Posted on 09/04/2014 6:21:37 PM PDT by Kartographer
Even Rambo runs out of bullets and has to sleep. Big cities will be death traps if the grid goes down for 2+ weeks coast to coast.
A hornet’s nest looks very organized and stable, a few bees flying in and out, until you whack it with baseball bat. That is a big city after the grid goes down.
IMO it depends on where you are and what happens. Pretty much anywhere on the eastern half of the US has more people then the land can support. Anywhere with a population of gimmees (regardless of race) is in trouble. The one positive is those people will probably sit on their butts waiting for the govt to save them until its too late.
The catch is the first week will be dangerous unless you’re in an area where the feral ones get organized under something like Islam. Here in Florida the thieves are out before the wind dies down.
I reject the mad-max scenario because human civilizations have failed so catastrophically in the past.
The worst it ever got was the princedoms that would become Germany during the 30 years war.
And people lived their lives even during that time.
All bets are off if it's a massive extinction event asteroid impact.
That would be tough. But a man-made non-nuclear event? We've been there, got T-shirts. The ones of us who's ancestors survived.
/johnny
I fear this nation has been losing its key technical knowledge. Our schools fail to teach and people are more ignorant of the world around them than ever. The Internet only solved the issue of knowledge for those that seek it, but it makes KOOKs out of the rest (Keepers of Odd Knowledge). We are regressing in our knowledge. I suspect those that survive will primarily be the 45+ crowd that have skills and experience and not just google-foo to look up technically correct (sometimes) but useless information.
Most people couldn’t start a fire if standing naked in the woods
The coming 9-11 anniversary that triggered this article puts me in the mind of leverage.
19 guys leveraged box cutters into taking down the twin towers and killed 3,000.
Imagine the fatal leverage of a well thought out coordinated attack on our grid. 20 or 30 guys with rifles could do it. All of them could have already reconned their designated targets. They could be just waiting for a go-code. Or they could already have a date and time.
The California sub station rifle attack last year might have just been a dry run for a coordinated attack.
Box cutters —> 9-11.
USA rid down —> ?????
Damn sure will, if I need your skills and you are handy. I'd expect you would win.
Appreciate the wisdom of a piano teacher from 50 years ago that you can't do it if you don't try it.
It ain't a pissing contest. I'd cheat, and win. ;)
Practice doesn't have to be perfect for it to be of use.
/johnny
Thanks for the tip!
I've appreciated your books, and you allowing freepers to have some early/cheap/free access to them.
Good reads.
/johnny
I think that east of the Mississippi, there will be a major population adjustment in the big cities. There is still an abundance of fertile productive land across the rural South. And there won’t be nearly as many mouths to feed, after the city fires have burned down. And the cities will burn down.
“But a man-made non-nuclear event? We’ve been there, got T-shirts. The ones of us who’s ancestors survived.”
Can you give an example of a 90% die-off in one year across a major nation of 100s of millions of people?
For later.
LOL! My grandkids helped me shelve an entire Encyclopedia Britannica (1962 version) a while back.
Lots o dead trees there.
Elder grandson asked perzactly what the hell he was moving like a rented mule (he's been corrupted by someone).
I explained that "This is what we had before Google. Think of anything, and tell it to me..."
He had just been studying Pericles, and spouted that, so I made him figure out how to look it up in the encyclopedia.
Talk about flash bulbs popping in kids minds...
They actually sat there for an hour and were fairly quiet and safe while they thumbed through the volumes.
I let them.
Mostly, they are safe to be around when they are occupied.
/johnny
More secure than it has ever been./sarc
Any brand names you would recommend, or not recommend, as it were?
I need to move the generator up the list.
The worst die-off humans have had, outside of the weather change about 14,000 BC when we had the genetic bottleneck, was about 50% during the black death.
The high tech Roman society died with fewer casualties, but greater loss of technology. Lost were clean water, running water, hot water, baths, concrete, correctly designed roads, surveying, engineering mathematics, and a host of other things.
History was replete with examples of that being clawed back.
Our high-tech world also changes the equation.
We don't have to mine for materials.
Any metal you want to name (leaving out heavy nuclear elements), from aluminum to zinc is available in any crappy burned out car.
In pretty pure form, without a lot of effort or technology.
Collapse is much more complex and much less linear to predict than one would suppose.
/johnny
I agree 100%. They are staged here now.......waiting for the word to launch. The Cal. attack was a dry run in my opinion also and they learned what they need to know from it.
Wear a wide brim hat, don't let it burp.
/johnny
Which one? The US Army or the Free Sh*t Army? :)
We’ll be in uncharted territory for sure. “Riches” might abound all around, but we might be too busy looking for food to exploit it.
Did anybody predict that box cutters could be leveraged into collapsing two mega-buildings?
Our cities will explode into infernos if the power goes out and stays out. What will people eat, except each other? How long can that last?
I think 90% is possible, especially in the cities.
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