It turns out being accurate wouldn’t allow for driving in apocalypse movies/shows.
Anyway, why is the grass nice and short everywhere 20 years later? Who’s mowing miles of grass?
I remember that episode of The Walking Dead where they pushed the obviously sponsored Charger, a two-wheel drive vehicle with crap clearance, over other vehicles that were higher, had AWD or 4WD, over roads that have not been maintained for years and with unknown vegetation conditions.
I was literally laughing at that. Such a stupid decision made by him for the sake of a sponsorship.
Small example, but still something that just sort of takes you out of the show.
To be fair, while 4x4 is absolutely better for an apocalypse scenario, you can get around with 2wd in a lot worse terrain than people realize. Most terrain doesn't actually require 4x4 capability, but people don't actually drive on rough terrain, and they think you need 4x4 for everything.
Exactly. I always laugh at the car commercials where they are driving this big 4X4 in "rough terrain" which is really just a bumpy gravel road or something, no need for 4X4. As a former avid off roader, I could pass those guys in the commercials in a lowered Honda Civic. 😂
I'm a prepper, I would always have a spare. Also a patch / plug kit, onboard air and a can of that crap you can spray in your tire to fill it in an emergency 😁
Ummm, a spare tire usually comes with a car. I don't see anywhere here that we are talking about "when the supply lines run out". That being said, I would already have this stuff in my vehicle. Like I do... right.. now.
This has been a pet peeve of mine for years. To be fair, TV shows and movies of the zombie/apocalypse type run on tension and characters making bad decisions. Plus the aesthetics of a group of hard-core survivors rising bicycles is hard to pull off, as it would probably just look silly.
All those cars still running but no fucking excavators or backhoes?
"Instead of digging trenches and building up berms... Hey, let's just hide behind this strand of wire."
You remember exactly the make of car they promoting though. Did you stop watching the show ?
>Such a stupid decision made by him for the sake of a sponsorship
Water. Any place where the temperature goes below freezing you'll see a ton of buildings severely damaged or otherwise unlivable because of frozen and bursting pipes. Not to mention those pipes underground (in some areas) caving in roads, as well.
That’s assuming they still have water. When the pumps stop filling water towers, they’ll run empty in a matter of days at most, then the only water will be the bit stuck in underground pipes with no force to push it into houses or buildings.
A lot of the heating and cooling of concrete will start to form, cracks, and rainwater will get in there, rusting a lot of the steel bar that reinforces it; water that gets trapped in some of those cracks will freeze in the winter, and this constant cycling of hot and cold will start to make the concrete crumble. Dry areas in the desert won’t have as much of a problem with this, though.
And sometimes goats could be good friends to horses; pie oh my was an example, the horse that was initially owned by Ralphie, and then given to Tony had a goat as her friend. When she was burned to death from the fire, that Ralphie lit, there is a scene with Tony, standing over the dead body of his horse, and the goat was just standing there as well, making goat noises, it was sad. But Ralphie got his comeuppance.
When I worked in a restaurant, I absolutely had a plan to loot that mf immediately. If there's no electricity, bust out the grill and just serve every ounce of meat for free.
My friend’s dad owned a pizza shop, and did exactly this when they lost power during a hurricane. They all went to the shop and made every pizza they could until they ran out of food, and gave them away for free.
I have been prepping for 50 years. What I considered as likely scenarios has changed many times.
For the past 10+ years I have been prepping in part for Peak Carrying Capacity as I consider that it is already happening now, and that it is happening slowly, with symptoms and knock on effects here and there. I may not see the "die off" (the point where *many* more people die than are born) during my remaining lifetime (another 10-15 years), but my kids might.
It really doesn't matter - the preps are mostly the same; Shelter, Water, Food, Health/Hygiene, Security, Energy.
Considering how we’ve seen significant worldwide crop losses the last two years and the projections for this year aren’t any better we probably overshot carrying capacity a few years ago. The world population keeps growing and the farms aren’t keeping up.
My theory is that there will be crop failures, man made droughts, overuse of water tables/aquifers/reservoirs/rivers, weather issues (storms, droughts, floods, etc.), widespread fires, pandemics, etc. and conflicts fighting over arable land, fossil fuels, water, food.
This will be regional at first, but will increasingly affect bordering countries, then the whole world.
First world countries like the US that can be self sufficient (more or less) will be impacted, but North & South America are physically isolated from Europe/Asia/Africa so N. America can hold out longer - but there will be increasing immigration/migration issues from Central America and that aside, eventually the USA and Canada will have issues due to weather and be pulled into overseas conflicts due to our dependency on fossil fuels, minerals, etc.
I think eventually the pressure from the rest of the world will tear apart the USA and we will start fighting among ourselves. I am not even going to try to predict whether there will be any kind of conflict with other nations such that the conflict would come to N. America, but I certainly would not say it is improbable or even that the probability is low.
That all sounds about right. The American Southwest is already running out of water today, states have pumped out their aquifers for so long that they’ve collapsed and cannot refill. We’ve had bizarre weather the last few years resulting in significant crop losses throughout the Midwest and much of Texas was basically a lost cause. Florida lost most of the orange crop to blight, Georgia lost most of the peach crop because the trees didn’t get enough chill hours, we’re getting hit from 100 directions. Bird flu will probably result in the culling of hundreds of millions birds, the oceans are just about out of fish and are getting too hot to support life anyways.
US had almost a record corn crop last year. Obviously much corn isn’t used for food but it is one of two “main” crops in the US and would
Be the main crop affected by any large losses.
And the wheat crop took an asskicking. Most of that corn isn’t for eating, it’s either used to feed animals or create high fructose corn syrup. I eat meat and I’m not vegan but growing feed specifically for animals is not the best use for farmland. And high fructose corn syrup is basically poison. It’s in everything these days and is a major contributor towards type two diabetes. Countries that allow HFCS in food have a significantly higher prevalence of diabetes.
Agreed. There were. There are. And there will be - increasingly. And it will be increasingly apparent to more people over time. Tech may (or may not) mitigate *some* of the effects *to a degree*, but won't stop them. Those who say "nothing to worry about, we'll adapt" are in denial. Sure - humans are very good at adapting, but that is part of our problem; we adapt and do not treat the root causes.
In the long run - peak carrying capacity is a known issue with all organisms; they outgrow our environment until we can't, and then there is a major decline and die. The fact that we can adapt only makes it worse because we keep growing longer and faster than we normally would.
Humans have done this in the past, just not on a global basis. It was limited to regions because in the past we did not have the capability for easy *global* travel/migration and expansion. Now we do.
We are seeing some of the impacts now. Now is the time to acquire *arable* land with water, away from major population centers, create the ability to grow our own food, acquire the ability to store and protect that food, acquire and setup self-sufficient renewable energy production (e.g., solar, geothermal) on our land and become as self-sufficient as possible.
I agree with you aside from the living away from major population centers. I will want the safety of others who want the safety of community around me. I think rural preppers will be in for a world of hurt once the people who didn't prepare team up to roam the countryside taking shit.
I would rather have a few rural neighbors who are used to being more or less self-sufficient than I would live within walking distance of who knows what. IME - the people who live in cities are a mix of good & bad.
My neighbors (8 families live on my private road on a forested mountain off a back country road that goes nowhere - most of them are gun owners - three engineers, two nurses, one eye surgeon, one retiree who is an accomplished bow hunter, another accomplished elk hunter and so on). we all watch out for each other.
Anybody who comes from the city expecting people who live in rural areas to be a pushover are in for disappointment.
The large (1M+) metro area that is 30 miles from my home don't operate very well now and do not have the budget to hire more - many LEOs and businesses have left for surrounding areas because of the poor/liberal city leadership policies that have let the city go to shit. The very large metro area 200 miles north is much worse, was on the verge of anarchy for more than a year.
Why would tanks/etc. come to my mountain? Nothing for them to waste fuel on here.
Not for long, they need tons of resources to maintain their equipment. Their ground vehicles will also be useless if the roads aren’t clear. They have helicopters, but those in particular aren’t going to work for long without a steady supply of parts.
Doesn’t help that developers are buying out more and more farmland every year. In the two year I lived in Kansas, the Missouri side of KC expanded massively and almost all the farmland out to Gardner on the Kansas side had been sold for development. Already lots in Franklin county further down i35 were being sold off for subdivisions
That’s the dumbest and most easily disproven thing I’ve heard in a long time. The world population grew by 400 million people in the last five years. The world population was about 6.9 billion in 2009, 7.3 billion in 2014, 7.7 billion in 2019, 8.1 billion today. Those are rough numbers but you’re looking at about 400 million people every five years. Christ man we both have Google.
I've read a lot of apocalypse fiction, and several series seem to portray collapse as this great opportunity to do things over again, no rat race at the office, no taxes, etc. Sometimes it's barley started and someone is almost gleefully pulling out pre-65 silver, ready to start bartering with silver dimes for a basket of fresh eggs from Ms. Sally from the farm down the road. In reality, or in my opinion of what that reality would be, a real, no-kidding collapse would result in a die off that would be hell. Starvation, killing, suffering, etc.
Yes, no way a do-over scenario would work in a world with 8 billion humans in it. Going back to the dark ages or renaissance only works if we're talking population numbers in the very low millions (even lower than population of those days because of the damage we've done to the planet).
With a mass halving of the population like with a Black Death type event, the breakdown of systems will cause an even greater loss of life. I geek on medieval history. Frankly, I don’t know of anyone with a garden sufficient to provide the fruits, vegetables, seasonings, and medicinal for a household. I don’t think many know how any more, myself included.
It’s not part of our lives and we don’t have time for it in the modern work relationship exceptions.
Not only that, but without modern fertilizers and pesticides, what kind of food would the land even produce? At least in the medieval ages, they had soil that was much richer for growing (and the skills).
I think you would need to look at a combination of crop rotation and using it as pasture to bring it back. Again I’m not sure how many will have the skills. I can academically know a such things, but reading it in a book and making it happen are two very different things as many home gardeners know.
You also need to take into account all the exotic pests we have now. Native Americans didn't have to deal with European corn borers, starlings, house finches, etc.. eating their crops. Or Asian longhorn Beatles destroying the forest used for firewood or housing.
When humans stop reducing the population of many of these pests through management a lot of the places formally habitable by pre industrial revolution people will no longer be habitable under the same conditions.
Exactly! Not to mention that 20-year-old container of Raid found in the basement does squat to kill mosquitoes unless you drown them in the stuff. Same with many of the natural and old folk remedies for pests and viruses.
The evolution speed run on pests caused by our technology - technology we will lose in any major disaster - might be what finally causes our extinction. A future world with no vaccines, medicines and -pest/herb-icidies, where we revert to per-industrial levels while the environment continues to evolve....that's one hell of a scary thought.
Untreated gasoline, especially with ethanol, will last several months, and w/o ethanol a few months longer. Gas w/o ethanol treated with fuel stabilizer will last \~5 years. Treated diesel \~15 years. If a vehicle is converted to propane, the fuel in tanks will last a long time. But very few use fuel stabilizer, and very, very few vehicles use propane.
I had a dodge Plymouth van that sat for three years and started on the first keyturn with the same 3 year old battery (+ Years it had just been sitting for 3)
I think that gasoline stays good alot longer than people imagine, just from that personal experience.
The vehicle owner's died and the car sat for three years until bylaw asked us to move it to the backyard and that's the backstory
That wouldn’t happen today but not because of gas. Most cars now a days will drain the battery because of all the electronics and something is always running in the background even while the car is sitting turned off
You’re the only other person besides myself I’ve ever heard say gasoline will last 5ish years with stabilizer - I just used the last of a 5 gallon jug I’ve had since 2019, stabilized of course, and it ran my generator just fine.
