Would survivng even be worth it, I.E. - what did you just survive into?

Ok so you're in your bunker, food, medical, the works and SHTF, humanity is reduced to whatever.

What about all the issues that will result as to mankind's absence, you know " Life without people " can only imagine so much, but reality has shown us it's a flipping magician at surprising us.

The Nuclear facilities, hazardous waste sites, and so on, not to mention the chemical storage sites, weapons, and the like.

Would this world even be habitable for humans to survive within, in the 1st place after we aren't there to maintain what we've so arrogantly created?

I've determined that survivalists are mostly gun owners who fantasize about being able to "defend themselves" without repercussions.

I know there are people who value life enough to try and persevere, but sadly they will probably be gunned down by the first crowd.

Now I'm envisioning some twilight zone episode, where two guys are the only people left on the earth, and they are playing go fish, and one guy says go fish, and the one guy gets mad for whatever reason, falsely accuses the other of cheating, they fight and one guy is accidentally killed.

Damn, I mean damn! to be the last man on earth, truly the most saddest, angriest, happiest, ok the most man ever! Sadly enough.

I have often thought about that. I have come to the conclusion that for me personally it probably isn't worth it to survive. I have lived a remarkable life, lived all over the world, actually when seeing stuff on TV frequently can say been there, done that, no matter where in the US or world. I am a Christian and heaven looks better to me then hell on earth. Even if I was wrong about heaven, being "asleep" as it were (not knowing anything; being nothing) is also a much better option than a living hell.
My only regret is that my children and grandchildren have not yet had the opportunity to live remarkable lives. For them survival may be there remarkable experience, but it isn't for me.

i guess depending on how we meet our demise would have a role in me wanting to survive!
if its a nuclear war,then i want the bomb to land on my house!
if its a solar flare that shuts us down,well i'd head up to northern ontario,and live like a pioneer.
i guess the biggest challenge would be keeping the nuclear reactors cool so they dont melt down.
i think i would be ok for a few years before the radiation would arrive in that part of canada.
but,i could be wrong!

I have often pondered this question.

There is that part of me that would hope we might could find a small clean place and start a new little community with a clean ( more are less) slate. As you point out, our left overs will be a huge problem in there own right regardless of what ever disaster comes. But maybe a few small places like this could be that chance you had hoped your grandchildren would have at a happy life. If we can not correct the path we are on, prehaps a bit of a restart or do over might still give us a chance.

It is at best a plan "B" but atleast it holds out that one most important human quality. Hope.

Originally posted by DaTroof
I've determined that survivalists are mostly gun owners who fantasize about being able to "defend themselves" without repercussions.

I know there are people who value life enough to try and persevere, but sadly they will probably be gunned down by the first crowd.

Problem is you just said it yourself." Defend them selves." Most people dont want to hurt anyone. Even in survival type setting your best chance will be to band together. But you will always have those who feel they have a right to take what you have spent so much time putting together.

What would you do if it were your family? There will be no cops ,no courts. Do people not have the right to protect themselves?

Ahh, yes. The Catch-22 very few consider when talking surviving the aftermath of TSHTF.

Reminds me of the movie "The Road". Couldn't watch after about thirty minutes. Just too disturbing.

IMDB: The Road

Here's a short video to help you visualize the aftermath:



Give me a front seat with an icy bottle of Jagermeister to a massive meteor strike and I'll be happy to call it a lifetime.

S&F

I am always ready to wake of from the dream we call waking life; since I inevitably will.

And yet, humans have been on the verge of extinction myriad times in our past. We have collectively survived as a species because a small group of founders survived a "genetic bottle-neck" and continued on when they were thought lost. Like the survivors of HMS Bounty.

I have worked alone, in the "wilderness" at several points in my life. I relished it then, and am nostalgic for it now. I had not a/c or heat while working outdoors, no electricity either. One long-term affect is that I lost interest in music, preferring the sound of the wind.

In that environment, life expectancy spirals back down the the mid-forties---what it was for our early ancestors. I believe that in a civilization-ending event, with only moderate amounts of violence, you could "coast" for about 3 years.

-in a day, all the frozen food would be inedible.

-in a couple of days, all automated systems for utilities would have ground to a halt (assumed they hadn't been willfully destroyed by the death-throes of civilization)

-within a week, uncontrolled fires caused by human equipment or arson would have gutted large swaths of humanly developed areas

-after 6 months, all the gasoline from before the event would have decayed to the point of being unusable

-most food staples packaged in plastic would be inedible in about 6 months

-by 5 years after, the last of the Spam (TM) would have expired.


So the real question is, can you survive amidst the wreckage, and prepare yourself to be truly self-sufficient, before the crutch of civilization's legacy expires?

in 6 mos. all gasoline unusable? I can go out and start my Honda up right now and its got a tank of gas from like 2006. uh ok? so you're wrong about gasoline expiring in 6 mos.

Alright I'll make a post now that I'm here. Survival will depend on food. In the event of a super volcano like Yellowstone going off, the food chain will be devastated. 7 billion mouths will starve down to 1 billion in less than 2 years time. Food will be an extinct resource, and life as we know it will come to an end. Only small patches of survivalists will remain after 100 years, and even then they still have 900 more years to go before the sun comes back. pretty bleak, eh?

I think in this type of scenario another planet is our best bet.

