| If everything when to crap
Posted: 8/30/2008 4:08:28 PM | | i would probably die off unless for some reason people wanted their preschool children educated with things every other person knew... | |
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| If everything when to crap
Posted: 8/30/2008 5:21:46 PM | I've been in lots of situations where everything went belly-up. What I've learned is that individual skills were not so important as being able to deal with horror of the situation and just be practical about it. Once you accept what is going on, it's quite possible to just pick things up as you go.
These days, I have a lot of homeless friends, and friends who used to be homeless. They are always giving me really useful tips on how to make life much easier. If society broke down, I'd probably hunt out the homeless and hang out with them. After all, they've been living without much for years. So they would know how to survive anyway. It's just water off a duck's back for them.
Do I have a skill to barter with? I don't know what society would be like then, so I'm not sure what skills would be most needed. But if I don't have a much-needed skill, I'd learn one. That much I do know. | |
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| If everything when to crap
Posted: 9/1/2008 10:58:22 AM | | exchange talent for talent" example? Dentist barter for tools to work as we did this system a long time ago and without any money{coins} Footnote """" this is alive and well in the world today. """" | |
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| If everything when to crap
Posted: 9/1/2008 1:50:11 PM | I was really rooting for Y2K, what a disapointment that was, maybe 2012 will go a little better. Assuming I survive the initial event (if a bomb falls on my house while I'm sleeping, not much I can do to survive that), I have confidence that I'd survive and thrive. I've studied quite a few "primitive" craft techniques, with alot of specialization in blacksmithing. I can make simple tools and weapons quite superior to modern factory made stuff. I'm also a good shot with a bow, passable with a gun, knowledgable about woodslore, knowledgable about military tactics from ancient times to modern, etc, etc. I would eventually build and lead a self-sufficient settlement of survivors, rebuilding civilization at least on a local scale. I know a number of like-minded individuals who would cooperate (might be some issues on the whole leader thing, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it  ), making things much easier.
I can paint and draw and talk all friendly to strangers... My skull would probably become a mug for some anarchist. 
If you can follow orders and pull a plow, you may join my settlement and enjoy my protection.
Revert to the Stone Age? Not in my lifetime. A skilled metalworker like myself will always be in demand, and you can bet I'll have electric lights, too.
Nuts and bolts? That's kid stuff, but why build a car from scrap when millions are all around you? No gas? Fire up the still! A decent grasp of science and technology goes a long ways when coupled with a creative mind. Necessity is the mother of invention.
Join my settlement and you can have a position of power and authority.
“Only****oaches and Ren-fair enthusiast will survive the apocalypse.”
Really those people can shoot bows, blacksmith, make beer. They got mad 17th century skillz.
Oh and anyone interested in this subject should really read Lucifer's Hammer.
I resemble that remark! Uh... the Ren-fair part, not the****oaches. I'll check out that book.
I'd become a monster, killing, looting, eating my victims. I'd start a band of marauders and we would sweep the land of all that is good, clean and decent.
Good luck with that. To insure your success I recommend avoiding my settlement, unless you really want to become crop fertilizer.
So I think I am lucky as I am smart, run super fast, shoot an open sites gun accurately and am female. I definitely plan to be Smurfette.
You're welcome to join my settlement... as long as you realize that as leader I get to smurf you first.
No, I'm not a concrete maker, I'm a retired Firefighter/former military. I WENT to many Southern disaster scenes and got to see exactly where people went wrong. I've seen what held up and what didn't. Concrete & steel rebar aren't perfect, but they're a dang sight better than anything else out there...anyone living in a WOODFRAME home should seriously consider the lay of the land, safety, and history...and THEN rebuild stronger. Building Ranch-style homes is really not an option anymore...not if you want it to be there for the long haul. There are a lot of options in Concrete & Steel Rebar...domes, Quonset, box, rectangle, geo-desic, underground dwellings...find one you like! It gets less expensive the more YOU do. B'sides, in a SHTF situation...bullets don't go thru concrete easily...but your woodframe house is gonna look like Swiss Cheese.