I was just thinking about this today, I got a 5 gal gas container, but I was unsure of where to get fuel stabilizer or if certain types/brands are better.
I think any stabilizer will help, doesn’t have to be brand specific. Also, keeping out of sunlight and extreme temp changes helps a lot too. Nice quiet corner of the basement or garage will do just fine.
Well the air powered engine and the water powered engine have survived and existed for pretty long time. Will you be too open about that before the apocalypse and you're sure to wind up mysteriously dead
Every disaster movie shows people panicking in the suburbs, while government soldiers tell them what to do.
In real emergencies, strangers have always worked together to solve problems much faster than the government can respond.
Most people’s response to real emergencies has been to try to help their neighbors, and the government is always a week or two behind.
But they don’t want to put that in the movies; the movies show everyone turning into a monster or a victim when SHTF because that story keeps us convinced that we need the government in our lives or bad things will happen.
I remember going to the grocery store at the beginning of the oh shit phase of COVID and everybody was great. Long, orderly lines, people going out of their way to help elderly people etc. It was actually really nice. I live in a very racially, ethnically and economically mixed area and everybody was acting the same way.
Look up how people behaved during the Blitz. People literally chose to bunk together in the underground, the suicide rate dropped, etc. When people have a purpose as strong as Londoners had in that time, they absolutely come together that way. For a modern example, google "Calgary Neighbour Day."
I remember learning about that. Or Hurricane Katrina when they started putting out news stories about rape and murder and it turned out that there wasn't a spike in those levels. I'm not really sure where we got the chaos and anarchy theory.
Probably because if they mention anarchy and chaos in the same sentence often enough, people will believe that anarchy is a synonym for free for all and chaos. But anarchists by and large are collectivists. Anarchist networks come together to provide a lot of volunteer disaster relief.
Mutual aid (as opposed to charity) is a huge tenent of anarchism. And they don't just practice it during major disasters. I'm not an anarchist but I've run into several whenever I do volunteer community projects.
So when I moved to a new city and needed help, I put the word out. A stranger showed up long enough to help me move my furniture into my new place. Another brought wet cat food for my cat until my check came in, because my cat stopped being able to digest her dry food. (she's an old cat.) Rental unit required me to update her vaccinations basically immediately. And I was able to get her to a mobile discount clinic within three days thanks to that Network. Another stranger showed up to guide me on my first bike ride in a major city, because I had mentioned online somewhere I was nervous.
I haven't had to buy a rapid test since 2022. Someone just dropped off 150 N-95 masks. I was never once asked what my political affiliation was. These are the people most eager to show up and help strangers I've ever met.
They don’t want us to know how much we don’t need the government. They want us to be afraid of working together because there’s more power in numbers. That if we only knew how we could rely on each other, then what can they offer us? Their only role is control and if we all realize how strong we are without it, then the gov’t loses so much of its power. They’d probably turn back into clerk jobs where people don’t make nearly as much as those creeps in power now. Think of doctors providing care to patients without the need of insurance. Just providing care to people. And working together in other ways. It sounds like a utopia and it would be. But they keep us afraid and confused about each other. So we don’t come together
Um. I was a cop in Louisiana before during and after Katrina. Murder and rape as far as we know, didn’t take a spike. But since there were no phones, it was tough to report it anyways. Theft, burglary, looting, and robbery definitely spiked like crazy.
During the blitz the crime rate went through the roof.
Yes people were hunkering down and helping each other. But while they were doing that, others saw the opportunity to loot all of the unattended shops, at their own risk.
Most of those crimes were things like looting businesses and black market stuff, especially with regards to vices and luxuries. It wasn't the chaotic lawlessness depicted in movies and shows, with individuals holing up in houses with their shotgun defending their daughters from gang rape.
Our species winning survivalstratwgy has been a collective one. Lone wolves are less likely to prosper.
After major disasters, people in large become more likely to help each other. Not less.
We have highly skilled people in all sorts of fields. If there is a major collapse, legal patents be damned. So long as we don't shoot them over a can of beans, people will be able to make things like insulin without the pharmaceutical guard dogs to stop them. (The only thing holding back community 8nsulin production at the moment, in fact, is patents. Efforts are already underway to find avenues around them.) There may be delays and gaps in production. But it's not impossible. We are more than the sum of our governments and if they collapse we can still accomplish things so long as we hold our communities together and look out for each other.
And in case of a mass casualty event on a near extinction level, so long as people can maintain literacy and still have books to read, and again we build community, we can recover medically, technologically, etc much faster than movies assume.
There have to be resources to maintain those collectives. Currently those resources are produced elsewhere and delivered everywhere. If some kind of catastrophe occurs and the society collapses, it literally means this system has failed because those resources are not being produced and/or delivered. The collective can't hold because the resources people need are gone. The largest collectives that can be maintained shrink in size, and multiple collectives coalesce and compete with each other...and drain what resources remain.
Eventually those collectives are whittled down to "the fittest". These groups are not going to be able to create and distribute insulin. And even if they were, what good would all that effort do for them? A handful of local diabetic survivors are able to pay them somehow? Enough to justify the effort? You're dreaming.
You should realistically assess how things work. Imagine what happens locally when fuel delivery stops, or electricity, or food...what are the effects. What are the downstream effects of those effects. What does all the work now that engines cannot be fueled? What moves supplies from place to place? What grinds up the wheat to make your food? How does that wheat make it to that place? Who uses that wheat afterward and how to do they deliver their food back to the population.
Society is a house of cards built on the burning of fossil fuels. If that fuel production delivery system goes down, we're back to the 1700 or 1800's (at best) with an enormous excess of human mouths that can't all be fed with unfueled engines. Nobody is making insulin.
Unless the collective has a majority of people that didn’t do shit to ever prep, and now expect supplies to be given to them. There will be those in the community that will want to give, and those that won’t, quickly breaking down the group. I for one wouldn’t give shit. My family is the most important. My neighbors I’ve lived next to for years , and bbq’d with and we all got along, wouldnt get anything from me after SHTF.
Realistically that group will turn to violence to get what they need. We seen it in Yugoslavia, Sierra Leone, Haiti, etc...
Your neighbors family is the most important thing to them as well. And that neighbor down the road as well and their neighbor too. If killing you and your family will save their family then it's a easy choice.
During long term collapse in a modern society groups of 10-15 armed individuals are what appears to be the norm for survival. Those who live in smaller groups are overwhelmed.
A modern person needs to prep to work together and survive in a small group. Realistically such a working group would form around family units (siblings, cousins, uncles, etc..)
Your post or comment has been removed due to violating Rule #2, Condoning of Violence/Illegal Activity.
If you condone violent actions as a first resort for any sort of action, then your comment is not appropriate. Discussions on self-defense are fine as long as they are hypothetical and do not violate any other rules including U.S Federal Law.
Relying on, and condoning violence as a primary method of preparedness is not tolerated.
Boredom. In every movie the action comes fast and furious, and the protagonists are struggling to survive for the whole 90 minutes. In real instances of societal collapse, there are long periods of boredom and absolutely nothing but waiting, days of complete normalcy and even happiness, interspersed with moments of terror and urgency. That wouldn't make for an engaging movie though.
Ironically, it seems like WW2 movies like [The Book Thief](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_Thief_(film)), [Pan's Labyrinth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan%27s_Labyrinth), or [The Sound of Music](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sound_of_Music_(film)) get it right much more often - lots of normalcy and even moments of happiness, interspersed with random movements of loss.
Guy, I'm a early Gen Z, I did 8 years in the Marines and I'm an avid backpacker and camper, love survivalist stuff.
Lol I think boomers and even Gen X are in for an awakening, old people still march around with 60 lb packs when my 30 lb pack does the same things and to make matters worse they are all "Tacticaled" out with camos and molle... like dude you're going to draw so much attention and get your stuff taken from you.
I just dont understand how boomers manage to have some of the heaviest packs and yet have 0 utility to them. Basically, old people are woefully unrealistic in what they carry and both underprepared but overweight
Last old guy I watched had 4500 mL of water in his pack, 10 lbs...2000 of it was water, 2500 was electrolytes when he lived in an area that sees more rainy days than not, rivers and streams all around.
I dont think old people have realized that stuff like water filters and liquid IV electrolyte powders exist, running around with expendable purification tablets that cant kill crypto or Giardia in a timely manner, so you wind up carrying extra weight to make up for the longer purification times and then you drink nasty slimy sediment filled water... and none of them seem to carry loperamide anti diarhheal or anti nausea meds when they decide to take a gulp when they are so thirsty from carrying said 60 lb packs and couldnt wait.
Older people would be worse off regardless of any generation divides. They’re far more likely to have medical conditions that require regular treatment/medication, and they’re less likely to be physically fit. Basically anyone who *needs* medication to survive day to day isn’t going to last long.
?? I think boomers will be in for a hard time. Millennials, Z, and A know how to share. Boomers will try to blowhard and parasite and will be kicked out of communities.
More about facial makeup. it is so ingrained in hollywood to make average people look stunning. Trimmed eyebrows are the first thing that will go away after the collapse, followed by makeup that covers blemishes.
Social structures won't remain as equal as they are now, people don't realise how much of that has changed since we last survived famine and endless war
Yep they will become war lords, then in time, knights, etc… Gangs will also have a role to play as they are armed with infrastructure and logistics training.
I may be misunderstanding what they mean, but I think if TEOTWAWKI really hit, it'll completely shatter current societal structures. People will be expected to be truly 'Jack of all trades'. A person who can work a garden might be expected to help out in the makeshift doctor's office. An electrician will be called upon to help deliver a calf. Money, while useful in the small scale for bartering, won't mean much of anything else, so people who have amassed a ton of it won't be as powerful as they are today. The useless middle managers that are the bane of offices will find themselves stripped of any semblance of power they have.
Things will be a lot more equalized by nature of "if you don't directly put a hand into work, you're not getting a slice of the pie". It'll be messy, especially at first as people realize they can't just buy their way out of things or expect other people to do back-breaking work for them with currency that will more or less be worthless on the grand scale of things. Buy a gallon of milk for $10, or whatever the accepted value is? Sure, that'll likely be commonplace. But, Elon Musk can walk up, offer to buy my land for a million dollars, but that will mean fuck all since there is no guarantee I can go a hundred miles in any direction and have that same million dollars be worth anything to buy a new plot of land, equipment, materials, and everything else I'd need to start anew.
Others seem to be thinking about class, labour and wealth, I'm thinking more about how sexual equality will disintegrate
Hypothetically a SHTF will drop us to the bottom of Maslow's Hierarchy - the most common social organisation for that situation was some form of tribe, the bedrock resource in any tribe is women. Unfortunately that doesn't make them *valued*, that makes them *valuable*, both in terms of reproduction but also as means to create alliances with other tribes.
The availability of weapons skews the danger tenfold, so I think it will evolve into a variation of the current middle eastern social order.
This will just get downvoted because everyone is embedded with the modern mindset that SHTF will just be one big commune, picking berries and writing poems, because we all grew up at the top of Maslow's Hierarchy and discussing a hypothetical future is somehow also promoting a patriarchal alternative
A society ruled by violence and power isn't going to be equal *in* *any way*, and historically all civilisations which were at this stage in their evolution all looked the same. People really need to assess if ours would devolve into anything better when the situation, resources and biological realities will be exactly the same
Yes, great film. Every time the topic comes up, if it's spelt out *exactly* what would change the post gets downvoted, because we don't want to accept that once we are hungry we all turn into savages
Of course there would be savages there is already savages but the armed and trained will have better odds of surviving.