Originally posted by nrd101
in 6 mos. all gasoline unusable? I can go out and start my Honda up right now and its got a tank of gas from like 2006. uh ok? so you're wrong about gasoline expiring in 6 mos.

You have a honda with 6 year old gasoline in it? What shape are the tires in, after sitting there for six years? Did you have it up on blocks or something? And the battery, is it still good too? It just cranks right over, after sitting in the summer sun and winter cold...for six years? No rats building a nest behind the radiator, or chewing the wiring?

That's pretty cool.

So, I guess fuel treatments like STP are just a rip-off for gullible drivers, because no one really needs them?

The human mind, body, and the will to survive are amazing things.

What happened to your will to survive?

Depending on the SHTF scenario, the world could be totally uninhabitable or completely inhabitable.This would be the perfect time to start over and see what you are made of.

So often, people play games and video games, or watch movies simulating just such an event.... a sort of sim-world apocolypse.

When it happens, you actually get to participate and see the results of your actions. How empowering can that be... to really start over and create a life for yourself?

Time to put your survival kit where your mouth is.

reply to post by Moneyisgodlifeisrented


You pose an interesting question of which I have thought on myself after seeing the Life After People series. Even if we all didn't disappear, it seems that many of the things shown in that series would still happen and would indeed create a living hell. The amount of destruction on the ecosystem from radiation, chemical contamination and wide spread fires would affect nearly all survivors in some way. It seems to me that such events could cause a collapse in the world's ecosystem by killing off numerous types of flora and fauna and very possibly ruin the fresh water supply within the earth as well as kill off life in the oceans.

There are innumerable scenarios but with a great decrease in the world's population I really feel there would be a lot more at play than just heading for the hills and partying like it's 1899.

I disagree with your conclusion for two reasons:

First, we have no way of knowing the magnitude of ecological impact of whatever variety of doom awaits us. If it is a virus, then our civilization might shut down over a longer period, giving the survivors of the first wave a chance to shut down various systems before they in turn died of the event.

The Black Death is an example of this. The first few waves "only killed 10%-20% of the population" when they hit. But new variants kept sweeping through the population. It wasn't a single event that was so devastating--it was 50 years of outbreaks that reduced the population of Europe by 75% over 50 years.

So Medieval society made several adjustments before effectively collapsing around 1400 AD. In the modern world, people would lessen our resource exploitation as fewer humans were alive to demand those resources. If we reduced our population by 75% over 50 years, we'd be idling power plants and mines, reducing our irrigation and use of pesticides, and reducing our landfill growth over that time. That would make a huge difference.

Secondly, I believe that, in a precipitous depopulation event, the earth would rebound quite dramatically. China puts a cubic mile of particulate matter into the atmosphere every 24 hours. Stopping that, and world fishing fleets, and depletion of the Ogalala aquifer, are just a few examples of how the environment would improve immediately.

And even when some nuclear reactors did catch fire, the area would actually recover. Chernobyl was a devastating catastrophe, but "only" 20 years later, people have already begun moving back into the fallout zone. Wildlife populations are more robust than in the surrounding areas.

I guess I believe that there are too many unknowns for us to say authoritatively just how bad an event would be. If we knew it we could probably avoid the catastrophe--which we cant

If I still get to have sex with my hot ass girlfriend, then that's worth fighting for till the last breath...

Originally posted by nrd101
in 6 mos. all gasoline unusable? I can go out and start my Honda up right now and its got a tank of gas from like 2006. uh ok? so you're wrong about gasoline expiring in 6 mos.

Alright I'll make a post now that I'm here. Survival will depend on food. In the event of a super volcano like Yellowstone going off, the food chain will be devastated. 7 billion mouths will starve down to 1 billion in less than 2 years time. Food will be an extinct resource, and life as we know it will come to an end. Only small patches of survivalists will remain after 100 years, and even then they still have 900 more years to go before the sun comes back. pretty bleak, eh?

I think in this type of scenario another planet is our best bet.

OK I work in a small engine shop and have to deal with dead gas every day. The gas made now days is crap. It is not even gas as we have came to know it. It is a witches brew of chemicals that do not like each other and settle out in a few months. Some just evaporates and leave behind a glue like crap that can plug ports and lock carbs solid. And if water gets in there and it will because of the ethanol the gas can become corrosive and eat the carb and other fuel system components up. I know fist hand about have fast gas can go bad as I see it every day. I wished this was not the case it would save me a lot of time and trouble in the shop.

Well since food would be utterly disrupted beyond belief, there'd be no food supply to any of the nuclear plant workers nor the stations to pump the water, or upkeep on the reactors.




So we'd pretty much have a full blown melt down at every single one of those reactors, plus that's not even including wherever we store the fuel rods and stuff. They might perform SCRAM's at them to absorb the neutrons and halt the radiation for the most part, but there will still be meltdowns if some major event suddenly takes the economy and food chain out overnight.


Assuming one would even survive the ridiculous amount of contamination that I believe would send the world back to bacteria for another 1 billion years, they'd have to have moved to the outskirts of the world (southern chile most like) and live out down there.

Damn you double posts.

It isnt just what environment or circumstance that you are surviving into, afterall we dont live (in the physical sense anyway) forever. It is about not being defeated....pure and simple. The will to survive is paramount.

Interesting question posed by the OP. I've never really thought about what would happen to all those nuclear energy plants if there were no people there to maintain them. I don't know much about nuclear reactors but if there weren't people to monitor and maintain those things wouldn't they all experience meltdowns?