Has anyone calculated the optimal amount of......

Has anyone sat down and calculated the optimal amount of space and people it would take to sustain an entire group with meat poultry, veggies, fruit, water, ect. ? I'm talking about a complete self sustaining bubble of a civilization that would still allow each person an ample amount of time for recreation. I'd like to see your thoughts on the subject also.

Assumptions of a self sustaining society:
-Everyone eats together as a group with adequate portions for each person.
-There is an energy transmission system of power lines providing power.
-There is running water that is filtered and clean for drinking.
-Medical supplies are on hand


With just those assumptions could we as a group come up with a complete self sustaining society.

My first contribution would be to think of clothing. We would need an ample supply of cotton and hemp. I know completely nothing about the yields we would expect from a given amount of area of fields for cotton and hemp. On a per person basis, how much cotton would be needed to make a shirt? 1 acre? 1/2 acre? Same with Hemp.

a reply to: mcsjr454

I just read that a 500 pound bale of cotton = 800 men's t shirts.
1 acre on average = 1 bale of cotton.
That 500 lb figure was rounded up. The actual weight of 1 bale is equivalent to 480 lbs

a reply to: mcsjr454

Well, that depends.

If you are talking about a world wide event, doesn't matter. You need supplies to lay low for months.

People will come take your stuff if you have gardens and animals.

Cloths? Go buy $1 tee shirts and other cheap cloths and seal them in mylar. You will never be able to make anything as durable or comfortable than you can buy right now for next to nothing.

Power for a small group be would be low priority

originally posted by: mikell
Power for a small group be would be low priority

Unless you got a bunker!

a reply to: mcsjr454

You have to be able to produce everything you need. SO you need to do 'per acre' queries to add it all up. And you'll need a lot of useful items, and even with them everyone will be pretty busy most of the time shucking seeds and etc etc etc.


a reply to: Macenroe82

The problem is processing the raw cotton materials.

Cotton gins are no longer manufactured. It's all huge industrial warehouse scale machines now.

a reply to: mcsjr454

Check out this thread for details... sorry, took awhile to find it.

Raiders, Marauders, And You - Things To Be Aware Of Before SHTF (Especially Mormons)
www.abovetopsecret.com...

It just goes into the fact that, a place to defend, regardless of the amount of food / supplies inside, just means you're a cornered animal waiting to die.

Take that an and scale it to 10 acres and more, then you just have a very nice target.

I think that, if you're in a time that survival is needed, humanity in that aspect of nature, won't allow for survival to take place, maybe in another reality, where people treated others better, but in this one, dog eat dog and mouse eat dog eventually.

so back to the OP, I think, there is a formula, but it involved, people + land * supplies / willpower of the average = total effort over rate of living.

Climate (adequate rain? too cold? too hot? too windy?), soil fertility, geography (rivers? with fish? flooding? tsunamis? seacoast? mountains?), local resources (wood, coal, iron-ore, etc),post-collapse world where traditional farming is no longer viable and living on the surface is no longer healthy, will all impact your settlement sizes.

a reply to: Tranceopticalinclined

Concealment.

Nobody is coming for your stuff if nobody knows there is anything of value there.

a reply to: mcsjr454

There are 2 many undefined variables. Where is your bubble. California gets about 3 times the yiwld per acre of cotton. And it takes a lot less pasturade per cow in Florida than Arizona. Ad how many heating degree days does your solar array need to handle? In that same line, how much insolation is available there.
So, there is no universal good answer.

a reply to: mcsjr454

Decades ago, NASA and other government agencies did various studies and actual experimental situations to determine exactly what would be required to support people in orbiting space habitats. More modern work has been done to study the psychological aspects of such living, but the early work relied more on the bread and butter side of the equation.

a reply to: mcsjr454

Clothing in a long term survival situation wouldn't be cotton or hemp, IMO. Wool and leather would be the way to go. Spinning yarn is a dying art, but it's one my wife excels at and is teaching our kids. They even sometimes carry little drop spindles and pouches of wool roving with them to occupy their time. Learning how to properly prepare and tan hides for multiple purposes is a skill I find extremely important. If you know how to treat a hide, then you've just added an additional level of value to every animal you kill for food.

originally posted by: IgnoranceIsntBlisss
Cotton gins are no longer manufactured. It's all huge industrial warehouse scale machines now.

Sure they do they are just disguised as pasta makers. Nothing like dual purpose.

a reply to: mcsjr454

Possibly get used to eating and farming insects?


Would cut down on labor and land acreage used to farm aninmals

animals.mom.me...

a reply to: mcsjr454

500 million. NWO did your work for you. You can thank them later.

Getting food for the livestock could be a problem. Chickens tend to eat quite a bit.

A small hobby farm with around forty acres which includes trees for firewood would be sufficient. It would provide for three families working together to raise everything. I am assuming no power if it is a survival camp.

300 people.....a 5 year supply of food and medicine....an underground shelter....all knowledge and basic tenants of building a civilisation......if you gave me 50 million bucks tomorrow I could put you in a group of 300 in the right spot with the right materials.

Learning how to properly prepare and tan hides for multiple purposes is a skill I find extremely important. If you know how to treat a hide, then you've just added an additional level of value to every animal you kill for food.

Not to mention besides selling/trading leather you could also make leather armor. If you came across some damaged level IV armor but one of the plates was intact you could sew some leather armor around that have some pretty effective armor for ranged and close range combatants all in one.

a reply to: mcsjr454

Everyone eats together

This is not needed to have a beautiful self sustaining society.

system of power lines providing power

Why does it have to be power lines?

I think if we used the tech we have today from wireless electricity en.wikipedia.org... to super efficient crop growing spread.co.jp... and maybe even perfect artificially grown meat en.wikipedia.org... then we could easily build a safe self sustaining city.