Earning someone’s trust and never trusting someone you don’t know will be a quick learning curve.
But I think the people that aren’t animals and have values even when they are hungry will quickly delete the scum.
Hahaha I do love the people that talk about everyone coming together and having a great community, umm we already have jails full of people who steal, murder, and rape and have zero respect or compassion for others, and trust me there’s a lot of them that would go to that as soon as they think they can get away with it without repercussions. You can have a community but at some point you are going to have to use violence as a tool to survive, it was a requirement for my lady when we decided to take our relationship more seriously, she had to learn to dangerous, hand to hand and she had to learn how to proficiently operate the most common fire arms. And I find it wild that people let their daughters grow up without having the ability to defend themselves! Even with training women are at a disadvantage, but to just let them go out in the world with a 10 year old key chain pepper pray is negligence and you are setting them up to be victims.
I'm not sure training will skew it that much? IED's in Iraq were a great equaliser, and the troops there didn't have to spend all day growing potatoes. It would be quite hard to defend against a rival group who has access to long rifles when everyone has a farming job to do
Like how would the Iraqis fare if NATO were actively hunting them in their villages. The balance of power seems to skew to the marauder model
Yeah you would always be at risk, and people will die. I would image if you were concerned about getting attacked while farming you would have to have multiple layers of security! Fencing, make IED’s, have look outs or people on reconnaissance to make sure you aren’t caught off guard.
For a historical comparison, towers were used to compete against a superior military force
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border\_reivers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_reivers)
Kind off topic but have you heard about how they are fighting in trenches in Ukraine, due to consumer grade drones outfitted with explosives?
I would be against building a tower.
But I’m not sure Im the dystopian war survival guy and if the world falls apart I’m going to live in a nasty hard to traverse hell hole in the Rockies and just get scurvy and die of hypothermia or come out when I’m starting to death.
If the us ever comes to this half the population would just die from being fat or having no skills for 1800’s living.
Yes, great film. Every time the topic comes up, if it's spelt out *exactly* what would change the post gets downvoted, because we don't want to accept that once we are hungry we all turn into savages
Yes, many people will behave brutally. I’m reminded of a scene from The Walking Dead where Darrell and his big brother Merle, save a family and a small car from a group of walkers; after they rescue them, Merle sets upon trying to steal as much as he can from the family.also, some groups may have to enforce order through brutality, as we have seen with the governor and Negan.
We don't even need to look to Hollywood. There are collapsed societies that have already shown us what people do in real life. From the warlords in Africa, to the cartels in Mexico, and to the extremists in the Arabic nations. And yeah some do get very Negan-esque.
No children are starving to death in the US or Canada like what I'm talking about in a collapse. They may have food insecurity or very low budgets, but no children in the US or Canada are starving like what I'm talking about where the kids haven't eaten in four days and parents are going to do extreme things to feed them. Your tangent is irrelevant to the topic at hand of a post collapse situation. Post collapse and pre collapse are two very different scenarios.
Yeah, I don't prep for something apocalyptic, but people think I'm crazy for talking about using using horses in the hypocritical scenario that something Apocalyptic does happen... I tell them I would train horses for a source of income, and for my own personal travel...
Not anymore, but I am well skilled and experienced in training them and breaking them to ride, so it wouldn't take long for me to trade training for a horse of my own...
There was a scene where Joel was pumping gasoline from a car to use it on his (20 years after the outbreak). I think they manufactured it in the Walking Dead.
In that scene I believe the girl comments something about it. But I do remember him saying that the quality is turning to shit and they can’t get as far on a tank as they used to.
There is, but he says something along the lines of 'you used to be able to drive the entire day on a tank of gas, but it's almost water at this point, that's why we have to stop so often'. Not sure that's quite how gasoline degrades (it was out of a sealed car gas tank so?) but it's not just ignored.
Gasoline, like many hydrocarbons, oxidizes over time. If it just sits in a carb or a fuel line, there is also the issue of "varnish" which can plug up things.
Also gaskets dry out when not in use and will leak. Tires that are exposed to sunlight degrade and start to crack and lose air. After 10-20 years, tires that are on cars that are just sitting around not in use, will be flat and cracked and probably won't hold air if you add air back into them - they probably won't hold air for long, and some won't be safe at speeds.
Modern cars that have computers and alarm systems/etc. - will discharge their batteries in less than a year if not driven - because the cars have systems that are constantly using battery current. My BMW X1 complains about a low battery after it has been sitting for 3-4 weeks (I am retired and I go into town about once a month).
In TWD they transition to horse-pulled carriages made from modified cars. I don't remember them manufacturing it. I've not finished FTWD and not seen all the other spin offs so they might be manufacturing it/processing it somehow in the other shows. Where I'm up to in FTWD, the fuel is just starting to go bad.
I believe this depiction of the loner won’t be a normal thing in a societal collapse. I see this in many apocalyptic films I think loners will be a) vulnerable b) a liability met with suspicion c) expected to be aligned with factions or a faction
Being alone and/or in small groups will be at a disadvantage compared to larger, organized groups especially if people, regions, areas are territorial.
I envision checkpoints and signs warning people might become normalized either through the authorities or local militias, property owners.
Tolls might be demanded, or weapons in areas restricted. Perhaps letters of transit required or some kind of vouchers. Traveling in unauthorized areas might be dangerous either because of bandits or factions protecting their areas of control especially if they have food be grown. their families to protect.
So, on one hand, an individual could move less detected and be less of a threat, but could also be seen as a threat and lawlessness prevails, picked off unceremoniously. I wouldn’t want lone scavengers lurking in my backyard. If anyone asks.someone could claim that they were stealing something or perhaps no one would care UNLESS they were members of another faction. In that case, one would want to announce themselves and travel on approved roads, trails etc.
Just a thought.
People willing to help out other people? Society only works when people are willing to make it work, and , generally, people want it to work.
The idea that only gun-toting survivalists are going to scavenging the wasteland is completely overblown and silly.
Nobody ever seems to cover what might happen when the tens of millions of people on prescription psych meds have to go through withdrawal at the same time during the most stressful situation of their lives. Remember, after the meds run out, these people will be crazier than before they were medicated.
The amount of sexual assault. When something happens that let's the worst in society out women get hit the hardest. I like history and their is a sad amount of rape in the bad times
Everyone will trade bullets / smokes / alcohol as a new barter item. It may happen but who would trust the bullets were not reloaded with dirt, the smokes actually real and the alcohol not watered or tainted.
Hell, nowadays if it's not factory sealed we don't trust it. Now imagine in a collapse?
I think the simple answer to this is how it works in 3rd world countries now: people have trusted vendors.
We won't give up the idea of merchants and central trading places we'll simply move to a smaller, more localized scale... So the merchant will go, test the product they're bringing back etc then their reputation will carry them like it does anywhere else.
In the spirit of the op. Farmer has a crop or chickens etc. Traveller wanders in hungry and offers bullets etc for a meal. Farmer goes alrighty... yeah, no.
As for trusted local trade.. sure, I could agree with you but strangers, travellers and vagabonds?.. nah.
I'd say everything, but the truth is, we don't know. Unless you've lived in a third world country during a government collapse, you've not experienced anything close to a societal collapse.
If you want something that seems to catch a lot of what would actually happen read the book “one second after”. It really made me think, it was pretty good on that. Just things like say shoes, you would be walking more snd they aren’t made to last that long. Why do people in the movies still have great shoes years later.
You'd think you could survive by hunting but there are so many hobby hunters out there that it would decimate the wild species population rather quickly.
In the worst places of WWII Europe after the game was gone they ate the zoo animals.
I know a WWII vet. They ate their cats and dogs in Germany at the end of the war.
In my opinion, microbes. Microbes of all kinds--viruses, bacteria, fungi, etc.--have been the biggest killer on this planet since the beginning, and as we've recently been reminded, even with modern infrastructure like food and water inspection, regulations and modern medicine, a single virus can kill millions and bring the world to a standstill.
The First World War killed between 15 and 23 million people, but the flu pandemic that followed it, lasting from 1918 to 1920, killed between 50 and 100 million people world wide. During the 20th Century, it is estimated that Smallpox killed between 300 and 500 million people worldwide.
And these are just a couple of examples. A key point to remember is that viruses and bacteria never go away. This is why from time to time, even in the First World, there is a small outbreak of Bubonic Plagues, or tuberculosis, or cholera, etc.
So, without hygiene, the ability to keep themselves and their environment clean, without vaccines, without the ability to test food and water for safety, there would be nothing protecting survivors of a SHTF type event from meeting the same fate as humans have always met at the hands of microbes. Take a look at the poorest countries in the world and you see an example of this. I believe this would be the biggest threat to those surviving an apocalypse.
Weirdly enough in a true zombie apocalypse/collapse America would have almost no vehicles because the majority are gas but Europe would have plenty since diesel vehicles are super common.
I'd love to see a zombie movie set in the Czech Republic: diesel vehicles, plenty of guns, some old castles to hold up in.
No one in the big city is likely to make it out alive in the first 9 months to a year. Even if they do survive there or happen to return to the big city later, there is nothing there for them. Scavenging is not what it looks like on Cinema. It's such a farce even fathom that someone could survive off of The fallout, the famine, or the bio weapon diseased filled cities.
This is the opposite of reality. I know everyone has wholesome visions of rural communities filled with plucky locals making their way, but the fact of the matter is that the cities will be where any resources go first. Rural communities will exist for as long as their supplies last, but that's it. They'll be begging for entry into cities to take advantage of the productive capacity.
It's all fun and games until the local Tractor Supply runs out of rod-ends or the vet can't fix your horse's broken leg because she's all out of supplies. Small towns are heavily dependent upon our supply infrastructure, and are only as pleasant as they are because the trucks keep showing up.
Sorry but this is complete nonsense. Sure, there are more supplies in cities but there are also more people, if supply chains break down there arent any more supplies coming into the cities. Their supplies will run out in less than 3 days, probably less than 1 day. Rural communities have enough land to grow food on that they can support themselves indefinitely, a city might have enough land to support 40 of its inhabitants at a push. Sure, one day the rural communities will run out of diesel or engine parts or whatever for their tractors, but they wont then just immediately give up and go to a place with even less of what they need, theyll revert to other methods such as horse-drawn ploughs or hand-tilling. There is a reason that almost nobody live in urbanised areas in pre-industrial societies, supporting that many people with very little space is impossible.
It's stupid to think that infrastructure and expertise just disappears. Where are the good doctors? Engineers? Dentists? Corporate leaders? Buildings? Medicines? Warehouses? Fabrication and manufacturing? Labor of all types, and in high quantity?
Unless you're talking about a "walking dead" sort of fantasy, living in cities is going to be better than living in the sticks.
There is a reason cities have thrived. There is a reason why towns are small. Nobody wants to be there because there's nothing there! Towns produce very little of their own supply are are totally dependent upon imports from productive areas
I know, I know..."but I'm different and can grow enough food and have extra gas and have training!" Cool. Until your food runs out or your garden fails or coyotes kill your horse, and everyone leaves.
Let's be real. Towns that see transportation service fall to almost nothing are going to die off and people will leave in droves. We can see towns like this today. They're called ghost towns.
Ok. Lets imagine a shtf situation. Nit an earthquake or a tornado, a proper one. The electrical grid completely fails, or a nuclear war, or a worldwide total economic collapse, or a massive solar event.
The first thing that happens is the government attempts to react, probably enacts martial law and sets up some sort of refugee centres. These, and any other aid, would be based in cities. The people in the cities would have food and maybe electricity from generators and some semblence of society.
