Even if we managed to get some seeds to sprout, all the steps from harvesting to edible product are mysterious to us.
??? Gardening=not rocket-science. Most things we eat, you could sit in your vegetable garden and eat raw. What steps are you talking about, other than normal cooking? (Well, grains, I suppose, but if wheat were too baffling, potatoes fill the same hole in the diet.)
You're cheating on this exercise. You'd do the same thing as your friend; it would just occur to you three days later. There are better and worse decisions, really dire situations throw those distinctions into stark relief, and people generally pick the better choices when offered to them.
But I was all "find an easily-defended, well-provisioned exurban structure that I can use as a base."
I think most people already understand that, if you had been born of good 'Merkin stock, you'd have been the Son of the Unabomber.
Cities would give you access to a lot of pilferable resources (canned food, bottled water, etc.) while increasing the likelihood of finding people but if it really was a pandemic or something, you'd have a lot of funky decaying bodies, so ewww.
Is it wrong that the first thing I can think of doing is heading for the nearest serious library to be raided for works on edible plants of the American NE, wilderness survival tips, archery 101, etc.?
Is it wrong that the first thing I can think of doing is heading for the nearest serious library
No, that's sensible--I had something similar in mind, but of course first I'd try to find a generator to see if I still had internet access. I mean, come on--google and I could be the only one liveblogging the apocalypse.
Sort of depends on the breakdown, but I'd want to stock up on cigarettes and liquor for bartering purposes before I left town. If you survive, at some point you'll run into other camps, and one of those might have something you need, and I'm guessing luxuries are the only currency in the new world order.
I'd be fighting LB for the library books. Why try to re-invent gardening and hunting when survivalists have done it for you? But I'd grab bottled water and canned goods first.
I don't know where I'd live. Most of the planet flat-out hates human beings, and tries to freeze, humidify, or burn them out. When that fails, it sends in mosquitos to eat you.
Wheat cultivation: Sow wheat. When it looks ripe, (???) scythe it down. Acquire kine from someplace, and have them tread the corn, omitting to bind their mouths. Sweep up wheat. Grind,
We're talking about a decimation of the world sufficient to suggest that you may be the last person on earth. Food is not an issue. Resources are not an issue. If every person in your state had one can of food, you'd still have (say) 500K cans. That looks like about more than 500 years of food to me, at 3 cans a day.
It all depends on the reason for the apocalypse. Nuclear war? Damn right I'm getting out of Dodge. I'm getting out of Dodge and heading for someplace remote and non-militarized: like switzerland or chile or something.
Pandemic? Hm... well, I haven't died yet where I am, so I'll porobably stick there. Raid restaurants for food. But leaving bears the risk of catching the disease, so...
Asteroid or super-volcano? Somewhere in the southern hemisphere. Argentina for the cows.
Facist government? Let me be a 2000-era celebrity for a sec: I'm moving to Canada.
And ogged's fear of beasties is silly. The deer can't magically appear; there has to be an algorithm that describes the upper bound of the population's growth.
20: You can't live healthily on canned food forever, I don't think. Don't a lot of nutrients leach out of canned food? Eventually you'd need fresh food for vitamins.
The deer can't magically appear; there has to be an algorithm that describes the upper bound of the population's growth.
Yes, they'll proliferate, until they're either eating everything green in site, and some start to starve, or until a predator also proliferates enough to cull the population. Either way, beasties everywhere.
28: You've instituted your reign of compulsory wood-working and incompetent ice skating. Even the bears tremble at the sound of your approaching footsteps.
33. Come on -- on good roads, you can cover an awful lot of distance very, very quickly. 3 miles an hour x only an 8 hour day walking gets you about a hundred miles every four days. If the cans didn't go bad, you wouldn't starve in a lifetime through having eaten through your available resources.
I am assuming that people have just magically disappeared off the face of the earth (ogged missed the Rapture - surprising) - otherwise the factors Wolfson mentioned come into play. In that case, go to the local hardware store. Steal as many personal generators as you can. Take your car (or that of anyone else) and go to the gas station. Get gas. Go home and play X-box. Hook one of the other generators up to the fridge. Call around, see if any of your friends were Left Behind.
You need a much better defined apocolypse before you get to "grow wheat."
We figured we'd eat a lot of fish, because nets are low-tech.
Have you ever tried to make one? Or a boat to use with them? There is an appalling amount of culture embedded in (and presupposed by) even the simplest objects (like flints, for instance). Dr B is right: if you really were completely by yourself, you'd be dead or mad within a fairly short while.