I formally offer you the position of Minister of Fortifications and Construction.
i would probably die off unless for some reason people wanted their preschool children educated with things every other person knew...
There's always the option of smurfing for a living.
Do I have a skill to barter with? I don't know what society would be like then, so I'm not sure what skills would be most needed. But if I don't have a much-needed skill, I'd learn one. That much I do know.
Is plow pulling a skill you'd be willing to learn? If so go stand next to Vancer. | |
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| If everything when to crap
Posted: 9/4/2008 5:40:05 AM | Thankee kindly, but Ohio is one of the states most likely to go completely squish-for-brains in a major SHTF. I'll stay down here in the South where deer are plentiful and people aren't.
Maruaders like to stick to major roads where they can find MANY suburbanites/easy victims...instead of travelling 100 miles one way to find just one that's really cranky and shoots well.
Or just join a Mennonite or Amish community...they've been doing it the hard way for centuries...they've gotten REALLY good at it  | |
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| If everything when to crap
Posted: 9/4/2008 1:57:20 PM | I can provide much needed sarcasm and comic relief.... :))
I'd help bring culture to the society. Arts, music, theatre...that's where I shine. | |
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| If everything when to crap
Posted: 9/4/2008 3:38:15 PM |
Thankee kindly, but Ohio is one of the states most likely to go completely squish-for-brains in a major SHTF. I'll stay down here in the South where deer are plentiful and people aren't.
Fair enough, though it depends on the exact nature of the S in SHTF where the best locations would be. By the by, we do have plenty of deer here too, and thin populations once you get away from the city limits. The offer stands if you change your mind. | |
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| If everything when to crap
Posted: 9/4/2008 5:02:16 PM | I have a very marketable skill in the post-civilization world. I show all the classic signs and demonstrate the ability to lead a religious cult. All I have to do is convince people I knew the end was coming before they did, that my god(s) better protected me than them, and that bad things will happen unless my god(s) are happy.
Besides, if I can't come up with a rational way to get people to congregate so I can look for people with actually useful skills, I might as well make up a scam. If nothing else, the people who join late but aren't enthusiastic or the people who end up not joining at all show some promise for helping me start a new world order (once they're in on it of course). | |
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| If everything when to crap
Posted: 9/6/2008 4:22:09 PM | Well, I've got my plan of surviving all mapped out and whittled down to two basics: First, I'd find whoever knows how to make painkillers from scratch and follow them around like a five-o'clock shadow. 
And I'd carry all of the DVDs of that old tv show McGyver with me everywhere for reference.
...oh, wait...there'd be no tv's, right?
I'm SO not surviving.  | |
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| If everything when to crap
Posted: 9/6/2008 4:52:13 PM | (Besides, if there'd be no more Tim Hortons, who'd even be able to survive the first day? ) | |
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| If everything when to crap
Posted: 9/6/2008 6:52:40 PM | | What I find interesting about this thread is the fact that people have all kinds of suggestions about how to survive such and event, but no one has mentioned whether or not anyone would learn anything about what brought it all about and learn anything from it. For myself, if my guitar survives, you'll have music. I'll sell concert tickets. The price? Hmmm. Couple eggs. Someone to fix my windows LOL. Homemade cookies. Dunno. Use your imagination. | |
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| If everything when to crap
Posted: 9/7/2008 4:30:43 AM |
(Besides, if there'd be no more Tim Hortons, who'd even be able to survive the first day? )
More to the point: who'd even want to? 
But seriously, given the Animal Farmishness that, sadly, a lot of people would likely revert to, I'd not want to be around. I don't know why 'survivalists' bother, really.
