worth of food jpin a system that has no food at all?
And how as in “How do you force someone who isn’t starving from joining a group that is starving?”
You seem to be hand waving away the fact that the food to feed 6 billion people for more than two weeks simply does not exist on Earth. We have a total global food reserve of about three months. After that it needs to be replenished by a farming, trading and transport infrastructure that is completely dependent on technology. With no technology the farms cease to produce. With no trading the harvest of current crops won’t even be made. With no infrastructure the food that we do have can not be moved to where it is needed.
You can’t handwave this problem out of existence. Electing an engineer “Emperor of Springfield” Doesn’t address the problem. Saying that people will somehow follow the Emperor doesn’t address the problem. There is nowhere near enough food in a world without technology,and no method by which it could be produced.
OK, that answers my question. You aren’t joking, you just have no idea how much effort goes into farming. Anyone who seriously suggests that the population of any city could feed itself by spreading out into the country side has no idea atll what they are talking about, and has never even grown a carrot, much less 100 acres of wheat.
FFS, what do you think the countryside is being used for already? How can it possibly support *more *people by *reducing *the amount of farmland by having people building houses on it? And that is only the objection based on the laws of physics. Never mind basic facts of agronomy.
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It’s an established fact that there isn’t a reasonable amount of arable land and water with an absence of technology. That’s why the human population remained below 1 billion until we developed that technology.
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The problem isn’t primarily the amount of arable land, it’s the total inability to co-ordinate production,pay for production or transport the produce. It doesn’t do you much good that a farmer in outback Australia has an excess of farmland and a million tonnes of beef available. Without the telecommunications and trading infrastructure to pay him for that beef, pay someone else to butcher it, pay someone else to ship it to your location the technology to keep it refrigerated the whole way and the telecommunications to transmit the knowledge that you can pay for beef and he has beef, you’re still gonna starve. The same goes for the hectare of maize being grown in Iowa if you are living in New York. With no trade network, no telecommunications and no processing technology you’re up shit creek even if there is an excess of arable land.
No serious scholar in the entire world argues that we could feed more than 10% of the current population without 20th century technology. And that is optimistic. Why do you argue otherwise?
Oddly enough, as has been mentioned on the dope previously, mrAru and I are accomplished medieval recreationists - we can take a sheep and turn it into dinner, clothing, soap, bone beads, bone needles and a pair of shoes. Many sorts of useful knowledge for people losing higher technology [though we could get a wood and metal lathes up and running fairly soon, but slow manual powered types not machine run, at least at first.]
Unfortunately we have medical issues that require maintenance medication. He has a thyroid condition, I am diabetic, and have cardiac issues now. We could try to train a few people in what we know before we drop dead.
In that case… can I have your stuff?
The Amish won’t defend themselves. As soon as the more ruthless survivors realize this they will go in and take everything the Amish own. So, um, go ahead and talk with them, but be aware they will be targeted.
Me, in the first 72 hours I’d fill up the vehicles with gas, canned food, and what survival gear I have. Then I go out to a friend’s place east of here - he has a well, several wood burning stoves for his home, and 70 acres of land. And guns.
Given our proximity to Chicago we might not be able to stay there long term, but it’s a good staging area. My buddy has vehicles, tools, guns, ammo, etc. We could get a caravan together and head out. Maybe to where his brother lives - his brother is a gunsmith and a mechanic, that will be a potent combination. Myself - I know how to grow food, make cloth, paper, cook over a campfire, and perform such useful basic functions. The point is, I’d be with an armed group with resources, which is your best hope of survival.
After the first year or so, when most of the idiots die off, looting what remains of canned food and goods in camping/hunting stores will be much easier. That will be a big help in survival the initial few years of learning to be a farmer/hunter.
I already own a crossbow. 
Combining the two, the organised groups with weapons who will succeed and become the next government is… the army. Probably still led by the old government (that’s what disaster planning is all about). But not necessarily following the old constitutional norms.
So, gentlemen, your best chances of survival are to present yourself at the nearest barracks and offer yourself as an eager and enthusiastic servant. Ladies, similarly, but probably best to have looted the cosmetics and lingerie departments rather than the manual tools section.
Have fun!
My point is that we already have a gang of people willing to use violence to defend themselves against outsiders. We call this gang “The United States of America”. We have police, park rangers, soldiers, courts, prisons, and so on, a whole host of people who don’t usually have to use violence to enforce the rules, but who sometimes do.
If we’re reduced to single families looking out for themselves, because that means almost everyone on our continent will die. As you point out, without modern technology there’s no way to feed 300 million people. It can’t happen. And so why are we rushing to abandon modern technology again? How about we don’t abandon modern technology when the disaster hits?
First of all I am not thinking of the world as a whole. Like I said I was thinking of stable democracies with relatively large amounts of land relative to population like the US, Canada etc. Let’s stick to the US for the sake of discussion.
