Or ever bother learning something to benefit society now and in the case of a rebuild. Great, you have food, shelter and guns. Do you know how to dress wounds? Do you know how to build a generator? Fuck electricity actually- do you know how to build a steam engine? Wait before we can get here, do you know how to make steel? Cast iron? There should be plenty of it after an apocalypse. Wind copper?
What about welding? Not the kind you need modern tools for, you won’t have those. Do you know basic chemistry to get what you need to restart society? No? Well good luck.
Turns out survival in an apocalypse isn’t all that difficult if you payed attention to anything in school. It pisses me off people get bent out of shape about “useful practice skills like doing taxes aren’t being taught.”
I can remember a ton of important ass survival shit from school. Crop rotation! Agricultural practices from thousands of years ago! Steam power, basic electricity, Simple chemistry. Oh, and Math! How many Preppers can’t do basic fucking math that would save them?
There was a really good 1970s post-apocalyptic show in the UK called Survivors that dealt with those issues. One episode involved the fact that the only person who knew how to take care of their livestock committed rape and what to do about it. Others involved the just basic drudgery of returning to a medieval life. Really good show (apart from the last episode, which subverts the whole fucking show).
No, nothing like that. More of a “we’re going to take all the lessons learned through the course of the show and throw them out and act like it’s all going to be okay.”
I feel like a lot of stuff from ancient times wouldn’t be all that useful. A lot of stuff back then was optimized for a society that didn’t know anything about electricity.
We know how electricity exists, we know that with some magnets and copper wire we can turn mechanical energy into electricity. It seems like making a wind turbine is something they could’ve made in ancient times, but they didn’t do that simply because they didn’t really know anything about electricity. Some more copper wire and some more magnets and you could drive a pump. Some chemistry and you have a battery, maybe not Li-ion but something that’ll work well enough. Resistors and you can have an electric stove and a heater.
It always strikes me as odd that preparers aren’t all-in on green technology. If you had some wind turbines and/or solar panels and electric vehicles almost nothing other than communications would really change much. Dependency on complex oil refineries is the biggest weakness of our society. If you live in a rural area that has some farming and has green energy and electric vehicles you’re dependent on very little that’s not produced in your community.
I meant more how agricultural practices haven’t changed much. New tools have been added, but it is still clear land, plant seed, add water, wait. Don’t plant the same thing two seasons in a row.
It’s a lot more than that. Soil chemistry will teach you where to look for viable grow sites and what kinds of inputs to add as you go to keep the yields abundant. Ag/chemistry will also teach you about nitrogen fixing plants like legumes and how to crop cycle effectively (if you are monocropping which has its own downsides). Ag will teach you about how climate affects what you can plant and for what times of the year they will be worth growing. Genetics will teach you how to acclimatize non native plants over multiple generations of selective breeding. This is barely touching the surface of the knowledge that can empower you in an off grid setting regarding food production from plants and trees.
Or ever bother learning something to benefit society now and in the case of a rebuild. Great, you have food, shelter and guns. Do you know how to dress wounds? Do you know how to build a generator? Fuck electricity actually- do you know how to build a steam engine? Wait before we can get here, do you know how to make steel? Cast iron? There should be plenty of it after an apocalypse. Wind copper?
What about welding? Not the kind you need modern tools for, you won’t have those. Do you know basic chemistry to get what you need to restart society? No? Well good luck.
Turns out survival in an apocalypse isn’t all that difficult if you payed attention to anything in school. It pisses me off people get bent out of shape about “useful practice skills like doing taxes aren’t being taught.”
I can remember a ton of important ass survival shit from school. Crop rotation! Agricultural practices from thousands of years ago! Steam power, basic electricity, Simple chemistry. Oh, and Math! How many Preppers can’t do basic fucking math that would save them?
There was a really good 1970s post-apocalyptic show in the UK called Survivors that dealt with those issues. One episode involved the fact that the only person who knew how to take care of their livestock committed rape and what to do about it. Others involved the just basic drudgery of returning to a medieval life. Really good show (apart from the last episode, which subverts the whole fucking show).
Having never heard of this show until now, I’m gonna assume the subversion lies in “it was all a dream” territory?
No, nothing like that. More of a “we’re going to take all the lessons learned through the course of the show and throw them out and act like it’s all going to be okay.”
Ahh, the ol’ Executive mandated happy ending.
With a touch of British classism.
I love the bit where they went and hid in the Eden project. Mostly because they couldn’t think of anything else to do.
We could go and live in the woods but now let’s go and live in a giant greenhouse filled with tropical plants that you definitely can’t eat.
I feel like a lot of stuff from ancient times wouldn’t be all that useful. A lot of stuff back then was optimized for a society that didn’t know anything about electricity.
We know how electricity exists, we know that with some magnets and copper wire we can turn mechanical energy into electricity. It seems like making a wind turbine is something they could’ve made in ancient times, but they didn’t do that simply because they didn’t really know anything about electricity. Some more copper wire and some more magnets and you could drive a pump. Some chemistry and you have a battery, maybe not Li-ion but something that’ll work well enough. Resistors and you can have an electric stove and a heater.
It always strikes me as odd that preparers aren’t all-in on green technology. If you had some wind turbines and/or solar panels and electric vehicles almost nothing other than communications would really change much. Dependency on complex oil refineries is the biggest weakness of our society. If you live in a rural area that has some farming and has green energy and electric vehicles you’re dependent on very little that’s not produced in your community.
I meant more how agricultural practices haven’t changed much. New tools have been added, but it is still clear land, plant seed, add water, wait. Don’t plant the same thing two seasons in a row.
It’s a lot more than that. Soil chemistry will teach you where to look for viable grow sites and what kinds of inputs to add as you go to keep the yields abundant. Ag/chemistry will also teach you about nitrogen fixing plants like legumes and how to crop cycle effectively (if you are monocropping which has its own downsides). Ag will teach you about how climate affects what you can plant and for what times of the year they will be worth growing. Genetics will teach you how to acclimatize non native plants over multiple generations of selective breeding. This is barely touching the surface of the knowledge that can empower you in an off grid setting regarding food production from plants and trees.
You would like Doctor Stone. It’s about a high school science geek who has to restart civilisation from scratch.
I’ll check it out