It's taken a long time to create some reasonable facsimile of civilization. We couldn't restore it in our own remaining lifetime so why even bother? The people who are squirrelling supplies and weapons away now for such a circumstance are angry, hostile, and belligerent - hardly the sort of folks I'd want to hang with - and imagine the progeny they'd produce!
No, thanks. I always said that if there were to be a nuclear attack, I'd want the warhead to land directly on me and vaporize me immediately so I wouldn't have to stick around for the awfulness that ensued. | |
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| If everything when to crap
Posted: 9/7/2008 4:20:55 PM | i would use my engineering skills to serve our new robot masters, cleaning their tubes, and sharpening their robotic threshing tools.
hopefully it wouldnt be a "waterworld" scenario, cos i cant swim for shit, and i dont think a drowned corpse is of much use to anyone. | |
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| If everything when to crap
Posted: 9/7/2008 4:28:01 PM | AwP:
the robots are programmed using MATLAB.
MATLAB becomes self aware at exactly 1pm(GMT) , dec 12th, 2012.
i can talk to them. i can be of use to your settlement, come the impending war of the machines.
you need me.
plus, your gonna need someone to photoshop celebrity porn, and grow your marijuana (for fuel, and natural polymers OF COURSE!!)
im your man. | |
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| If everything when to crap
Posted: 9/7/2008 5:00:08 PM | When (not IF) it hits the fan, the minute the lights go out, you can write off almost every city. Looting and rioting seem to be the order of the day when there is a major power failure anyways.
It will be the little things we will miss most. Real coffee and tea. Spices. A good wine or whiskey or whatever liquor is to your taste. Probably many city dwellers will crave a big mac (insert name of favourite fast food there).
Flour, sugar, salt. Basics like that will quickly disappear.
Gawd...how could I forget...chocolate! Omg, omg...how am I gonna get around that one? hmm...powdered cocoa...yeah, ok...whew...almost thought I'd have a sh*t hemmorage there...sheesh...
Gunpowder? Hmm...perhaps the idea of a musket would be in order...useless in a battlefield situation (for now), but super for hunting. As is a crossbow. Far superior weapon for that situation...quiet, deadly, reusable and easy enough to make arrows rather than bullets.
Almost every "survival" movie has a bunch of bad-guy bikers in it. I really can't see them surviving very long really. As "raiders" trying to survive, they'd be dessimated in their first encounter with any organized village...probably hunted down even.
not many could set up their own "private empire"...anyone trying to pull it off would be dethroned within weeks....people have grown too used to voting for their own leaders in this country.
Probably one of the harshest punishments a community could use (besides death) would be casting out the unwanted. I can see that happening to the innocent and guilty alike.
Gov't would not cease to exist...but would probably be what a gov't is supposed to actually do...help people, rather than try taxing them to death. Far less interferrence with peoples lives.
Common sense would prevail in more cases than not.
Religion would probably make a huge upswing...as would "commitment" and "marriage" and polygamy. The neighbours wouldn't be having a say in how your family is run. Only your own family would have that right.
Think how dating would go!
Guys wouldn't be looking to the "model" types anymore. women wouldn't be after the "financially successful" either. | |
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| If everything when to crap
Posted: 9/7/2008 6:26:52 PM |
i would use my engineering skills to serve our new robot masters, cleaning their tubes, and sharpening their robotic threshing tools.
AwP:
the robots are programmed using MATLAB.
MATLAB becomes self aware at exactly 1pm(GMT) , dec 12th, 2012.
i can talk to them. i can be of use to your settlement, come the impending war of the machines.
you need me.
plus, your gonna need someone to photoshop celebrity porn, and grow your marijuana (for fuel, and natural polymers OF COURSE!!)
im your man.
Hmm, you have interesting credentials, but you also seem like you might be a possible enemy sympathizer... this will take concideration... maybe. | |
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| If everything when to crap
Posted: 9/7/2008 6:36:45 PM | | It's all well and good to have this conversation as a starting point, BUT: Wouldn't it be much more proactive if we discussed ways to CAUSE society to fall. Sometimes it's just best to wipe the slate clean and start over. How much worse could we screw it up? | |
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| If everything when to crap
Posted: 9/7/2008 6:51:45 PM | Assuming a few libraries still exist, you can find just about any information you need. I wonder how many people would be using all those reference books for fuel, Dave.