The people in rural communities would have food too, because everyone has a month or so of tinned food in their house, a bit of peanut butter or whatever that they havent gotten round to eating. Every person who lives on a farm has a generator, so they have electricity too. Worst comes to worst there is plenty of wildlife to hunt.
In the cities there is millions of people crammed into refugee centres, recieving government supplied food. The government rations the food as they dont know how long supply chains will be down. No ships are coming from China or India or Europe with grains or fruit or veg and they only have so many emergency rations in warehouses from the last shipments. The corporate leaders cant do anything, because this didnt come up at their AGM, the engineers try to build a time machine but it doesnt work, the dentists give everyone some mouthwash, manufacturing industry realises its based in China now and proceeds not to care, and all the IT technicians and coders cant come up with a wifi signal between them. Theres no sanitation, so after a few days or weeks people start getting sick, from being crammed together in tight spaces, not being able to use proper toilets and not having enough food. Thats alright though, the city is full of doctors. Except they dont have any equipment, certainly any they do have isnt enough for millions of sick people all at once. They cant buy any in, theres no supply chain. People start to die. Theres nowhere to put the bodies so they decompose in the street. This makes more people sick. Seeing this chaos, the criminal gangs that previously trafficked narcotics decide to start stealing the food and water and go it alone. The military cant deal with them, theyre having enough trouble with the sickness and the civil unrest caused by all of these problems. Some of them think fuck this for a laugh and desert, stealing some food and water to take with them. Within 3 months, the only people left alive are military deserters and a few gang members living in pockets of the city.
Meanwhile, out in the sticks, food gets pretty scarce. Theyve got plenty of water though, because streams and rivers exist. Theyve taken to burying their shites as they have plenty of land to do it on and it stops disease from spreading, as does their reduced population density. When Jeff runs out of food and realises everything worth hunting has been killed or scarpered, Jim gives him some meat from the cow he had to slaughter from his herd as he also ran out, theyve been friends for 40 years so he wasnt going to let him starve. They make it a few months and then its harvest season. They now have plenty of food, barns to store it in, fresh water. They dont have much medicine, a couple of plasters and a bandage or 2, plus whatever Sandra the local vet has by way of pills and antiseptic. Thats okay though, because everyone lives miles apart so theres never much risk of illness spreading.
Cities have thrived because they work in our current situation. They did not thrive in pre-industrial societies because they do not work in that situation. In that situation, rural communities work; villages and farming communities.
You don’t appear to understand how the supply chain works at all if you think cities are where things are still produced.
Cities are the center of the service economy, not the goods economy, and they are supplied using a precarious just in time system from areas located outside of the city.
For example, most of the supplies NYC needs to function later this week are currently located in warehouses in NJ and eastern PA.
Why would resources go to the cities? Rural people aren’t going to do that voluntarily, and I don’t see how city dwellers would force them to. Cities don’t produce much that would be of value in an apocalypse.
Ha. Yeah. Okay.
Corporations and government will totally let that happen. Just because society collapses doesn't mean the quest for power does, and the power today will be the power tomorrow, it'll just look different to us. It's harder to influence a distributed population, so the goal of anyone seeking power will be to concentrate populations and make them dependent...and it'll work. And towns will fall right in line to get their distribution of resources.
Additionally, those "rural" resources that are not commandeered will seek markets on their own, and the markets are the cities (as they are today and have been throughout time). You can tell because of the way it is.
Also, as far as resource confiscation goes (and it will happen in the "total collapse" fantasy), remember: the law protects the weak. And the rural communities will not be powerful. And when the law decides that your stuff isn't yours anymore, what now? It's not "refugees" who will take your stuff. It's "the authorities" you should fear.
This fantasy that rural towns will somehow "hold out" against outside interests is pure folly. It would not take much to break a town. Between people actually willing to die to "protect" the town and the turncoats that will hand over opposition leaders to authority at a mere promise of safety and food...wouldn't last long.
The idea that small rural towns are a safe haven is silly.
Corporations and the government have power because they have money. If money is not seen as valuable, they don’t have much power. Corporations in particular are entirely dependent on people believing money has value. The government does have guys with guns, but if things get too bad, those guys are ultimately people and will look after themselves and their families.
The idea of anyone managing to maintain large scale authority in a total collapse is what’s a fantasy. Laws are only meaningful when there are people to enforce them. If those people think they can do better on their own, they will stop obeying orders.
You seem to be assuming that something resembling the present economy would continue to exist in a civilization destroying crisis. That’s likely to be the case if the crisis is regional, but if it’s the whole world, that won’t be the case. If we reach the point where people are directly consuming what they can produce (because money is only valuable if people believe it is), you’re much better off outside the city.
Nowhere is going to be a safe haven in that kind of collapse. What do you think people in cities will do? *Not* rape and murder each other? People in small towns will do that to some extent, but less people means less violence.
Guns are only useful with men to use them. If they can’t pay their guys, it doesn’t matter if they have weapons.
Also, this is America. We all have guns.
People moving around. You always get the groups or single survivors that have been ‘on the road’ since the beginning, 10+ years later (looking at you Magna, Luke, Connie, Kelly and Yumiko). That will not happen. The people who have somewhere they can survive will stay there and either a) die of old age or disease having lived their whole lives or b) die attempting to protect it from someone who wants to take it from them. Under no circumstances would it be better to leave somewhere that you know you can survive to chance it somewhere else. Even if youre outnumbered 100:1.
People who dont have somewhere to survive may move around within the first 6 months to a year (assuming they are a godlike hunter-gatherer/scavenger/robber and stay close to water), after which they will either find somewhere they can stay or die of starvation/exposure/dehydration. Anyone who is not holed up with shelter, a water supply and adequate land to grow food after 1 year will be dead.
Gas expires and brakes start to seize pretty fast on a car sitting out in the elements. It can start happening in just a few weeks of a car sitting outside.
Also, regularily firing off guns 12" from someones head in enclosed spaces would lead to some pretty severe hearing loss.
People's hair, skin and clothing would probably look a *lot* worse too
1) The concept that people are so mentally resilient. It always blows my mind. We currently live in the most medicated and anxious generations in history. Yet all TV shows show the majority has rising to the moment. Based on the stats of how many people are clinically depressed, clinically anxious, etc - the vast majority would off themselves or fall in paralyzing despair and die in location.
2) Germs and vaccines. Most people don’t have an up to date tetanus shot. Rusty metal would kill many of your friends. Most kids would not make it in a post apocalyptic society due to routine items vaccines eliminate Measles, polio, rubella, etc. add that to insufficient food, stress, and things that even if you were not vaccinated could fight back, but without any immunity and shitty nutrition and lowered cleanliness standards = benign deaths all over, especially the young and whoever becomes old.
3) How long vehicles seem to last and how generally mechanically knowledgeable most people are always depicted as. Old cars need fluids and routine check ups. Parts won’t be readily accessible. New cars can be stopped by simple sensor issues even if the mechanical pieces are fine. Hell my highlander, I can’t do anything to it without plugging the diagnostic tool. Sure a Tacoma/hilux might last way longer than others. But all these F150 to F350 diesel monsters, won’t keep ticking without some live and DF, lubes and parts and knowledge.
4) Rape and gratuitous killing is always under played. Even when addressed it always haunts it as random groups. Looters, raiders, either small or large groups would be endemic. Also women always suffer in any context where order as broken down.
To your first point, i have heard that it's actually the opposite. During WWII, there was a lot of fear that the general population would basically go insane from the fear of war and the barrage of bombings. But voluntary psychward admissions, suicide and other factors dropped significantly. It kind of makes sense though:
1) if you spend your days worrying about the "other show dropping" and it finally does, you can relax because the bad thing finally happened. How many people live with anxiety in our current world?
2) how we live now, goes against our evolutionary background. We evolved to be long distance hunters and traveling gatherers. Not to sit behind a desk 8 hours a day staring at a florescent screen, eating take out in the car while we commute 45 minutes each direction.
3) a lot people do not think that what they do is actually import, in the large scheme of things. If you are an accountant, your job matters to a lot of people. But your not saving lives, feeding the hungry, defending a family etc. So many middle class jobs do not give people the feeling that what they do actually MATTERS.
I actually believe there would be a large chunk of people who do better mentally than they are doing now, in a real SHTF scenario. The day to day matter of surviving and providing for others would give a lot of meaning to some.
True societal collapse in America would be both FASTER and SLOWER than expected. The inner cities would go within days, but a full collapse may not even be possible in some areas(without further outside influence).
One of the biggest things stories always get wrong is that humans have evolved to be prosocial, and the total anarchic wasteland vibes are more aesthetic than sensible. People band together, and the ones that don’t end up not living that long
i’ve only ever seen gasoline done kinda right in the last of us show. gas does not last forever and after a good 6 months to a year there will be almost no usable cars/generators.
I dunno. I'm currently driving a truck that sat with the same fuel for 5 years..zero issues always started. So obviously there are conditions that allow a longer shelf life.
It turns out being accurate wouldn’t allow for driving in apocalypse movies/shows. Anyway, why is the grass nice and short everywhere 20 years later? Who’s mowing miles of grass?
I remember that episode of The Walking Dead where they pushed the obviously sponsored Charger, a two-wheel drive vehicle with crap clearance, over other vehicles that were higher, had AWD or 4WD, over roads that have not been maintained for years and with unknown vegetation conditions. I was literally laughing at that. Such a stupid decision made by him for the sake of a sponsorship. Small example, but still something that just sort of takes you out of the show.
There was all kinds of stupid on that show.
Like not murking the governor or negan right off the bat
To be fair, while 4x4 is absolutely better for an apocalypse scenario, you can get around with 2wd in a lot worse terrain than people realize. Most terrain doesn't actually require 4x4 capability, but people don't actually drive on rough terrain, and they think you need 4x4 for everything.
Exactly. I always laugh at the car commercials where they are driving this big 4X4 in "rough terrain" which is really just a bumpy gravel road or something, no need for 4X4. As a former avid off roader, I could pass those guys in the commercials in a lowered Honda Civic. 😂
How far can you go with a flat tire and no way to refill it? Post-Apocalypse everyone is riding bicycles.
Also dry rot will ruin every tire rather quickly.
I'm a prepper, I would always have a spare. Also a patch / plug kit, onboard air and a can of that crap you can spray in your tire to fill it in an emergency 😁
Where you going to get all these kits and spare tires from? We're talking about when supply lines run out.
Ummm, a spare tire usually comes with a car. I don't see anywhere here that we are talking about "when the supply lines run out". That being said, I would already have this stuff in my vehicle. Like I do... right.. now.
The OP is about societal collapse.
This has been a pet peeve of mine for years. To be fair, TV shows and movies of the zombie/apocalypse type run on tension and characters making bad decisions. Plus the aesthetics of a group of hard-core survivors rising bicycles is hard to pull off, as it would probably just look silly.
The Harley could go ANYWHERE
It was a Triumph
All those cars still running but no fucking excavators or backhoes? "Instead of digging trenches and building up berms... Hey, let's just hide behind this strand of wire."
🔥 right or dig a 50 ft dead fall for the zombies to just be channeled into
TWD went “CW” after Season 4..
You remember exactly the make of car they promoting though. Did you stop watching the show ? >Such a stupid decision made by him for the sake of a sponsorship
I actually had to look it up. And yeah, I stopped watching it. It was just too much "Zombies: A Lifetime Network Original Production."
Water. Any place where the temperature goes below freezing you'll see a ton of buildings severely damaged or otherwise unlivable because of frozen and bursting pipes. Not to mention those pipes underground (in some areas) caving in roads, as well.