We all can agree, though, that "last person on earth" is way better than "one of small remnant of human race," right? Because I'm pretty sure in a Lord of the Flies situation most of us would end up being Piggy.
water's a problem? head yourself down to REI and pick up all the water purification gadgets you can carry. hell, that's the first thing you do, go down and get yourself a nice selection of camping equipment. then go get yourself a nice bike. then, fuck, i dunno, head for the nearest small coastal city with a good library and selection of porn stores?
#40: You might manage to subsist for a while by walking town to town, until you twisted your ankle or something. Or the weather got hot. Or cold. I mean, people die in goddamn national parks.
Water: Bleach, iodine, boiling, water filters looted from stores. Not a huge problem.
Once you make it through the first few months and all the bodies have rotted, the disease risk is going to drop way down, anyway. There's still giardia and such, but nothing that you're going to catch from other people.
Ogged really seems to be assuming that all of the natural resources have been destroyed, too. I mean "laboriously constructed net" and appropriating a piece of wood for a boat are really unnecessary. Even in Tuscany, you'd find that stuff lying around.
Big piece of wood? You're trying to land a big fish, which against all odds you've caught before dying of sunburn and/or exposure, and you fall in the water. The wood drifts away.
Yeah, but there are no am/pms in national parks, or at least, they are a long, long way away from each other. I wonder if your perspective on this is informed by living in a small college town. In New York, assuming that Jeremy Osner's minions don't assassinate me, I think I'd be okay for a while. I might get lonely and depressed though, possibly enough to kill myself.
just because it's the end of the world doesn't mean cars stopped working. it's not like you're going to do anymore damage. I'd go to a gas station, fill as many gascans as possible, and start driving away from where I was. that is, assuming the gas pumps still worked. otherwise, I'd start siphoning from other cars. might take a while, but...
I mean "laboriously constructed net" and appropriating a piece of wood for a boat are really unnecessary. Even in Tuscany, you'd find that stuff lying around.
Yeah, you're totally right. It's fun to think about how helpless we'd be if it weren't, but after a pandemic, it would be. So you've got a decent shot at living out your natural life, I think.
i'd just go to a warm region (puerto rico or sicily being ideal!) and pick breadfruit and prickly pear off the trees, dig crabs from th e sea rocks, and be happy! except for the potential lack of good conversation, what's the problem?
i guess i would have to keep a good fire going at all times so i could boil my water (and boil off sea water to get salt)... but that's the only big technical difficulty, no?
all the beasties would be afraid of my fire, as would other human beings, and i'd be toasty too.
i'm not sure how this is psychologically revealing, except maybe the part about how i wouldn't immediately trust other humans, unlike your friend.
Also: I'm pretty sure filling your car or gas cans at a gas station requires a working electric grid, or a generator and knowledge of where to connect it to power the pumps.
Even without, Robinson Crusoe was based on a true story. Isolated people stranded in the wilderness with very limited resources can survive for extended periods.
Are we talking about being the last person on Earth? In that case: cry, cry, masturbate. But if there's any reason to believe that once the dust settles you'll meet other survivors, even if it's just that you've survived and assume others have, I think I'd want not to throw in the towel. Try to create a stable situation and hope a wandering tribe finds you some day—certainly, I'm not leaving my perch in Austin if I can avoid it. The survival instinct, surely that's going to ward off madness for a while?
Re cars: you don't really need gas, as you can just use the cars that are left, most of which will have some gas in the tank. Just pick ones parked outside homes, break in, find the keys, drive off.
#67: Yeah, but Selkirk was stranded on a temperate island with resources, and he had hope of returning (which would stave off the insanity)--*and* he was only there for a few months, not the 22 years (or however long it was) in Robinson Crusoe.
Without the parameters for apocalypse, it's pretty tough to decide what to do. Power supplies won't fail immediately simply because nobody is left to monitor them. But if they've been physically destroyed or damaged, then well... Ogged, what kind of apocalypse are you running here?
People are using wildly different conceptions of "calamity" here. There's no way to tell who's living and who's dying, and why, until we settle on what exactly the fuck happened.
(And how is it that you and almost no one else survived? That seems wildly implausible - I can't even think of a hypo. Either everyone's dead -- bang -- or there must be a relatively large number of people alive, even if they aren't in your immediate vicinity.
aha. since none of the rest of you have thought of salt (which is pretty important to survival), i would make a secret little sea-salt-recuperating set-up, trade with the rest of you survivors, and be a primitive rich magnate person with turquoise bracelets and lots of venison smoked over my fire, while the rest of you crash bikes and look for canopeners.
that's assuming supplies have disappeared from stores and all. yeah.
