It's Happening.

[Speaker to Animals]

The Walking Dead scenario: all weaklings & old people gone.

Since accomplishment means nothing to most people here, and money will collapse, the fantasy is that because I’m old, some young buck could take me on. The delusion being everything I got was due to White Male Priviledge. Well, let me assure any 30-something who thinks the lack of grey hair gives you the advantage when the police are gone, I will fucking own you.

Survival, in my opinion, comes down to community and luck. I'd imagine your neighborhood has quite a lot of landscaping that can be converted to gardens. Not really a huge amount of people. The men could form up into a local militia for all intents and purposes to defend the area.

A man can be Mr. Spec Ops Operator and still perish if he is alone and surrounded by dindus and rabid progressives. There's a balance to be had.

You guys make good points.
Yes, land can be converted to gardening, but dealing with soils and having the seeds, watering and protecting your crops are all problems. Problems in a survival situation that require time and calories. Starting from scratch it would be very difficult to convert much of the land to gardens and expect much of a return.

If you have a year of food stored, I don't think it would be as bleak as that. I suspect that milpa system the Mayans use would do the trick pretty well. It needs only a small area to grow a high yield of food. Most of those lawns in the suburbs have been fertilized for years and years. As soon as everything shuts down, I am assuming the sewage system would eventually halt along with the power since the facilities that process waste would eventually back up. So people have to start composting pretty early. That adds into the soil pretty fast.

Also, I suspect quite a lot of people will be fighting over what they can loot from department stores and supermarkets. Most people will be fighting. Just hunker down with your food storage. Focus on keeping a low profile, getting your water collection up, and ramping up some kind of farming system for the following year.

[C-Mag]

If you have a year of food stored, I don't think it would be as bleak as that. I suspect that milpa system the Mayans use would do the trick pretty well. It needs only a small area to grow a high yield of food. Most of those lawns in the suburbs have been fertilized for years and years. As soon as everything shuts down, I am assuming the sewage system would eventually halt along with the power since the facilities that process waste would eventually back up. So people have to start composting pretty early. That adds into the soil pretty fast.

Also, I suspect quite a lot of people will be fighting over what they can loot from department stores and supermarkets. Most people will be fighting. Just hunker down with your food storage. Focus on keeping a low profile, getting your water collection up, and ramping up some kind of farming system for the following year.

I view it as more like the Great Depression, only more severe. There wasn't a lot of starvation in the US during the depression, but people were doing with far less. Most meals were one pot meals, soups and casseroles with damn little meat. Anyone that could grow something did.

Here's the problems I see about suburbia. If the sewer system is down, the water system is down. How many people in suburbia even have the tools to till up a lawn, let alone garden or the basic knowledge on growing something.

[Speaker to Animals]

If you have a year of food stored, I don't think it would be as bleak as that. I suspect that milpa system the Mayans use would do the trick pretty well. It needs only a small area to grow a high yield of food. Most of those lawns in the suburbs have been fertilized for years and years. As soon as everything shuts down, I am assuming the sewage system would eventually halt along with the power since the facilities that process waste would eventually back up. So people have to start composting pretty early. That adds into the soil pretty fast.

Also, I suspect quite a lot of people will be fighting over what they can loot from department stores and supermarkets. Most people will be fighting. Just hunker down with your food storage. Focus on keeping a low profile, getting your water collection up, and ramping up some kind of farming system for the following year.

I view it as more like the Great Depression, only more severe. There wasn't a lot of starvation in the US during the depression, but people were doing with far less. Most meals were one pot meals, soups and casseroles with damn little meat. Anyone that could grow something did.

Here's the problems I see about suburbia. If the sewer system is down, the water system is down. How many people in suburbia even have the tools to till up a lawn, let alone garden or the basic knowledge on growing something.

Depending upon the population density of the city to which this suburb is attached, that stuff might not even play out as a factor in making the area uninhabitable. You'd have to go really far out into the far-flung suburbs of Chicago, for example, to have a fighting chance. Even then, you go very far towards the northwest and you bump into Aurora or Elgin, which is the same problem of dindus and violent third world immigrants.

In a small city I think you might have a chance depending upon the severity of what happens. If we are talking about something like One Second After, then I wouldn't want to be near any city at all. I don't even like being within twenty miles of Asheville because of that. I have actually been considering a move out into one of the small towns up in the national forest. You can get about 6-10 acres of land for about 50k up there. In that case, worse case scenario is the Cherokee rolling out of their reservation to exact revenge on everybody.

