[central_va]

Americans have lived without running water and electricity. They were called your great great grandparents.

[marktwain]

Americans have lived without running water and electricity. They were called your great great grandparents.

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Yes, and they had the skills and infrastructure to do it. Most people lived on small farms and knew that technology backwards and forwards.

Great great grandparents for me would be 1880’s. The population in 1880 was 50 million. You have to kill off 85% of the U.S. population, just to reach that level.

I think we are much tougher than the fear-mongering novels imply. But, given their proposed level of destruction of the grid and communications, a 90% drop is believable.

[Ancesthntr]

“Americans have lived without running water and electricity. They were called your great great grandparents.”

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But they were used to it, and all of the technology surrounding them was built for it. We are not accustomed to it, and we have largely forgotten how to build the technology that would enable us to live in such a world, in the short time that would be available to do so.