People are using wildly different conceptions of "calamity" here. There's no way to tell who's living and who's dying, and why, until we settle on what exactly the fuck happened.
(And how is it that you and almost no one else survived? That seems wildly implausible - I can't even think of a hypo. Either everyone's dead -- bang -- or there must be a relatively large number of people alive, even if they aren't in your immediate vicinity.)
A shitty, ill-defined one. OTOH, after 70+ comments, it does appear to distinguish between at least two groups of people: those inclined to see the sky falling, and those not. I am rolling with TD, Becks, Tia, and (IIRC) fiend. You lot stay off our property.
And if all the people are dead, how are all the animals still alive? I think we all get killed by the same sorts of things, no?
Well, no, that's why bird flu is so distressing: it's a rare case where the same-ish disease kills two very different species. In case of a pandemic, there's a very good chance plenty of animals would survive. But you're right about the insects.
I really think they'd be the biggest threat to your survival, after pessimism.
Rats and other vermin, maybe. Deer and bears can only yield X kids per year, and I don't think their baseline numbers are great enough to be worrisome in your lifetime.
Deer and bears can only yield X kids per year, and I don't think their baseline numbers are great enough to be worrisome in your lifetime.
What's worrisome? Pennsylvania had to reinstitute bow hunting of deer a few years back because after a few year conservation program, 800,000 deer became 3 million deer, and they were eating the suburbs.
That said, I'm not worried about the bear, deer, and other animals too much. Deer don't eat people and venison is tasty. Bear don't eat people unless provoked.
I'd raid the local sporting goods store for a gun and ammo, though. No people = lots of available ammo, at least to give me enough time to find other people or learn to carve a bow.
Until you break your ankle and DIE of course. We're not meant to be solitary creatures. If we did, we'd have claws and not soft little bodies that pretty much suck.
How many generations before the dogs are completely feral? Not many! Death by Boopsy.
This raises a good question: would my own dog turn on me? How long would he keep following my commands once I no longer had any food to give him? Would he lead me to food and then share, or fight me for it?
Then the problem time is not when you're the last person on earth, but in the chaos leading up to it. What does a world look like when lots and lots of still living people believe there might not a future for them? Not good. If you survived the riots and the chaos, I like your chances when your biggest and worst possible competitors have been removed from earth.
It's interesting, I find myself thinking as if I'd have access to about a year's worth of consumables, but no more, so things like gardening and archery rather than firearms would be important. But that is kind of silly.
On dogs -- problem. Packs of feral dogs suck. I would say you would want a large dog of your own for animal defense reasons. Probably a bitch, to maintain supply of puppies once she got old.
Elk are more dangerous than bears. But bears generally don't like to take chances on eating people when fish are easier to find. But still, neither of the species goes out of their way to chase down the madman with his cans and fire when there's other things to eat that taste better.
Plus, I don't think bears roam very far south. We're all staying out of the mountains and the north because the planet hates us anyway.
I always thought mmf! was about to speak when the thug behind her clapped a hand over her mouth. or its what lois lane says when she's gagged and tied to a chair, and superman bursts through the wall to rescue her.
In terms of dumbass-tourists-killed, in Canada's national parks elk are the greater culprit. Mostly because people think of elk as harmless and aren't as careful, whereas everyone but the idiots know not to try to touch the bear.
There are numerous cases of people being killed by deer that they have raised. One of the most recent cases was in October 31, 2000 in Minnesota. According to the report in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, A Forest Lake man was killed when the family's pet whitetail buck gored him to death. In Kansas on September 16, 2000, a 75-year old woman was killed by an eight year old buck that she had raised. Her husband found the woman's body when she failed to return from feeding the deer. The 200-pound buck had gored and trampled her.
A large dog is easily acquired. Spot feral pet, lost, alone, and hungry (do this quickly post-apocalypse, before it develops coping habits.) Open can of Alpo. When dog approaches, skritch behind ears saying "Who's a big boy, then?" Dogs that are used to people are easily befriended.
And a big dog would be awfully useful, defense wise, against all those other dogs who lack fear of people but are hungry.
122: do they kick you to death? or do they actually bite you? and what pisses them off? If we're talkin post-apocalypse, I bet there's plenty of room for me and the elks.
Yeah, but Selkirk was stranded on a temperate island with resources, and he had hope of returning (which would stave off the insanity)--*and* he was only there for a few months,
No, he was marooned for nearly four and a half years. However, when they found him he had a substantial collection of what he called "goat wives" that were keeping him warm through the temperate island nights. The goats he caught but didn't like, he ate.
