Because We Carry the Fire

Shit just hit the fan, it's the apocalypse. No zombies or anything, the global economy just completely collapsed because Ben Bernanke put a decimal in the wrong spot or something. Money is worthless, global trade have routes shut down, laws are out the window, people no longer pick up your garbage on Tuesday mornings.

FOCUS: Without the cushy luxuries of modern living, how fucked are you? Can you hunt? Do you know first aid? Do you own weapons? On a scale of 1 to toytoy, how well will you be able to survive? What's your plan (serious or funny)?

 

Bump

 

My garbage gets picked up on Mondays, so I'm fine. Seriously, though, without buying all the shit that we buy on a regular basis garbage becomes pretty much a moot point. All you're going to have are food scraps and you can throw those in a hole.

I don't hunt, although I used to and Louisiana is lousy with all manner of things that walk, crawl, swim, and fly that are edible, so I'm fine. My neighborhood is infested with raccoons and possum and, while a revolting idea, country folk have been eating those oversized rodents for centuries, so if it came down to starving or eating a giant rat, I'll eat rat. I have tomatoes, peppers, lemons, satsumas, oranges, and watermelon growing in my backyard right now, so I'm good for vegetables and fruit.

The main concern is other people. Since the vast majority of humans are useless greedy assholes with modern conveniences, give them guns and no laws and you'll have a gang of untrained morons trying to be like The Road Warrior.

 

I hunt, I fish, I garden, and I know how to build shit out of random materials. I'm also well armed with an ample supply of ammo in all calibers.

I'll be fine.

 

I'd manage. If the city becomes unlivable my family has a cabin on a lake up north and plenty of clueless deer that like to wander onto the property. I personally don't own any guns but other family members do. The first thing I'd do though is raid the neighborhood library; there are a lot of skills I'd be lacking in order to comfortably get by in such a scenario so I'd have to learn them post haste. I'd have to make sure to pick up a bullet press and other reloading equipment, because ammo would be a concern over the long term.

Also, I'd want to befriend PIMPTRESS, or my local equivalent. My next concern after ammo would be transportation, which would likely mean learning to ride a horse and, well, getting a horse of my own. With some guns and replenishable ammunition, a place to live and land to hunt on, and a horse, I think I'd be set for the long term.

 

I'm actually fucked if I'm in Korea. If I'm home, then I'm golden. I can hunt with a bow and arrow, fish, find and purify my own water, grow veggies, I even know how to make penicillin. Except for asthma. Oh shit. Asthma. Scratch all that, I'm fucked.

Guns are pointless and impractical because they make too much fucking noise and most people are simply not a good shot. Also, assuming this collapse is permanent, bullets run out. Bow and arrow. Knife. Tomahawk with a hammer becomes a fucking multi-tool. Horses are too damned tasty to ride. Bicycle will outrun most humans without making a sound or requiring as much maintenance as a horse. Cabin in the woods is pointless unless it is next to a stream or has a well with a hand pump. You'll need a stout dog for security and hunting, some chickens because you won't hunt successfully most of the time, and some Ahnuld-in-Predator skills to make traps. Remember kids, hunting is no longer a hobby, so you'll need to be successful or you'll starve. Trapping food like squirrels, rabbits and deer shouldn't be difficult where I live. Probably the biggest challenge is fresh water, then comes getting rid of waste without it being too close to your food/water. Farming without steady water supply and fertilizer would be equally challenging, especially given the need for space and relative freedom from poaching assholes/deer.

I feel like I'd win the Hunger Games.

 

Honestly, I would be pretty well fucked. I fish, and could trap or gather enough food for me to scrape by. But I've adapted nicely to modern society, and I own no weapons. I do not hunt. And my biggest impediment(s) would be my family. My wife and daughter would be pretty much helpless, and I have a mother who is worse than helpless.

Unfortunately I got a preview of what JoeCanada's scenario would be like last fall when Sandy hit. We had no power for 9 days. For us, that meant no heat and no bathroom usage. All of the food we had in the freezer/fridge was unusable after 3 or 4 days. No power meant no gasoline for a couple of days, then sporadic availability for the next week, with lines literally miles long. Taking care of my mother during this was like a nightmare. Luckily, the effects were local. If we ventured west into Pennsylvania, or east into small "islands" of areas with power, we had bathrooms, hot food and showers. If the effects were nationwide, or global? Fucking forget it.

 

In terms of actual survivor skills, I am severely lacking. Hunting and first aid skills are minimal. I'm a pretty good learner though, so when those sort of skills become a necessity, I'd back myself to pick them up, or learn on the way.

If things got really extreme, I think my sincere lack of empathy for other would be pretty useful for whoever is with my group. Not in psychopathic terms of killing everybody else we met, but I'd definitely be a survivalist when it came to circumstances of "us vs them" or whatever. I can't imagine an apocalyptic world where things didn't eventually come down to that.

 

I'm just going to go out on a limb and say that you've never bow hunted. If you had, you'd know how difficult it really is and how impractical it would be if you wanted to eat.