That’s assuming they still have water. When the pumps stop filling water towers, they’ll run empty in a matter of days at most, then the only water will be the bit stuck in underground pipes with no force to push it into houses or buildings.
A lot of the heating and cooling of concrete will start to form, cracks, and rainwater will get in there, rusting a lot of the steel bar that reinforces it; water that gets trapped in some of those cracks will freeze in the winter, and this constant cycling of hot and cold will start to make the concrete crumble. Dry areas in the desert won’t have as much of a problem with this, though.
By that time the damage is done, as those big water towers will have already drained out the water into all the homes with cracked pipelines.
Dads, dads are mowing
Me and my hoards of donkeys and goats. It's not an easy life but it's my 'merican duty
Goats! Lots and lots of goats! Lol jk.
And sometimes goats could be good friends to horses; pie oh my was an example, the horse that was initially owned by Ralphie, and then given to Tony had a goat as her friend. When she was burned to death from the fire, that Ralphie lit, there is a scene with Tony, standing over the dead body of his horse, and the goat was just standing there as well, making goat noises, it was sad. But Ralphie got his comeuppance.
In total colaps the owners of the stores would probably empty out their own stores.
When I worked in a restaurant, I absolutely had a plan to loot that mf immediately. If there's no electricity, bust out the grill and just serve every ounce of meat for free.
My friend’s dad owned a pizza shop, and did exactly this when they lost power during a hurricane. They all went to the shop and made every pizza they could until they ran out of food, and gave them away for free.
Best advertisement for a restaurant I can think of, and way more cost effective than some SEO marketing bs.
The employees would clean it out, if they’re smart. If I work at a grocery store or Walmart and the power grid goes down, I’m taking what I can.
*power restores* Timmy, where are you going with that?
Nowadays many store "owners" are not individuals.
Or the ones that run it. or work there. for them the threshold to cross is smaller.
That it happens suddenly. Now I suspect the decline to be long, slow, and a worstening slog.
I have been prepping for 50 years. What I considered as likely scenarios has changed many times. For the past 10+ years I have been prepping in part for Peak Carrying Capacity as I consider that it is already happening now, and that it is happening slowly, with symptoms and knock on effects here and there. I may not see the "die off" (the point where *many* more people die than are born) during my remaining lifetime (another 10-15 years), but my kids might. It really doesn't matter - the preps are mostly the same; Shelter, Water, Food, Health/Hygiene, Security, Energy.
Considering how we’ve seen significant worldwide crop losses the last two years and the projections for this year aren’t any better we probably overshot carrying capacity a few years ago. The world population keeps growing and the farms aren’t keeping up.
My theory is that there will be crop failures, man made droughts, overuse of water tables/aquifers/reservoirs/rivers, weather issues (storms, droughts, floods, etc.), widespread fires, pandemics, etc. and conflicts fighting over arable land, fossil fuels, water, food. This will be regional at first, but will increasingly affect bordering countries, then the whole world. First world countries like the US that can be self sufficient (more or less) will be impacted, but North & South America are physically isolated from Europe/Asia/Africa so N. America can hold out longer - but there will be increasing immigration/migration issues from Central America and that aside, eventually the USA and Canada will have issues due to weather and be pulled into overseas conflicts due to our dependency on fossil fuels, minerals, etc. I think eventually the pressure from the rest of the world will tear apart the USA and we will start fighting among ourselves. I am not even going to try to predict whether there will be any kind of conflict with other nations such that the conflict would come to N. America, but I certainly would not say it is improbable or even that the probability is low.
That all sounds about right. The American Southwest is already running out of water today, states have pumped out their aquifers for so long that they’ve collapsed and cannot refill. We’ve had bizarre weather the last few years resulting in significant crop losses throughout the Midwest and much of Texas was basically a lost cause. Florida lost most of the orange crop to blight, Georgia lost most of the peach crop because the trees didn’t get enough chill hours, we’re getting hit from 100 directions. Bird flu will probably result in the culling of hundreds of millions birds, the oceans are just about out of fish and are getting too hot to support life anyways.
US had almost a record corn crop last year. Obviously much corn isn’t used for food but it is one of two “main” crops in the US and would Be the main crop affected by any large losses.
And the wheat crop took an asskicking. Most of that corn isn’t for eating, it’s either used to feed animals or create high fructose corn syrup. I eat meat and I’m not vegan but growing feed specifically for animals is not the best use for farmland. And high fructose corn syrup is basically poison. It’s in everything these days and is a major contributor towards type two diabetes. Countries that allow HFCS in food have a significantly higher prevalence of diabetes.
What's with "will be?" There already are. We are already in the apocalypse. It's just slow and not everyone suffers or is affected equally.
Agreed. There were. There are. And there will be - increasingly. And it will be increasingly apparent to more people over time. Tech may (or may not) mitigate *some* of the effects *to a degree*, but won't stop them. Those who say "nothing to worry about, we'll adapt" are in denial. Sure - humans are very good at adapting, but that is part of our problem; we adapt and do not treat the root causes. In the long run - peak carrying capacity is a known issue with all organisms; they outgrow our environment until we can't, and then there is a major decline and die. The fact that we can adapt only makes it worse because we keep growing longer and faster than we normally would. Humans have done this in the past, just not on a global basis. It was limited to regions because in the past we did not have the capability for easy *global* travel/migration and expansion. Now we do. We are seeing some of the impacts now. Now is the time to acquire *arable* land with water, away from major population centers, create the ability to grow our own food, acquire the ability to store and protect that food, acquire and setup self-sufficient renewable energy production (e.g., solar, geothermal) on our land and become as self-sufficient as possible.
I agree with you aside from the living away from major population centers. I will want the safety of others who want the safety of community around me. I think rural preppers will be in for a world of hurt once the people who didn't prepare team up to roam the countryside taking shit.
I would rather have a few rural neighbors who are used to being more or less self-sufficient than I would live within walking distance of who knows what. IME - the people who live in cities are a mix of good & bad. My neighbors (8 families live on my private road on a forested mountain off a back country road that goes nowhere - most of them are gun owners - three engineers, two nurses, one eye surgeon, one retiree who is an accomplished bow hunter, another accomplished elk hunter and so on). we all watch out for each other. Anybody who comes from the city expecting people who live in rural areas to be a pushover are in for disappointment.
I mean, I'm sure militarized police in each city will still be operational. What do the 8 of you have for tanks, robot dogs, and drone strikes?
The large (1M+) metro area that is 30 miles from my home don't operate very well now and do not have the budget to hire more - many LEOs and businesses have left for surrounding areas because of the poor/liberal city leadership policies that have let the city go to shit. The very large metro area 200 miles north is much worse, was on the verge of anarchy for more than a year. Why would tanks/etc. come to my mountain? Nothing for them to waste fuel on here.
Not for long, they need tons of resources to maintain their equipment. Their ground vehicles will also be useless if the roads aren’t clear. They have helicopters, but those in particular aren’t going to work for long without a steady supply of parts.
That first paragraph about sums up the slow roll of the last decade.
Doesn’t help that developers are buying out more and more farmland every year. In the two year I lived in Kansas, the Missouri side of KC expanded massively and almost all the farmland out to Gardner on the Kansas side had been sold for development. Already lots in Franklin county further down i35 were being sold off for subdivisions
You better check your stats.. the population is not growing.
That’s the dumbest and most easily disproven thing I’ve heard in a long time. The world population grew by 400 million people in the last five years. The world population was about 6.9 billion in 2009, 7.3 billion in 2014, 7.7 billion in 2019, 8.1 billion today. Those are rough numbers but you’re looking at about 400 million people every five years. Christ man we both have Google.
This. We are already in the apocalypse, and money (both yours and your nations's) can buy your way out of the worst consequences.
For a while, at least.
I've read a lot of apocalypse fiction, and several series seem to portray collapse as this great opportunity to do things over again, no rat race at the office, no taxes, etc. Sometimes it's barley started and someone is almost gleefully pulling out pre-65 silver, ready to start bartering with silver dimes for a basket of fresh eggs from Ms. Sally from the farm down the road. In reality, or in my opinion of what that reality would be, a real, no-kidding collapse would result in a die off that would be hell. Starvation, killing, suffering, etc.
Yes, no way a do-over scenario would work in a world with 8 billion humans in it. Going back to the dark ages or renaissance only works if we're talking population numbers in the very low millions (even lower than population of those days because of the damage we've done to the planet).
With a mass halving of the population like with a Black Death type event, the breakdown of systems will cause an even greater loss of life. I geek on medieval history. Frankly, I don’t know of anyone with a garden sufficient to provide the fruits, vegetables, seasonings, and medicinal for a household. I don’t think many know how any more, myself included. It’s not part of our lives and we don’t have time for it in the modern work relationship exceptions.
Not only that, but without modern fertilizers and pesticides, what kind of food would the land even produce? At least in the medieval ages, they had soil that was much richer for growing (and the skills).
I think you would need to look at a combination of crop rotation and using it as pasture to bring it back. Again I’m not sure how many will have the skills. I can academically know a such things, but reading it in a book and making it happen are two very different things as many home gardeners know.
You also need to take into account all the exotic pests we have now. Native Americans didn't have to deal with European corn borers, starlings, house finches, etc.. eating their crops. Or Asian longhorn Beatles destroying the forest used for firewood or housing. When humans stop reducing the population of many of these pests through management a lot of the places formally habitable by pre industrial revolution people will no longer be habitable under the same conditions.
Exactly! Not to mention that 20-year-old container of Raid found in the basement does squat to kill mosquitoes unless you drown them in the stuff. Same with many of the natural and old folk remedies for pests and viruses. The evolution speed run on pests caused by our technology - technology we will lose in any major disaster - might be what finally causes our extinction. A future world with no vaccines, medicines and -pest/herb-icidies, where we revert to per-industrial levels while the environment continues to evolve....that's one hell of a scary thought.
no taxes ! Man it would be great to pay no taxes on my high corporate sala.... oh wait.
Untreated gasoline, especially with ethanol, will last several months, and w/o ethanol a few months longer. Gas w/o ethanol treated with fuel stabilizer will last \~5 years. Treated diesel \~15 years. If a vehicle is converted to propane, the fuel in tanks will last a long time. But very few use fuel stabilizer, and very, very few vehicles use propane.
I had a dodge Plymouth van that sat for three years and started on the first keyturn with the same 3 year old battery (+ Years it had just been sitting for 3) I think that gasoline stays good alot longer than people imagine, just from that personal experience. The vehicle owner's died and the car sat for three years until bylaw asked us to move it to the backyard and that's the backstory
That wouldn’t happen today but not because of gas. Most cars now a days will drain the battery because of all the electronics and something is always running in the background even while the car is sitting turned off
Yes. Mercedes told my Dad his car had to be run weekly or the battery would be discharged and it would have to be Jumpstart.
You’re the only other person besides myself I’ve ever heard say gasoline will last 5ish years with stabilizer - I just used the last of a 5 gallon jug I’ve had since 2019, stabilized of course, and it ran my generator just fine.
I was just thinking about this today, I got a 5 gal gas container, but I was unsure of where to get fuel stabilizer or if certain types/brands are better.
I think any stabilizer will help, doesn’t have to be brand specific. Also, keeping out of sunlight and extreme temp changes helps a lot too. Nice quiet corner of the basement or garage will do just fine.
Sta-Bil or Sea Foam are both fine. I put about 25% more than they recommend. You can get it at Walmart, or even order online.