Interesting how guns andgunpowder came to the fore! I guess the first priority would be keeping clear of the crazies. Thank god I know how to sail - and fish.
Another priority would be identifying people who could walk the walk better than they can talk the talk. Salpetre crystallizing from urine! | |
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| If everything when to crap
Posted: 9/7/2008 9:25:00 PM | Most survivalists are NOT the nuts in Montana & Canada that live in compounds, armed to the teeth with bad attitudes & body odor.
They're the nice people living down the street who learned how to can and always have some spare supplies stored in case a hurricane/natural disaster jacks up the town.
They are the ones who built above the flood plain (unlike the idiots in New Orleans) and pretty much knew that trusting levees to hold back the River Near Them was a Bad Idea.
They are the ones who built Cat-5 Proof homes of concrete & steel 30' above sea level at least three miles away from shore in the Gulf Coast.
They're the folks in the Great Dust Bowl who built homes that look like MX missile bunkers so the tornados wouldn't do any more damage than a fart in the breeze.
A survivalist is anyone who prepares ahead of time for a reasonable occurance...much like Boy Scouts. Be prepared in everything you do, and you tend to have far less headaches. Remember the old story of the ant & the grasshopper?? the ants would prepare...the grasshopper had to rely on the whims of fate and the kindness of others...so which would you rather be??
Think TACTICALLY. or like a Grouchy Old Firefighter. Either way, you'll be ready :) | |
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| If everything when to crap
Posted: 9/7/2008 11:24:57 PM |
Another priority would be identifying people who could walk the walk better than they can talk the talk. Salpetre crystallizing from urine!
Do I sense scoffing? Don't take my word for it...give it a Google.
From the Foxfire Book, Volume 5:
"Saltpeter, the chemical that produces the oxygen for the other ingredients when lit off, can he made by putting urine and manure of any kind in a big cement tank mixed with water until you have about three hundred gallons mixed up. Then you put on a tight lid and let it sit for about ten months. You have to have a drain pipe and valve at the bottom, and a stainless steel filter screen installed beforehand or you'll have one big mess on your hands. At the end of that time, you run the liquid that drains off through ashes into shallow wooden trays lined with plastic sheeting and let them stand for evaporation in the sun. When the water evaporates, potassium nitrate crystals (saltpeter) will form in the bottom of the trays."
"In the old days in cities, most outhouses were fitted with trays or drawers under the seats that could be pulled out from behind the building. They had night-soil collectors who were paid so much every month by the outhouse owners to keep those drawers emptied, and they'd come around with a special wagon into which they dumped the contents. When the wagon was full, it was hauled out to where another fellow bought the contents and dumped it into concrete tanks where the bacteria works it just like yeast works wine or bread dough. Then the liquid was run through ashes into shallow tiled or plain concrete evaporating trays or basins to recover the saltpeter."
'Nuff said. | |
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| If everything when to crap
Posted: 9/8/2008 2:47:19 PM |
Do I sense scoffing? Don't take my word for it...give it a Google. Yes - sorry! - I was a little grumpy after reading all the posts in the thread - and just having a piece of expensive equipment fail because its manufacturer used the wrong product to make it.
What you clarified in your updated quotes from Firefox was that excrement can be used as one of the raw materials in the manufacture of saltpetre, not that 'saltpetre crystallizes from urine'. The devil is in the detail. - Aside from the long fermentation process - notoriously fickle unless you know what you are doing, you also need large quantities of wood ash. Not just any ash, because you need the high potassium content of wood ash to replace the sodium in urine. Sodium nitrate, or Chile saltpetre readily absorbs water which would render the gunpowder unuseable, since it makes up about 75% of the black powder constituent.
