Posted by Otter at 1:51pm Apr 14 '10You and I have discussed this in person before as well... as you know I often think about this for some reason. I have many nightmares and dreams of this variety as well.
My thoughts as a man and a father immediately plunge towards situational survival... both immediate, short, and long term... for me and my wife and kids.
immediate survival: As you eluded I think we'd be easy for the first 3-12 months. There are generators, gas, water in hot water heaters, bottled water, food pantries and basements stuffed to the gills with canned and boxed food. Heck even most medical supplies will last 12-24 months with minimal temperature control (insulin!).
Short-term survival: Having no outdoor equipment in my house or true survival skills of my own I would have to dedicate time immediately to:
a.) Raiding the sporting good's stores before everyone else had a chance to get everything "good"
b.) Finding and reading books on basic medicine, hunting, construction (shelter), and food preparation.
a true "treasure" find for me would be a developing a reliable technique to extract insulin from pigs or other human/similar sources that could be found wandering around the U.S. I would probably ultimately have to ranch/farm my own pigs for this purpose alone.
Is this a good solution? I have food (pig meat) and insulin for my son but I expect I'd have to kill A LOT more pigs than I'd be able to eat in order to get enough insulin on a regular basis. The good news is that a protein-heavy or protein-only diet requires far less insulin than his current diet. Ultimately protein-only or protein-major diets do still convert some into glycogen but it's far more efficient.
better solution? small-scale government, bartering systems, etc...
Stay in the city or wherever medium/large collections of people may be.... which would probably be near a safe/fresh long-term water source.... maybe Western Boulder-ish? Foothills communities with mostly fresh water streams?
Make arrangements with people of other skills. I'll stay home and farm/ranch 100's pigs (and other animals with useful insulin for my son)... you can eat the excess meat and use the hides (of which there'll be plenty)... and in return you give me something else I need to survive.
I don't think it would take long to learn how to be an effective pig farmer/rancher... particularly if I was able to find some good books on the subject. Hard and nasty work, no doubt... but so will every surviving man's job be in this post-apocalyptic scenario.
Hmmm... that sounds at least like a 10-20 year mostly self-sufficient scenario anyway. In that period of time people may have used their engineering expertise, etc... to build-up a real infrastructure in some places supporting such things as artificial medicinal production, refrigeration, etc...
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Post-apocalyptic assumptions:
A singular event wiped-out most of humanity and some of nature but after this event the natural world mostly resumes it's previous or at least similar patterns of sustainability. This could be plague, volcanic/seismic, intense solar flare, etc...
This leaves much of humanity's remains for the comfortable rationing and consumption of the few remaining.... and other similar ideas that play out nicely in my dream scenarios.
Given an alternate idea where the earth itself remains UN-sustainable naturally and 90% of humanity survives initially.... then there will be much more slow and painful death, much more violence and anarchy, and it's likely that nobody will survive beyond 8-12 months including me and my family.... there's so much in-between territory there though!
My thoughts as a man and a father immediately plunge towards situational survival... both immediate, short, and long term... for me and my wife and kids.
immediate survival: As you eluded I think we'd be easy for the first 3-12 months. There are generators, gas, water in hot water heaters, bottled water, food pantries and basements stuffed to the gills with canned and boxed food. Heck even most medical supplies will last 12-24 months with minimal temperature control (insulin!).
Short-term survival: Having no outdoor equipment in my house or true survival skills of my own I would have to dedicate time immediately to:
a.) Raiding the sporting good's stores before everyone else had a chance to get everything "good"
b.) Finding and reading books on basic medicine, hunting, construction (shelter), and food preparation.
a true "treasure" find for me would be a developing a reliable technique to extract insulin from pigs or other human/similar sources that could be found wandering around the U.S. I would probably ultimately have to ranch/farm my own pigs for this purpose alone.
Is this a good solution? I have food (pig meat) and insulin for my son but I expect I'd have to kill A LOT more pigs than I'd be able to eat in order to get enough insulin on a regular basis. The good news is that a protein-heavy or protein-only diet requires far less insulin than his current diet. Ultimately protein-only or protein-major diets do still convert some into glycogen but it's far more efficient.
better solution? small-scale government, bartering systems, etc...
Stay in the city or wherever medium/large collections of people may be.... which would probably be near a safe/fresh long-term water source.... maybe Western Boulder-ish? Foothills communities with mostly fresh water streams?
Make arrangements with people of other skills. I'll stay home and farm/ranch 100's pigs (and other animals with useful insulin for my son)... you can eat the excess meat and use the hides (of which there'll be plenty)... and in return you give me something else I need to survive.
I don't think it would take long to learn how to be an effective pig farmer/rancher... particularly if I was able to find some good books on the subject. Hard and nasty work, no doubt... but so will every surviving man's job be in this post-apocalyptic scenario.
Hmmm... that sounds at least like a 10-20 year mostly self-sufficient scenario anyway. In that period of time people may have used their engineering expertise, etc... to build-up a real infrastructure in some places supporting such things as artificial medicinal production, refrigeration, etc...
-----
Post-apocalyptic assumptions:
A singular event wiped-out most of humanity and some of nature but after this event the natural world mostly resumes it's previous or at least similar patterns of sustainability. This could be plague, volcanic/seismic, intense solar flare, etc...
This leaves much of humanity's remains for the comfortable rationing and consumption of the few remaining.... and other similar ideas that play out nicely in my dream scenarios.
Given an alternate idea where the earth itself remains UN-sustainable naturally and 90% of humanity survives initially.... then there will be much more slow and painful death, much more violence and anarchy, and it's likely that nobody will survive beyond 8-12 months including me and my family.... there's so much in-between territory there though!
great thoughts! - Otter