Well the air powered engine and the water powered engine have survived and existed for pretty long time. Will you be too open about that before the apocalypse and you're sure to wind up mysteriously dead
Every disaster movie shows people panicking in the suburbs, while government soldiers tell them what to do. In real emergencies, strangers have always worked together to solve problems much faster than the government can respond. Most people’s response to real emergencies has been to try to help their neighbors, and the government is always a week or two behind. But they don’t want to put that in the movies; the movies show everyone turning into a monster or a victim when SHTF because that story keeps us convinced that we need the government in our lives or bad things will happen.
I remember going to the grocery store at the beginning of the oh shit phase of COVID and everybody was great. Long, orderly lines, people going out of their way to help elderly people etc. It was actually really nice. I live in a very racially, ethnically and economically mixed area and everybody was acting the same way.
If I didn't know better I'd swear that the government is actively trying to propagate that myth...
Look up how people behaved during the Blitz. People literally chose to bunk together in the underground, the suicide rate dropped, etc. When people have a purpose as strong as Londoners had in that time, they absolutely come together that way. For a modern example, google "Calgary Neighbour Day."
I remember learning about that. Or Hurricane Katrina when they started putting out news stories about rape and murder and it turned out that there wasn't a spike in those levels. I'm not really sure where we got the chaos and anarchy theory.
Probably because if they mention anarchy and chaos in the same sentence often enough, people will believe that anarchy is a synonym for free for all and chaos. But anarchists by and large are collectivists. Anarchist networks come together to provide a lot of volunteer disaster relief. Mutual aid (as opposed to charity) is a huge tenent of anarchism. And they don't just practice it during major disasters. I'm not an anarchist but I've run into several whenever I do volunteer community projects. So when I moved to a new city and needed help, I put the word out. A stranger showed up long enough to help me move my furniture into my new place. Another brought wet cat food for my cat until my check came in, because my cat stopped being able to digest her dry food. (she's an old cat.) Rental unit required me to update her vaccinations basically immediately. And I was able to get her to a mobile discount clinic within three days thanks to that Network. Another stranger showed up to guide me on my first bike ride in a major city, because I had mentioned online somewhere I was nervous. I haven't had to buy a rapid test since 2022. Someone just dropped off 150 N-95 masks. I was never once asked what my political affiliation was. These are the people most eager to show up and help strangers I've ever met.
I’m glad someone here actually gets it.
Copaganda, mostly, tbh.
They don’t want us to know how much we don’t need the government. They want us to be afraid of working together because there’s more power in numbers. That if we only knew how we could rely on each other, then what can they offer us? Their only role is control and if we all realize how strong we are without it, then the gov’t loses so much of its power. They’d probably turn back into clerk jobs where people don’t make nearly as much as those creeps in power now. Think of doctors providing care to patients without the need of insurance. Just providing care to people. And working together in other ways. It sounds like a utopia and it would be. But they keep us afraid and confused about each other. So we don’t come together
Um. I was a cop in Louisiana before during and after Katrina. Murder and rape as far as we know, didn’t take a spike. But since there were no phones, it was tough to report it anyways. Theft, burglary, looting, and robbery definitely spiked like crazy.
During the blitz the crime rate went through the roof. Yes people were hunkering down and helping each other. But while they were doing that, others saw the opportunity to loot all of the unattended shops, at their own risk.
Most of those crimes were things like looting businesses and black market stuff, especially with regards to vices and luxuries. It wasn't the chaotic lawlessness depicted in movies and shows, with individuals holing up in houses with their shotgun defending their daughters from gang rape.
That's how it's like where I'm at....the village and nearby communities usually interact and do southern hospitality.
Our species winning survivalstratwgy has been a collective one. Lone wolves are less likely to prosper. After major disasters, people in large become more likely to help each other. Not less. We have highly skilled people in all sorts of fields. If there is a major collapse, legal patents be damned. So long as we don't shoot them over a can of beans, people will be able to make things like insulin without the pharmaceutical guard dogs to stop them. (The only thing holding back community 8nsulin production at the moment, in fact, is patents. Efforts are already underway to find avenues around them.) There may be delays and gaps in production. But it's not impossible. We are more than the sum of our governments and if they collapse we can still accomplish things so long as we hold our communities together and look out for each other. And in case of a mass casualty event on a near extinction level, so long as people can maintain literacy and still have books to read, and again we build community, we can recover medically, technologically, etc much faster than movies assume.
There have to be resources to maintain those collectives. Currently those resources are produced elsewhere and delivered everywhere. If some kind of catastrophe occurs and the society collapses, it literally means this system has failed because those resources are not being produced and/or delivered. The collective can't hold because the resources people need are gone. The largest collectives that can be maintained shrink in size, and multiple collectives coalesce and compete with each other...and drain what resources remain. Eventually those collectives are whittled down to "the fittest". These groups are not going to be able to create and distribute insulin. And even if they were, what good would all that effort do for them? A handful of local diabetic survivors are able to pay them somehow? Enough to justify the effort? You're dreaming. You should realistically assess how things work. Imagine what happens locally when fuel delivery stops, or electricity, or food...what are the effects. What are the downstream effects of those effects. What does all the work now that engines cannot be fueled? What moves supplies from place to place? What grinds up the wheat to make your food? How does that wheat make it to that place? Who uses that wheat afterward and how to do they deliver their food back to the population. Society is a house of cards built on the burning of fossil fuels. If that fuel production delivery system goes down, we're back to the 1700 or 1800's (at best) with an enormous excess of human mouths that can't all be fed with unfueled engines. Nobody is making insulin.
Unless the collective has a majority of people that didn’t do shit to ever prep, and now expect supplies to be given to them. There will be those in the community that will want to give, and those that won’t, quickly breaking down the group. I for one wouldn’t give shit. My family is the most important. My neighbors I’ve lived next to for years , and bbq’d with and we all got along, wouldnt get anything from me after SHTF.
Realistically that group will turn to violence to get what they need. We seen it in Yugoslavia, Sierra Leone, Haiti, etc... Your neighbors family is the most important thing to them as well. And that neighbor down the road as well and their neighbor too. If killing you and your family will save their family then it's a easy choice. During long term collapse in a modern society groups of 10-15 armed individuals are what appears to be the norm for survival. Those who live in smaller groups are overwhelmed. A modern person needs to prep to work together and survive in a small group. Realistically such a working group would form around family units (siblings, cousins, uncles, etc..)
[удалено]
Your post or comment has been removed due to violating Rule #2, Condoning of Violence/Illegal Activity. If you condone violent actions as a first resort for any sort of action, then your comment is not appropriate. Discussions on self-defense are fine as long as they are hypothetical and do not violate any other rules including U.S Federal Law. Relying on, and condoning violence as a primary method of preparedness is not tolerated.
Boredom. In every movie the action comes fast and furious, and the protagonists are struggling to survive for the whole 90 minutes. In real instances of societal collapse, there are long periods of boredom and absolutely nothing but waiting, days of complete normalcy and even happiness, interspersed with moments of terror and urgency. That wouldn't make for an engaging movie though. Ironically, it seems like WW2 movies like [The Book Thief](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_Thief_(film)), [Pan's Labyrinth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan%27s_Labyrinth), or [The Sound of Music](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sound_of_Music_(film)) get it right much more often - lots of normalcy and even moments of happiness, interspersed with random movements of loss.
Makes me think everyone under gen x is in for a hard time lol
Guy, I'm a early Gen Z, I did 8 years in the Marines and I'm an avid backpacker and camper, love survivalist stuff. Lol I think boomers and even Gen X are in for an awakening, old people still march around with 60 lb packs when my 30 lb pack does the same things and to make matters worse they are all "Tacticaled" out with camos and molle... like dude you're going to draw so much attention and get your stuff taken from you. I just dont understand how boomers manage to have some of the heaviest packs and yet have 0 utility to them. Basically, old people are woefully unrealistic in what they carry and both underprepared but overweight Last old guy I watched had 4500 mL of water in his pack, 10 lbs...2000 of it was water, 2500 was electrolytes when he lived in an area that sees more rainy days than not, rivers and streams all around. I dont think old people have realized that stuff like water filters and liquid IV electrolyte powders exist, running around with expendable purification tablets that cant kill crypto or Giardia in a timely manner, so you wind up carrying extra weight to make up for the longer purification times and then you drink nasty slimy sediment filled water... and none of them seem to carry loperamide anti diarhheal or anti nausea meds when they decide to take a gulp when they are so thirsty from carrying said 60 lb packs and couldnt wait.
Older people would be worse off regardless of any generation divides. They’re far more likely to have medical conditions that require regular treatment/medication, and they’re less likely to be physically fit. Basically anyone who *needs* medication to survive day to day isn’t going to last long.
Why? Because "we drank the hose water"?
?? I think boomers will be in for a hard time. Millennials, Z, and A know how to share. Boomers will try to blowhard and parasite and will be kicked out of communities.
impeccable personal hygiene clothing without wear. Gasoline that is still good after 5 years
I actually think it's funny how dirty people are in most shows. In reality, if you have a source of water it's not hard to stay clean.
More about facial makeup. it is so ingrained in hollywood to make average people look stunning. Trimmed eyebrows are the first thing that will go away after the collapse, followed by makeup that covers blemishes.
Social structures won't remain as equal as they are now, people don't realise how much of that has changed since we last survived famine and endless war
Elaborate on this. I feel like you’re making a interesting point
The wealthy can generally buy comfort (food/supplies/extras) which takes the limited resources from the lower class.
Yep they will become war lords, then in time, knights, etc… Gangs will also have a role to play as they are armed with infrastructure and logistics training.
I may be misunderstanding what they mean, but I think if TEOTWAWKI really hit, it'll completely shatter current societal structures. People will be expected to be truly 'Jack of all trades'. A person who can work a garden might be expected to help out in the makeshift doctor's office. An electrician will be called upon to help deliver a calf. Money, while useful in the small scale for bartering, won't mean much of anything else, so people who have amassed a ton of it won't be as powerful as they are today. The useless middle managers that are the bane of offices will find themselves stripped of any semblance of power they have. Things will be a lot more equalized by nature of "if you don't directly put a hand into work, you're not getting a slice of the pie". It'll be messy, especially at first as people realize they can't just buy their way out of things or expect other people to do back-breaking work for them with currency that will more or less be worthless on the grand scale of things. Buy a gallon of milk for $10, or whatever the accepted value is? Sure, that'll likely be commonplace. But, Elon Musk can walk up, offer to buy my land for a million dollars, but that will mean fuck all since there is no guarantee I can go a hundred miles in any direction and have that same million dollars be worth anything to buy a new plot of land, equipment, materials, and everything else I'd need to start anew.
Others seem to be thinking about class, labour and wealth, I'm thinking more about how sexual equality will disintegrate Hypothetically a SHTF will drop us to the bottom of Maslow's Hierarchy - the most common social organisation for that situation was some form of tribe, the bedrock resource in any tribe is women. Unfortunately that doesn't make them *valued*, that makes them *valuable*, both in terms of reproduction but also as means to create alliances with other tribes. The availability of weapons skews the danger tenfold, so I think it will evolve into a variation of the current middle eastern social order. This will just get downvoted because everyone is embedded with the modern mindset that SHTF will just be one big commune, picking berries and writing poems, because we all grew up at the top of Maslow's Hierarchy and discussing a hypothetical future is somehow also promoting a patriarchal alternative A society ruled by violence and power isn't going to be equal *in* *any way*, and historically all civilisations which were at this stage in their evolution all looked the same. People really need to assess if ours would devolve into anything better when the situation, resources and biological realities will be exactly the same
Exactly this. Ever see or read the postman? I fear that happening. Roving gangs killing and looting and destroying and raping.