What would happen in the US after the hypothetical meltdown of infrastructure. I am pretty sure an emergency government would take over. It would have overwhelming advantages over any other force: lots of highly trained soldiers with control large stocks of weapons, a civilian bureaucracy with a lot of technical and organizational expertise and the default support of most of the population.
One of the first things it would do is to take control of whatever food supply is available and then most of the farms in the country. It would probably start shifting huge number of people to farms where they would be put to work. Probably some of this could be done by whatever transportation works and then later by foot or bicycle. These people would be trained to collect the harvest and also plant new, fast-growing year-round crops on a massive scale. You also have hundreds of millions of livestock which can produce food or be killed especially in the period before the first harvest is collected. There would be a reasonably large stock of hunting weapons and ammunition which could be used to hunt food fairly efficiently.
I also think you are underestimating the number of people a relatively primitive agricultural system can support. The population density of the US today is lower than India’s in the 19th century and I would imagine lower than the coastal areas of China in that period. The post-emergency US would have a number of advantages over those societies: a vastly more educated population including millions of scientists, agronomists, engineers who could improvise new technologies with whatever was available. It would have a large of stock of buildings, roads, tools which could last decades. The post-emergency government would probably be able to organize a more efficient social and political system compared to feudal Asia.
The problem with this is that many, many people are going to have the same idea. Unless you are in some way uniquely endowed (say, with bulletproof skin or magic force fields) you’re going to find yourself trampled or shot.
Urk? Why do you believe that you would have to resort to eating people? Even accounting that normal livestock and agriculture will be rapidly depleted, if your plan is to retreat into mountains or secluded areas, there are plenty of small species that can provide nutrients without the health risk and cultural revulsion of eating human flesh. Indeed, once massive dieoffs from famine or disease occur, one can expect that many large prey species like deer and elk may grow widely in numbers, as will adaptive predators like canids.
Also known as “You have to sleep sometime, Bob.” You just can’t be on guard 24 hours a day and do all the other things necessary to survive in a long-term situation. Look at soldiers in a war zone; sure, they’re subject to attack at any time, but they’re supplied with all basic survival needs. When you cut off that supply chain and force them to starve or forage, they become weak and poorly defended, which is why attacking the logistical supply chain to a main force in a long term conflict (when possible) is far more effective than attacking the force itself head-on. The idea of holding down in a defensive position indefinitely is nothing more than uninformed fantasy.
Democracy is a luxury of civilization and industrialization and would not exist in a sustenance society in any recognizable form. People would form around leaders who either have applicable survival skills or the ability to organize and motivate those who do. There is no guarantee that these people would be benign; indeed, in a scenario posited by the o.p., mercy toward anyone who was not blatantly submissive to the governing authority would be a very significant weakness.
Probably the smartest thing you can do. Just realize that others may have the same idea, and that it may be necessary to fortify your position via force, something that the Amish are unlikely to do. However, they’re going to have the skills and experience for long term survival without the benefits of industry and modern civilization.
Stranger
I’m of two minds on this; the first says that most people will gather someplace centrally, like the local city hall, and expect their current leaders to lead them. I think there are a vast majority of people in our societies who will just keep clicking the remote control over and over - “Why doesn’t this thing work?” These people are not going down to the local Wal-Mart to raid their guns and ammo.
My second mind says that everyone goes savage, instantly, as soon as the thin veneer of civilization wears off (and the tv’s stop working). Now we’re all in hand-to-hand combat at the local Wal-Mart over the guns and ammo.
I fail with item #2.
A little selective demolition will semi-isolate my town from the rampaging hordes that will be exiting Greater LA. We are heavily Mormon around here, and a whole bunch of us are heavily-armed rednecks. We’d get by.
I am thinking of Katrina. And LA during the last big riots. And the NYC black-out. . And parts of Europe at various times before, during and after WW II and a lot of other examples. Some of the people who survived did turn into bandits with claimed territory - and it may have helped them survive. Look at the folks who held out in the forest against the Germans; some movie lately was about that.
Civilization collapses in a second, at least in little ways, too often to just sit and dream happy dreams. Some of us like dreaming the nightmares now and then and learning from them. Call it a blend or a balance; but it isn’t a bad idea.
I do F&I. One thing I have studied, in addition to the history, is Native American medicine and the medical practices of the Europeans at the time. I got some cardiac issues myself and while the old fashioned stuff isn’t as good as nitroQuik, it beats nothing.
(Maybe we should team up? I got the flinters and can make some mean powder. I’ve never crafted edged weapons much over basic hawks but I can whip together a fair forging operation in short time. :))
Maybe smaller cities in places with decent resources and good leadership could manage to stay more coherent than larger cities which need more external support.
I haven’t thought this through too much, but what difficulties would there be to for example repairing a nearby hydro-electric plant and key parts of the electric grid? There is probably a lot of electronic control equipment, but maybe a reduced capacity could be restored with simpler means, or maybe there are enough spares around to get electricity back. Some power helps a lot, and pumping for the water supply could then resume.