Usually it's a kick or an antler gore. They don't usually charge people though (on a hike this summer we passed elk munching leaves (about 50 ft way) and shared a campsite with a mule deer that lived in the shrubs); unless they're mating, territorial, and you try to approach them.
Discover Magazine had a fascinating article about what would happen if humans just disappeared, using NYC as the example. Unfortunately, only the first two paragraphs are online, and I'm pretty sure I've recycled the print mag already.
One surprise: roaches would die out really quickly.
Deer can be very dangerous in the spring. Don't approach that cute doe who came into the bar with the 12 point buck. His rack is bigger than yours, most likely. Don't get caught in a confined space, such as an elevator, with a deer. That goes double if you are 75 years old and can't hobble very fast.
If there's a pandemic calamity, I want to be in the Bay Area. Not only do I know where the freshwater streams, salt flats, vinyards, mountain lions stalking grounds, etc. are, the native americans in that area had sufficient nutrition from gathering that they never bothered to move on to cultivating crops.
Packs of feral bunnies are no problem, if you are careful not to disguise yourself as a giant carrot. Carrot scented massage oils are out, too.
To avoid dehydration, follow a watercourse. Streams may run fast, but they almost always leave a clear trail. Stick with it, and you'll catch up to the stream soon enough.
To get to San Francisco, go by way of Tehatchapi, don't use the Donner party's route. I think LB's estimate of travel speed is a bit high, but you should be able to walk there in 18 months. The problem is crossing the Mojave.
That is a great article. Are all of the dire allusions to earthquakes felling Manhattan assuming that the 125th St. fault is a serious threat? Cause I hadn't really heard that.
It seems like the article is only saying cockroaches would disappear from Manhattan Island -- and by extrapolation from other human-inhabited sites where it gets cold in the winter time.
I read somewhere, once, that Manhattan would probably be the longest surviving identifiable artifact in case of a total collapse of civilization lasting many, many thousands of years. Not the buildings, but all of the rectangular foundations blasted into the bedrock are going to be identifiable for a long, long, long time.
I read somewhere, once, that Manhattan would probably be the longest surviving identifiable artifact in case of a total collapse of civilization lasting many, many thousands of years.
If Manhattan is the new Athens, what's the new Sparta? Jersey?
Tragically, it would probably be a female deer who might have consented if Ogged had just been a little more patient. Not all does are Cosmo-reading sluts who'll put out on the first date.
157: Deer go through an estrous cycle, so "I'm not in the mood" becomes a statement about biology, not affect. Timing is everything in such situations.
160: Well, it wouldn't be immediate. But you'd probably get more natural genetic mutations (i.e. less cross-breading, etc.) so it probably would occur. Given a lot time, you'd probably get megafauna/flora again too. They weren't killed off because they were inefficient animals, but because they were hunted and killed. Given a regression to previous environments as put forth in the article, my layman's guess is that it would happen.
I don't think that regression to an ancestral type happens. As I understand it, evolution only goes in one direction. Of course, with artificial selection stopped, with people no longer culling disfavored animals, phenotypes which are not seen because they are culled at birth could survive and might well have a reproductive advantage
165: I agree. We've had artificial selection for a long time now. It's not necessarily that they've been culled at birth, but they've been wiped off the earth. Being foul-tasting and unrecognizable was probably advantageous, and it'd probably happen again.
There are a number of fun science fiction books/series along these lines. Off the top of my head:
The Postman by David Brin (nuclear war)
Wolf and Iron by Gordon R. Dickson (nuclear war(?))
Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (Asteroid Strike)
Conquistador and the Island in the Sea of Time series by S.M. Stirling (alternate world/involuntary time travel, native populations largely destroyed by modern germs)
As I understand it, evolution only goes in one direction.
Evolution doesn't have a direction. It's only called "regression" in that article because the environment to which species would adapt happens to have existed in the past.
I don't think that regression to an ancestral type happens.
Well, breeds would remix, and the resulting mutts would probably look more like the raw material from which domestic horses/cattle/dogs had been bred than current domestic animals do. But you're right that there isn't some mystical snap-back function on evolution.
168: Time of the Wolf by Michael Haneke (Hidden, The Piano Teacher) is a fantastic movie with similar theme, though there are a fair number of people around. Pretty much the opposite of a good read, though.
Isn't the Texas Longhorn an example of what happens when feral cattle are left to breed for a few generations? I don't think it woulld take too long to get back to the aurochs.