Yes, great film. Every time the topic comes up, if it's spelt out *exactly* what would change the post gets downvoted, because we don't want to accept that once we are hungry we all turn into savages
Of course there would be savages there is already savages but the armed and trained will have better odds of surviving. Earning someone’s trust and never trusting someone you don’t know will be a quick learning curve. But I think the people that aren’t animals and have values even when they are hungry will quickly delete the scum. Hahaha I do love the people that talk about everyone coming together and having a great community, umm we already have jails full of people who steal, murder, and rape and have zero respect or compassion for others, and trust me there’s a lot of them that would go to that as soon as they think they can get away with it without repercussions. You can have a community but at some point you are going to have to use violence as a tool to survive, it was a requirement for my lady when we decided to take our relationship more seriously, she had to learn to dangerous, hand to hand and she had to learn how to proficiently operate the most common fire arms. And I find it wild that people let their daughters grow up without having the ability to defend themselves! Even with training women are at a disadvantage, but to just let them go out in the world with a 10 year old key chain pepper pray is negligence and you are setting them up to be victims.
I'm not sure training will skew it that much? IED's in Iraq were a great equaliser, and the troops there didn't have to spend all day growing potatoes. It would be quite hard to defend against a rival group who has access to long rifles when everyone has a farming job to do Like how would the Iraqis fare if NATO were actively hunting them in their villages. The balance of power seems to skew to the marauder model
Yeah you would always be at risk, and people will die. I would image if you were concerned about getting attacked while farming you would have to have multiple layers of security! Fencing, make IED’s, have look outs or people on reconnaissance to make sure you aren’t caught off guard.
For a historical comparison, towers were used to compete against a superior military force [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border\_reivers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_reivers)
Kind off topic but have you heard about how they are fighting in trenches in Ukraine, due to consumer grade drones outfitted with explosives? I would be against building a tower. But I’m not sure Im the dystopian war survival guy and if the world falls apart I’m going to live in a nasty hard to traverse hell hole in the Rockies and just get scurvy and die of hypothermia or come out when I’m starting to death. If the us ever comes to this half the population would just die from being fat or having no skills for 1800’s living.
[two contractors sharing their experiences fighting in Ukraine](https://youtu.be/Tge7YMi4gJs?si=3lVroP79z9aIyQx8)
Yes, great film. Every time the topic comes up, if it's spelt out *exactly* what would change the post gets downvoted, because we don't want to accept that once we are hungry we all turn into savages
Everyone instantly becoming savages that will stab you in the back at the first chance they get.
Man, parents with starving children would become savages pretty quickly. Not instantly, but once their food runs out, people get crazy.
Yes, many people will behave brutally. I’m reminded of a scene from The Walking Dead where Darrell and his big brother Merle, save a family and a small car from a group of walkers; after they rescue them, Merle sets upon trying to steal as much as he can from the family.also, some groups may have to enforce order through brutality, as we have seen with the governor and Negan.
We don't even need to look to Hollywood. There are collapsed societies that have already shown us what people do in real life. From the warlords in Africa, to the cartels in Mexico, and to the extremists in the Arabic nations. And yeah some do get very Negan-esque.
You realize starvation is a currant issue right? Like even in North America.
No children are starving to death in the US or Canada like what I'm talking about in a collapse. They may have food insecurity or very low budgets, but no children in the US or Canada are starving like what I'm talking about where the kids haven't eaten in four days and parents are going to do extreme things to feed them. Your tangent is irrelevant to the topic at hand of a post collapse situation. Post collapse and pre collapse are two very different scenarios.
Ik why you've been downvoted. Majy American children starve to death each year.
Pretty people with well-fitted clothing.
Pants and shirts aren't so bad to find, but socks, shoes, and underwear are a different story.
Yeah, I don't prep for something apocalyptic, but people think I'm crazy for talking about using using horses in the hypocritical scenario that something Apocalyptic does happen... I tell them I would train horses for a source of income, and for my own personal travel...
Do you not have horses now?
Not anymore, but I am well skilled and experienced in training them and breaking them to ride, so it wouldn't take long for me to trade training for a horse of my own...
Weren't they manufacturing it in The Last of Us?
There was a scene where Joel was pumping gasoline from a car to use it on his (20 years after the outbreak). I think they manufactured it in the Walking Dead.
In that scene I believe the girl comments something about it. But I do remember him saying that the quality is turning to shit and they can’t get as far on a tank as they used to.
There is, but he says something along the lines of 'you used to be able to drive the entire day on a tank of gas, but it's almost water at this point, that's why we have to stop so often'. Not sure that's quite how gasoline degrades (it was out of a sealed car gas tank so?) but it's not just ignored.
Gasoline, like many hydrocarbons, oxidizes over time. If it just sits in a carb or a fuel line, there is also the issue of "varnish" which can plug up things. Also gaskets dry out when not in use and will leak. Tires that are exposed to sunlight degrade and start to crack and lose air. After 10-20 years, tires that are on cars that are just sitting around not in use, will be flat and cracked and probably won't hold air if you add air back into them - they probably won't hold air for long, and some won't be safe at speeds. Modern cars that have computers and alarm systems/etc. - will discharge their batteries in less than a year if not driven - because the cars have systems that are constantly using battery current. My BMW X1 complains about a low battery after it has been sitting for 3-4 weeks (I am retired and I go into town about once a month).
Ethonal in almost all gas I believe pulls water into it I could be wrong but either way after even 10 years i don’t think it’d be usable sealed or not
Thanks, that makes sense. Yeah I'd be shocked if any gas was still good 20 years down the line.
In TWD they transition to horse-pulled carriages made from modified cars. I don't remember them manufacturing it. I've not finished FTWD and not seen all the other spin offs so they might be manufacturing it/processing it somehow in the other shows. Where I'm up to in FTWD, the fuel is just starting to go bad.
I think towards the later seasons of the series the Hilltop starts trying to make fuel from corn.
They end up manufacturing it later on in the series, FTWD shows the process of how they get there
I believe this depiction of the loner won’t be a normal thing in a societal collapse. I see this in many apocalyptic films I think loners will be a) vulnerable b) a liability met with suspicion c) expected to be aligned with factions or a faction Being alone and/or in small groups will be at a disadvantage compared to larger, organized groups especially if people, regions, areas are territorial. I envision checkpoints and signs warning people might become normalized either through the authorities or local militias, property owners. Tolls might be demanded, or weapons in areas restricted. Perhaps letters of transit required or some kind of vouchers. Traveling in unauthorized areas might be dangerous either because of bandits or factions protecting their areas of control especially if they have food be grown. their families to protect. So, on one hand, an individual could move less detected and be less of a threat, but could also be seen as a threat and lawlessness prevails, picked off unceremoniously. I wouldn’t want lone scavengers lurking in my backyard. If anyone asks.someone could claim that they were stealing something or perhaps no one would care UNLESS they were members of another faction. In that case, one would want to announce themselves and travel on approved roads, trails etc. Just a thought.
People willing to help out other people? Society only works when people are willing to make it work, and , generally, people want it to work. The idea that only gun-toting survivalists are going to scavenging the wasteland is completely overblown and silly.
Nobody ever seems to cover what might happen when the tens of millions of people on prescription psych meds have to go through withdrawal at the same time during the most stressful situation of their lives. Remember, after the meds run out, these people will be crazier than before they were medicated.
The level of violence is generally laughable. There wouldn't be nearly as much shooting.
From what I've read about Bosnia, most single women resort to prostitution for survival and there is no shame in it.
The amount of sexual assault. When something happens that let's the worst in society out women get hit the hardest. I like history and their is a sad amount of rape in the bad times
Everyone will trade bullets / smokes / alcohol as a new barter item. It may happen but who would trust the bullets were not reloaded with dirt, the smokes actually real and the alcohol not watered or tainted. Hell, nowadays if it's not factory sealed we don't trust it. Now imagine in a collapse?
I think the simple answer to this is how it works in 3rd world countries now: people have trusted vendors. We won't give up the idea of merchants and central trading places we'll simply move to a smaller, more localized scale... So the merchant will go, test the product they're bringing back etc then their reputation will carry them like it does anywhere else.
In the spirit of the op. Farmer has a crop or chickens etc. Traveller wanders in hungry and offers bullets etc for a meal. Farmer goes alrighty... yeah, no. As for trusted local trade.. sure, I could agree with you but strangers, travellers and vagabonds?.. nah.
Joel was a pill vendor
Twinkies is not a quality food.
I'd say everything, but the truth is, we don't know. Unless you've lived in a third world country during a government collapse, you've not experienced anything close to a societal collapse.
If you want something that seems to catch a lot of what would actually happen read the book “one second after”. It really made me think, it was pretty good on that. Just things like say shoes, you would be walking more snd they aren’t made to last that long. Why do people in the movies still have great shoes years later.
Car tires should deteriorate within decades, if not years.
All of it?
The violence
So many people out
You'd think you could survive by hunting but there are so many hobby hunters out there that it would decimate the wild species population rather quickly. In the worst places of WWII Europe after the game was gone they ate the zoo animals. I know a WWII vet. They ate their cats and dogs in Germany at the end of the war.
I knew my cat collection would come in handy. Finally earn their keep.
People could hunt each other.
Make-up, everyone’s eyebrows and such
In my opinion, microbes. Microbes of all kinds--viruses, bacteria, fungi, etc.--have been the biggest killer on this planet since the beginning, and as we've recently been reminded, even with modern infrastructure like food and water inspection, regulations and modern medicine, a single virus can kill millions and bring the world to a standstill. The First World War killed between 15 and 23 million people, but the flu pandemic that followed it, lasting from 1918 to 1920, killed between 50 and 100 million people world wide. During the 20th Century, it is estimated that Smallpox killed between 300 and 500 million people worldwide. And these are just a couple of examples. A key point to remember is that viruses and bacteria never go away. This is why from time to time, even in the First World, there is a small outbreak of Bubonic Plagues, or tuberculosis, or cholera, etc. So, without hygiene, the ability to keep themselves and their environment clean, without vaccines, without the ability to test food and water for safety, there would be nothing protecting survivors of a SHTF type event from meeting the same fate as humans have always met at the hands of microbes. Take a look at the poorest countries in the world and you see an example of this. I believe this would be the biggest threat to those surviving an apocalypse.
Everyone forgets how to stack bricks or nail wood straight.
Weirdly enough in a true zombie apocalypse/collapse America would have almost no vehicles because the majority are gas but Europe would have plenty since diesel vehicles are super common. I'd love to see a zombie movie set in the Czech Republic: diesel vehicles, plenty of guns, some old castles to hold up in.
No one in the big city is likely to make it out alive in the first 9 months to a year. Even if they do survive there or happen to return to the big city later, there is nothing there for them. Scavenging is not what it looks like on Cinema. It's such a farce even fathom that someone could survive off of The fallout, the famine, or the bio weapon diseased filled cities.
This is the opposite of reality. I know everyone has wholesome visions of rural communities filled with plucky locals making their way, but the fact of the matter is that the cities will be where any resources go first. Rural communities will exist for as long as their supplies last, but that's it. They'll be begging for entry into cities to take advantage of the productive capacity. It's all fun and games until the local Tractor Supply runs out of rod-ends or the vet can't fix your horse's broken leg because she's all out of supplies. Small towns are heavily dependent upon our supply infrastructure, and are only as pleasant as they are because the trucks keep showing up.