[Martin Hash]

I was talking to my dad about this scenario just a couple nights ago. I looked around my neighborhood, said, "Every house you see has guns. The first thing we would do is form a local militia. That would work initially then some of the guys would be called up to their National Guard units.
They'll protect other families like they want their family to be protected. National Guard shoots looters. Internet won't go down, there will be plenty of food, just nothing exotic. Everybody will plant something. After 6 months, the National Guard will come home. Things will be secure & normal, and life will slowly ramp up again. The first thing new leadership will do is put the kibosh on diversity, et al. Conservatism will reign."

From the 1st page of this thread.

[C-Mag]

Depending upon the population density of the city to which this suburb is attached, that stuff might not even play out as a factor in making the area uninhabitable. You'd have to go really far out into the far-flung suburbs of Chicago, for example, to have a fighting chance. Even then, you go very far towards the northwest and you bump into Aurora or Elgin, which is the same problem of dindus and violent third world immigrants.

In a small city I think you might have a chance depending upon the severity of what happens. If we are talking about something like One Second After, then I wouldn't want to be near any city at all. I don't even like being within twenty miles of Asheville because of that. I have actually been considering a move out into one of the small towns up in the national forest.

Historically, there are not mass exoduses of cities where 40, 60, 80% of the people leave. Historically people stay in cities. The rural areas may not be any safer. Ferfal talks about this. How, even as shitty as the cities were, there was at least some security in numbers. The rural folks were on there own, the government forgot them, they had to fend for themselves and were very often prayed upon by gangs who would raid farms.

Now in the US, I can see that differently, because of the independent attitude of Americans and there ready access to means to defend themselves. I'm not fully certain going to the rural areas are better for city dwellers. History says people stay in cities and manage to survive.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Best breakdown I've heard yet. Very easy to understand, for the un-motivated.
Go plan your garden.

http://www.jasonstapleton.com/671-china ... rs-to-you/

[nmoore63]

Its really hard to know.

In the short term, some of these population densities versus food and water supply are really uncharted territory.

On the many year terms of mass chaos, certainly clumpy together might necessary, but I'm not sure you can do more than simply plan for how to get you and yours from now til the harvest after this one.

[C-Mag]

I was talking to my dad about this scenario just a couple nights ago. I looked around my neighborhood, said, "Every house you see has guns. The first thing we would do is form a local militia. That would work initially then some of the guys would be called up to their National Guard units.
They'll protect other families like they want their family to be protected. National Guard shoots looters. Internet won't go down, there will be plenty of food, just nothing exotic. Everybody will plant something. After 6 months, the National Guard will come home. Things will be secure & normal, and life will slowly ramp up again. The first thing new leadership will do is put the kibosh on diversity, et al. Conservatism will reign."

From the 1st page of this thread.

I missed this earlier. That's good stuff. +1

I really think it depends on a lot on your local government too. For instance some local governments have already demonstrated they are willing to buy off gangs. That is going to get ugly in a crisis situation. Many communities are likely to have big street protests against the Martin Hash's of the world.

I see intermittent service interruptions of things like electricity and I see some loss of internet potential as well. But not sustained. The US government will keep the major power grids up, because they are fucked if it goes down, but austerity measures will lead to problems in services. Historically in these situations families come back together, that can be a very positive thing.

[heydaralon]

I was talking to my dad about this scenario just a couple nights ago. I looked around my neighborhood, said, "Every house you see has guns. The first thing we would do is form a local militia. That would work initially then some of the guys would be called up to their National Guard units.
They'll protect other families like they want their family to be protected. National Guard shoots looters. Internet won't go down, there will be plenty of food, just nothing exotic. Everybody will plant something. After 6 months, the National Guard will come home. Things will be secure & normal, and life will slowly ramp up again. The first thing new leadership will do is put the kibosh on diversity, et al. Conservatism will reign."

From the 1st page of this thread.

I missed this earlier. That's good stuff. +1

I really think it depends on a lot on your local government too. For instance some local governments have already demonstrated they are willing to buy off gangs. That is going to get ugly in a crisis situation. Many communities are likely to have big street protests against the Martin Hash's of the world.

I see intermittent service interruptions of things like electricity and I see some loss of internet potential as well. But not sustained. The US government will keep the major power grids up, because they are fucked if it goes down, but austerity measures will lead to problems in services. Historically in these situations families come back together, that can be a very positive thing.

Well, I suppose it would depend on how much the "collapse" affected transportation, because a major feature of current American economic life now is families being separated by many timezones and states. It is actually quite uncommon to have your entire family living in the same town or even the same state.

[C-Mag]

Best breakdown I've heard yet. Very easy to understand, for the un-motivated.
Go plan your garden.

http://www.jasonstapleton.com/671-china ... rs-to-you/

I'm going to listen to this tomorrow, thanks for the tip.

The garden is planned, one solid years seeds on hand, but I literally have Tons, and Tons of problems getting my soils up to snuff. It's going to be a shitty job.