However, we are still left with dead machinery and a dwindling amount of food and fuel. Simpler engines don’t have much electronics to fry, and with proper fuel rationing it is perhaps possible to get some local agriculture going again fairly quickly. Around here that probably can’t support the entire city, and it has a significant lag before it becomes productive. Proper rationing together with increased hunting (at much much higher rates than usual) + netting fish, could help to sustain people initially until the agricultural capacity has been expanded. Fuel is still a big problem, but I wonder what is necessary to get the local ethanol production going again…
It won’t be easy, but probably not impossible to keep some civilization going, and eventually bounce back as much knowledge would be retained as long as a total collapse is avoided.
Some lucky smaller cities (not located near any big population centers) could then turn into little city-states if they manage to get a sustainable supply of food quickly enough, while large cities will probably become much messier as there is too much people in a small area, that need a huge network to keep sustained.
Location, location, location. When something bad happens and you live in an urban area, you are screwed. It is just that simple.
As noted several times already, cities are completely dependant upon the constant supply of goods coming in. And those supplies come in over the road. If you are in a smaller community when IT happens your chances are better.
Where I live there are 4 major roads that if severed would isolate at least 1000 square miles of rural and timber land. This is becoming a greater issue as preparations for a major earthquake event are developed. It is thought that a major Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake of 9.0 happens about every 300 years, based upon testing of sediment layers. We are overdue and have been told that we cannot expect help from inland for several days, as all the bridges will be down, the tunnel on 26 will collapse and 30 and 101 will be closed by rock slides. All the small towns are developing response plans.
This is NW Oregon. The north/south US 101, east/west US 30 and Hwy 26 from Portland to the coast are routinely shut down, several times per year, due to slides and other weather conditions.
If the ‘OP’s emergency event’ doesn’t isolate the area, a couple boys with logging equipment could take out one tunnel and 2 roads easily if that was needed to slow down an outside threat.
So it just all depends upon where you are when IT happens, in this hypothetical situation. The postulated 90% of people who are going to die in a few weeks is really refering to the urban population.
The US is a big country. The big, bad IT event would disrupt everything, but when you talk about mass death, you are talking about the small urban area with the large population. Not the larger rural parts with the small population.
The OP said only electric power wouldn’t work. Thus steam power would still work and we would only have to digress technologically one hundred years and even than we’ll still retain most of our advances in biotechnology and medicene so not much of a disaster once the first lack of electricity passes.
You seem to have failed to read the OP, or even the thread title. There is no modern technology available to provide food. No communications, no electricity supply, no water. Nothing. People will begin to starve within two weeks no matter what anybody does. The only question is how they react when that happens.
Nobody is “rushing” to abandon modern technology. The scenario posed is one where there is no modern technology of the appropriate. Your idea that the people of New York are going to band together in the local courthouse and wait for the engineers to fix the national power grid while they watch their children starve makes no sense. It goes entirely against human nature and everything that has ever been observed in any famine.
I have been.
Once again, I can’t tell whether you are joking, or just grossly ignorant of both agriculture and history. If this is an ironic joke then it is hilarious.
In the wake of social collapse a totalitarian government arises, takes control of the means of food production in the name of the people and moves all those unproductive city people out into the countryside where they increase agricultural productivity by collective farming.
That’s absolutely priceless.
If it isn’t a joke then I may need to explain why it’s so hilarious: precisely this has been tried before, in both China and Russia. It led to a drastic decline in food production and the most disastrous famines in human history.
Oh of course. All those fast-growing year-round crop varieties that we have locked away on Area 52. The ones that we aren’t using now because there is a government conspiracy to reduce food productivity.
I think at this stage that you must be joking.
PMSL. This is priceless.
You know, after those last few howlers I was certain you were joking. And now I’m starting to get sad again because I think you are serious. India and China are tropical countries, the US is not. Once we add in all the other factors that affect productivity such as rainfall, soil fertility and landform your suggestion that the US could ever approach India in terms of productivity is ridiculous.
And all this within the 8 weeks before people the majority of people have starved to death.
Neat.
But I wonder why they aren’t working to do this already, if it will only take them from now until Easter to complete.
My oath it could.
Because if there’s one thing that history has taught us, it’s that totalitarian governments arising out of social chaos and seizing the means of agricultural production and forcing city dwellers to work the land always produce a more efficient social and political system compared to feudal Asia.
That’s pretty optimisitic. As Der Trihs notes, most people have no idea how to survive without modern technology, much less how to make steam engines. With a total US population of maybe 5 million people scattered across the entire continent you are going to be hard pressed to maintain steam technology.
If you could get the population stabilised and then move all of those millions into a relatively small area so the remaining knowledge was concentrated, then you’d be in with a shot. But a random selection of 10 million people will contain 9.9 million bank clerks, telephone sanitizers, waitresses and other people people with no utilisable skills, 90, 000 people such as mechanics, academics and hobbyists with moderate skills, 9, 000 farmers and 1, 000 boilermakers, engineers, doctors and others with directly usable skills.