As far as trapping goes, you need to know what you're doing. You can't just randomly go throw traps everywhere. I mean, you can, but you're going to be eating your traps before you eat squirrel or rabbit.

 

Juice is right. Being able to shoot or hunt is going to be secondary to finding a way out of metro areas and surviving literal plagues that are sure to follow. Even when you're out, where are you going to go? The cabin in the woods seems cool, except if you can get there from Minneapolis or Atlanta, so can most everyone else who lives nearby and they probably have the same idea. I can't see a true infrastructure collapse accounting for the death of any less than 50% of our current population. We'd go back to 19th century levels pretty quickly. Only then will we reach a position where rebuilding society even comes close to achievable. Of course, ensuing massive environmental disasters could fuck that notion right in the ass and the few surviving people could find themselves in the stone age. Additionally, there isn't nearly as much game as we presume when harvesting them becomes a free-for-all and critical.

It's a scary notion, the idea that we are perpetually nine meals away from anarchy. The average grocery store has about three days' of food on the shelves. It was a good run for people.

 

I will be fine, Hank even wrote a song about it.

 

I can track. I haven't actually shot an animal, but I have trapped rabbits (for relocation purposes). I haven't gone shooting in some time, but I was decent when I did. I can figure that out with some practice. I have a green thumb, so I can garden.

As mentioned, I would get ahold of some horses. They don't run out of gas and if necessary, can be eaten.

I would make water filtration a priority, raid a WalMart for that and other necessities. Oh, and Home Depot for tools. Solar panels for some electricity when necessary, try to go without for the most part.

I'm no ToyToy, but I think I could hack it.

As far as the metro area, I would leave. There is no hunting here, no space and a bunch of panicked idiots. Fuck that.

 

Not one of you shitbirds have even brought up the benefit of cannibalism. Why bother to hunt and trap game when you can silly run it over with your car or shove it off a building?

 

Because ruptured organs spoil the meat.

 

I don't have any doubts of my ability to survive in the wilderness. I've got enough weapons, ammo, and tools to get by. I've also been hunting since I was a kid, and trained in making traps and deadfalls. I live in the desert, so that is a whole extra added challenge. Water and food do not come nearly as easily out here. However, I know of a water hole out in the desert that has enough catfish to sustain a small village for a long time. Defending it would prove difficult, but it is so far out in the middle of no where, and so unknown that that scenario is somewhat unlikely. My biggest obstacle would be actually getting out of the city alive.

I have always been torn about the best immediate course of action. Would it be best to hole up and let the majority of the populace off themselves, or try to abandon the city as soon as fucking possible. I think I lean toward the latter, as folks may believe that things will blow over soon and not try to evacuate immediately, leaving a better chance to exit the city alive, before people have gone all Lord of the Flies.

After spending some time in my little desert oasis, maybe a year or more, prepping. I would set off north east where living off the land is a bit easier, with better rainfall. I doubt I would go too far east, as there is so much population out there. I do think moving towards the plains would be about right. From there I would try to start up some permanent living, and get back to enjoying things again.

Also to all of those trying to raid WalMarts and Home depots, good fucking luck getting out alive. You've probably dropped your chance of survival in half by even heading in the direction of one of those places.

 

Exactly. Lots of folks either hunt, or think they can, or would be driven to it out of desperation. With that kind of pressure on the animal population, not to mention hundreds of thousands of clueless folks crashing around in the underbrush, game would become scarce very quickly.

As for raiding the stores - you would be one of millions of people with the same idea, so you'd better have a strategy. You're going to want to get jump on everyone, so set a low trigger point for getting down to your local Cabelas or Army/Navy store - for example, if you lose power for more than 30 seconds, gas goes up to $5.00 a gallon, or the stock market drops more than 1%. Then be prepared to fight/kill not only the store owner, but all of your neighbors who have also raced to the store (or followed you, figuring you look like you know what you're doing) for the last precious stick of beef jerky or inflatable mattress pad.

If you make it home (or whever you're going) without someone noticing that you have cases of ramen noodles in your hatchback or your pockets stufffed with D cell batteries and killing you for them, you've got to defend your house/cabin/cave against the roving gangs who've decided it's easier to steal your shit than go get their own.

Yep, *spits tobacco juice into an old coffee can* shits gonna get real squirrely.

 

Thank god for farming communities. There are lots of dairy farms around my area that I'm sure I can scavenge off of, some have 100 head, some in the thousands. I can shoot and field dress animals so I think at least for a while I'd be in pretty good shape. My guess is that things would get pretty crazy for a while but if you can survive that initial panic and stay rural enough to avoid the diseases that follow mass starvation or what not you could have a pretty good shot at living the Amish style life until civilization came back.

 

I have a varied selection of guns and ample ammo for all. I live on a ranch with a spring-fed creek that stays full even in drought conditions so there's water and also plenty of fish to eat. I have snares and traps of various types and sizes because I hate vermin as much as the next guy. Don't presently have a garden, but at the first hint of a societal collapse there is a home depot a few miles away and I'll be the first one there to stock up on seeds. However, all of that is pointless.

Because all I'll need is one bullet.

Once Internet porn goes, so too goes I.