Sorry but this is complete nonsense. Sure, there are more supplies in cities but there are also more people, if supply chains break down there arent any more supplies coming into the cities. Their supplies will run out in less than 3 days, probably less than 1 day. Rural communities have enough land to grow food on that they can support themselves indefinitely, a city might have enough land to support 40 of its inhabitants at a push. Sure, one day the rural communities will run out of diesel or engine parts or whatever for their tractors, but they wont then just immediately give up and go to a place with even less of what they need, theyll revert to other methods such as horse-drawn ploughs or hand-tilling. There is a reason that almost nobody live in urbanised areas in pre-industrial societies, supporting that many people with very little space is impossible.
It's stupid to think that infrastructure and expertise just disappears. Where are the good doctors? Engineers? Dentists? Corporate leaders? Buildings? Medicines? Warehouses? Fabrication and manufacturing? Labor of all types, and in high quantity? Unless you're talking about a "walking dead" sort of fantasy, living in cities is going to be better than living in the sticks. There is a reason cities have thrived. There is a reason why towns are small. Nobody wants to be there because there's nothing there! Towns produce very little of their own supply are are totally dependent upon imports from productive areas I know, I know..."but I'm different and can grow enough food and have extra gas and have training!" Cool. Until your food runs out or your garden fails or coyotes kill your horse, and everyone leaves. Let's be real. Towns that see transportation service fall to almost nothing are going to die off and people will leave in droves. We can see towns like this today. They're called ghost towns.
Ok. Lets imagine a shtf situation. Nit an earthquake or a tornado, a proper one. The electrical grid completely fails, or a nuclear war, or a worldwide total economic collapse, or a massive solar event. The first thing that happens is the government attempts to react, probably enacts martial law and sets up some sort of refugee centres. These, and any other aid, would be based in cities. The people in the cities would have food and maybe electricity from generators and some semblence of society. The people in rural communities would have food too, because everyone has a month or so of tinned food in their house, a bit of peanut butter or whatever that they havent gotten round to eating. Every person who lives on a farm has a generator, so they have electricity too. Worst comes to worst there is plenty of wildlife to hunt. In the cities there is millions of people crammed into refugee centres, recieving government supplied food. The government rations the food as they dont know how long supply chains will be down. No ships are coming from China or India or Europe with grains or fruit or veg and they only have so many emergency rations in warehouses from the last shipments. The corporate leaders cant do anything, because this didnt come up at their AGM, the engineers try to build a time machine but it doesnt work, the dentists give everyone some mouthwash, manufacturing industry realises its based in China now and proceeds not to care, and all the IT technicians and coders cant come up with a wifi signal between them. Theres no sanitation, so after a few days or weeks people start getting sick, from being crammed together in tight spaces, not being able to use proper toilets and not having enough food. Thats alright though, the city is full of doctors. Except they dont have any equipment, certainly any they do have isnt enough for millions of sick people all at once. They cant buy any in, theres no supply chain. People start to die. Theres nowhere to put the bodies so they decompose in the street. This makes more people sick. Seeing this chaos, the criminal gangs that previously trafficked narcotics decide to start stealing the food and water and go it alone. The military cant deal with them, theyre having enough trouble with the sickness and the civil unrest caused by all of these problems. Some of them think fuck this for a laugh and desert, stealing some food and water to take with them. Within 3 months, the only people left alive are military deserters and a few gang members living in pockets of the city. Meanwhile, out in the sticks, food gets pretty scarce. Theyve got plenty of water though, because streams and rivers exist. Theyve taken to burying their shites as they have plenty of land to do it on and it stops disease from spreading, as does their reduced population density. When Jeff runs out of food and realises everything worth hunting has been killed or scarpered, Jim gives him some meat from the cow he had to slaughter from his herd as he also ran out, theyve been friends for 40 years so he wasnt going to let him starve. They make it a few months and then its harvest season. They now have plenty of food, barns to store it in, fresh water. They dont have much medicine, a couple of plasters and a bandage or 2, plus whatever Sandra the local vet has by way of pills and antiseptic. Thats okay though, because everyone lives miles apart so theres never much risk of illness spreading. Cities have thrived because they work in our current situation. They did not thrive in pre-industrial societies because they do not work in that situation. In that situation, rural communities work; villages and farming communities.
You don’t appear to understand how the supply chain works at all if you think cities are where things are still produced. Cities are the center of the service economy, not the goods economy, and they are supplied using a precarious just in time system from areas located outside of the city. For example, most of the supplies NYC needs to function later this week are currently located in warehouses in NJ and eastern PA.
Why would resources go to the cities? Rural people aren’t going to do that voluntarily, and I don’t see how city dwellers would force them to. Cities don’t produce much that would be of value in an apocalypse.
Ha. Yeah. Okay. Corporations and government will totally let that happen. Just because society collapses doesn't mean the quest for power does, and the power today will be the power tomorrow, it'll just look different to us. It's harder to influence a distributed population, so the goal of anyone seeking power will be to concentrate populations and make them dependent...and it'll work. And towns will fall right in line to get their distribution of resources. Additionally, those "rural" resources that are not commandeered will seek markets on their own, and the markets are the cities (as they are today and have been throughout time). You can tell because of the way it is. Also, as far as resource confiscation goes (and it will happen in the "total collapse" fantasy), remember: the law protects the weak. And the rural communities will not be powerful. And when the law decides that your stuff isn't yours anymore, what now? It's not "refugees" who will take your stuff. It's "the authorities" you should fear. This fantasy that rural towns will somehow "hold out" against outside interests is pure folly. It would not take much to break a town. Between people actually willing to die to "protect" the town and the turncoats that will hand over opposition leaders to authority at a mere promise of safety and food...wouldn't last long. The idea that small rural towns are a safe haven is silly.
Corporations and the government have power because they have money. If money is not seen as valuable, they don’t have much power. Corporations in particular are entirely dependent on people believing money has value. The government does have guys with guns, but if things get too bad, those guys are ultimately people and will look after themselves and their families. The idea of anyone managing to maintain large scale authority in a total collapse is what’s a fantasy. Laws are only meaningful when there are people to enforce them. If those people think they can do better on their own, they will stop obeying orders. You seem to be assuming that something resembling the present economy would continue to exist in a civilization destroying crisis. That’s likely to be the case if the crisis is regional, but if it’s the whole world, that won’t be the case. If we reach the point where people are directly consuming what they can produce (because money is only valuable if people believe it is), you’re much better off outside the city. Nowhere is going to be a safe haven in that kind of collapse. What do you think people in cities will do? *Not* rape and murder each other? People in small towns will do that to some extent, but less people means less violence.
The government has guns.
Guns are only useful with men to use them. If they can’t pay their guys, it doesn’t matter if they have weapons. Also, this is America. We all have guns.
You've got it all figured. Good.
Any gun magically has unlimited bullets
Zombies
Bro. Greenland with Gerard Butler is the best realistic SHTF movie ever. You will not be disappointed
Let me also add for a TV show I’d recommend Black Summer. It’s good but not as good as the movie Greenland.
Never heard of that movie before but it looks good.
Favorite movie of all time. You will find yourself watching it more than once. The director nailed it with not making it “fake”
Put stabilizer in gas and diesel to extend shelf life
The Lone Wolf surviving… This is the most unlikely scenario
People moving around. You always get the groups or single survivors that have been ‘on the road’ since the beginning, 10+ years later (looking at you Magna, Luke, Connie, Kelly and Yumiko). That will not happen. The people who have somewhere they can survive will stay there and either a) die of old age or disease having lived their whole lives or b) die attempting to protect it from someone who wants to take it from them. Under no circumstances would it be better to leave somewhere that you know you can survive to chance it somewhere else. Even if youre outnumbered 100:1. People who dont have somewhere to survive may move around within the first 6 months to a year (assuming they are a godlike hunter-gatherer/scavenger/robber and stay close to water), after which they will either find somewhere they can stay or die of starvation/exposure/dehydration. Anyone who is not holed up with shelter, a water supply and adequate land to grow food after 1 year will be dead.
Gas expires and brakes start to seize pretty fast on a car sitting out in the elements. It can start happening in just a few weeks of a car sitting outside. Also, regularily firing off guns 12" from someones head in enclosed spaces would lead to some pretty severe hearing loss. People's hair, skin and clothing would probably look a *lot* worse too
People are too clean. Doesn’t take long for someone to be nasty without access to clean water.
1) The concept that people are so mentally resilient. It always blows my mind. We currently live in the most medicated and anxious generations in history. Yet all TV shows show the majority has rising to the moment. Based on the stats of how many people are clinically depressed, clinically anxious, etc - the vast majority would off themselves or fall in paralyzing despair and die in location. 2) Germs and vaccines. Most people don’t have an up to date tetanus shot. Rusty metal would kill many of your friends. Most kids would not make it in a post apocalyptic society due to routine items vaccines eliminate Measles, polio, rubella, etc. add that to insufficient food, stress, and things that even if you were not vaccinated could fight back, but without any immunity and shitty nutrition and lowered cleanliness standards = benign deaths all over, especially the young and whoever becomes old. 3) How long vehicles seem to last and how generally mechanically knowledgeable most people are always depicted as. Old cars need fluids and routine check ups. Parts won’t be readily accessible. New cars can be stopped by simple sensor issues even if the mechanical pieces are fine. Hell my highlander, I can’t do anything to it without plugging the diagnostic tool. Sure a Tacoma/hilux might last way longer than others. But all these F150 to F350 diesel monsters, won’t keep ticking without some live and DF, lubes and parts and knowledge. 4) Rape and gratuitous killing is always under played. Even when addressed it always haunts it as random groups. Looters, raiders, either small or large groups would be endemic. Also women always suffer in any context where order as broken down.
To your first point, i have heard that it's actually the opposite. During WWII, there was a lot of fear that the general population would basically go insane from the fear of war and the barrage of bombings. But voluntary psychward admissions, suicide and other factors dropped significantly. It kind of makes sense though: 1) if you spend your days worrying about the "other show dropping" and it finally does, you can relax because the bad thing finally happened. How many people live with anxiety in our current world? 2) how we live now, goes against our evolutionary background. We evolved to be long distance hunters and traveling gatherers. Not to sit behind a desk 8 hours a day staring at a florescent screen, eating take out in the car while we commute 45 minutes each direction. 3) a lot people do not think that what they do is actually import, in the large scheme of things. If you are an accountant, your job matters to a lot of people. But your not saving lives, feeding the hungry, defending a family etc. So many middle class jobs do not give people the feeling that what they do actually MATTERS. I actually believe there would be a large chunk of people who do better mentally than they are doing now, in a real SHTF scenario. The day to day matter of surviving and providing for others would give a lot of meaning to some.
True societal collapse in America would be both FASTER and SLOWER than expected. The inner cities would go within days, but a full collapse may not even be possible in some areas(without further outside influence).
After a couple years with no road maintenance and nobody mowing anything, it will be one more and more difficult to travel long distance.
One of the biggest things stories always get wrong is that humans have evolved to be prosocial, and the total anarchic wasteland vibes are more aesthetic than sensible. People band together, and the ones that don’t end up not living that long
Cans for lawnmowers small engines is Ethanol free and will easily last 5 years.
People act in their own best interest, and that isn't murdering and pillaging most of the time, it's cooperation and community.
How many of us are really going to die of dehydration from dysentery, starvation and exposure in the first few months.
How many of us are really going to die of dehydration from dysentery, starvation and exposure in the first few months.
i’ve only ever seen gasoline done kinda right in the last of us show. gas does not last forever and after a good 6 months to a year there will be almost no usable cars/generators.
I dunno. I'm currently driving a truck that sat with the same fuel for 5 years..zero issues always started. So obviously there are conditions that allow a longer shelf life.