Anyone who was attempting to put things back together in the aftermath of a global implosion would need to understand the realities of undertakings, not just sketchy details which make things sound easier than they really are.
The concrete from lime would be another example. Slaked quicklime can be used as a mortar and was traditionally used as a plaster to smooth walls. Well reinforced with horsehair to prevent it falling apart. It is soft and very susceptible to water damage. There would be no way you could make 'concrete' structures as understood in today's world. My guess would be it's about equivalent to adobe.
From the Foxfire Book, Volume 5: Yes, I'm aware of the Foxfire books..
The series is an effort to document the lifestyle, culture, and skills of people in southern Appalachia in a mixture of how-to information and first-person narratives and oral history......... Members of the back-to-the-land movement used them as a blueprint for their attempts to return to a life of simplicity. There may be a whole mass of invisible survivalists who would really work to restore the best of our current world, but a lot of the survivalists I notice, even in this thread seem to see very little good in what we have and perhaps would welcome the change a global disaster would bring - i.e. 'back to the land'.
It's discomforting to see people like Daynadaze and Kay Anne not feeling particularly useful. Age brings wisdom and experience which only an investment of time can develop. And the care and education of children will be absolutely essential to get the best out of whatever is left and hand it on to new generations.
Personally, I'd be looking at farming, cycle repair and horsebreeding to provide people with food and transportation. Brewing to keep the 'bad boys' happy and harmless when they came to visit. I'd also be looking for some of those despised 'pen pushers' to make sure our experiences are recorded, so others can learn from them. Astronomers to keep track of the time of year, so the farmers pick the right season for their crops. Even lawyers to figure out a new morality and legal system for the new circumstances we find ourselves in. | |
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| If everything when to crap
Posted: 9/8/2008 2:49:23 PM | Maybe we need a survivalists thread. People could post their ideas, comments and knowledge ( or where to get it) on that thread.
Most people just don't have the slightest clue as to where to obtain the raw materials needed to make things in order to survive. Such as saltpetre. Or, if they did see it, wouldn't know what it was, or clueless about proportions needed or methodology utilized in order to harvest raw materials.
I think that grinding things would be a hard chore though....grains for flour, coffee beans, peanuts or other nuts, corn, etc. I heard it takes about 3 hours daily to grind, by hand, enough grain for a days supply for one family.
The idea of having a greenhouse with certain "special" plants, like a few coffee bushes or a citrus tree or two appeals to me. It would give you an excellent trade good to have in stock. I tried a coffee plant here...didn't work out well...it didn't get the care it needed. But, doesn't mean to give up. I may try it again. I've seen people in Toronto with one on their apartment that they'd harvested beans from, roasted them, ground them and made a brew with. Ok...they can't harvest 50 pounds of it for a yearly supply or anything...but they had some anyways! | |
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| If everything when to crap
Posted: 9/8/2008 4:10:00 PM | this is a cool thread.
i assume the robots will know about the limited resources on the planet, and will want alternative power, possibly in the form of human batteries, which would require minimum nourishment to survive..
i for one don't want to be a battery. so please be letting me in your enclave. i'll sweep the floors if i have to! | |
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| If everything when to crap
Posted: 9/8/2008 4:48:33 PM |
i for one don't want to be a battery. so please be letting me in your enclave. i'll sweep the floors if i have to!
Oh... alright... But you won't be allowed sensitive information or secured access (such as to the gate mechinism), at least until you've earned more trust.
I heard it takes about 3 hours daily to grind, by hand, enough grain for a days supply for one family.
I don't think sweeping will be one of our biggest needs, how about doing some grinding? I've been neglecting the mill work for the plow in my planning, thanks for the reminder yna6.
Maybe we need a survivalists thread. People could post their ideas, comments and knowledge ( or where to get it) on that thread.
Good idea, that would be an interesting thread. | |
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