What about our current evolutionary situation is "artificial"? Today the top mammal is so dominant that it helps if he thinks you're tasty—that's a natural progression.
167: right, that too. After the dinoaurs, new megafauna evolved, but they didn't look a whole lot like the dinos. Things would evolved to fill niches that people have emptied (e.g. large predator niche) and the animals that have sacrificed adaptive advantage to tastiness (e.g. Tyson chickens) would go away
No, it doesn't help if he thinks you are tasty. He reduces the amount of natural variation, and tends to kill you. If you are untasty, he kills you and wastes your variation. Death is generally considered a not good state of being.
177: I don't think that's so from the evolutionary standpoint. From the evolutionary standpoint, all that matters is successful breeding. Well, that's not true either, probably, but closeish.
Emergence, by I can't quite remember. Maybe David Palmer? Post-biowar, 1/100,000 people survive, protagonist is an 11-year-old supergenius girl. Suitable for blog discussion, as large portions of the book are devoted to question of whether 11 is the post-apocalyptic age of consent.
Actually quite entertaining, if I remember from 20 years ago.
Charlton Heston's The omega man did this the best. The zombies couldn't come out during the daytime, so all of the things discussed above would be relevant. At night, you better be prepared to fuck up some zombies, though.
Jim Crace's next novel, so he said anyway at a reading last year, is all about American pandemic in which everybody dies, and the remnant left over and pack up and move to Europe—Tuscany, I think. Weird.
But the species is breeding regularly. It doesn't matter whether an individual survives to breed if his cousin chicken sires a gross of chicks. And I imagine the farmers are selecting close relatives of tasty chickens to breed.
But I don't get the "artificial" designation. We're mammals. We do stuff, it contributes in one way or another to selection. "Artificial" sounds right if we're talking about an agent outside the system (alien overlords) or some virtual ecosystem within the system (laboratory). But if it's on Earth, it's all in the game.
People conventionally use "artificial" to denote the products of human agency--point taken about us being mammals, but we're pretty well different from the rest.
It doesn't have a direction in the sense of forward/back, or progress/regress. However, it does always go from less reproductive success to more reproductive success. A very successful species is never replaced by a less successful species.
It's only called "regression" in that article because the environment to which species would adapt happens to have existed in the past
But environment doesn't dictate what will appear. Even if the earth slowly changed back into to what it was at dino time, there's no reason to believe that the same dinosaurs which lived 70 million years ago would re-emerge. Those niches might be filled by things evolved from mammals, or insects, of who knows what
188: I used 'artificial' in the sense of 'produced by artifice, made by people'. That may be my own ideosyncratic definition
Artificial selection, as I was using it there, means that humans as predators aren't killing naturally. Most of the adaptations in the non-human world have been dropped in favor of human machinated adaptation (tasty Broccoli or chicken's with large titties [so there Dr. B!]).
In re 187:
I'm not saying that the selection would happen right away. But I bet the chickens would start being selected for pretty quickly (smaller breasted chickens move more quickly I think).
Well, not precisely, but similar niches will tend to lead to convergent evolution. The Eastern Seaboard doesn't now have a niche for a 100 lb+ feline-type predator, but it used to. If it again had such a niche, I wouldn't be surprised if a population of lynx or something threw off a much bigger kitty.
I'm with you -- if there's anyone else around, I don't want to have to deal with them. Living by myself sounds great, as long as I don't ironically break my glasses right before I walk into the library.
197: It also depends which type of evolutionary theory you belong to. My guess it would be a gradual growth in the size of kitty until it became disadvantageous to grow any bigger.
Once the Cardassians show up, sure, they're part of the ecosystem, or rather the old understanding of the global ecosystem disappears in favor of the new galactic (whatever) definition. Our current ecological understanding is pretty much limited to terrestrial agents.
Small breasted chickens move more quickly, and that can help them avoid an untimely end involving garlic and butter. But moving slowly can be advantageous, too. Sometimes a chicken has to slow down and smell the pheremones in order to reproduce. There's a conundrum here.
similar niches will tend to lead to convergent evolution
Convergence in form, yes. Bats look a lot like birds. But while I wouldn't be surprised by a 100+ lb feline, I would be equally unsurprised by a 100+ lb fox or badger
And, yeah, maybe I'm being a little obtuse about "artificial," but it's a problematic designation—do you draw that line at domestication? Mechanization? Genetic manipulation? Many different demarcations for human agency? Plus I think we should save the "artificial" superlative for our robot overlords.
I'm glad that while I was away someone brought up feral dogs, but I see Ogged dismissed the threat way too quickly. It's precisely *because* feral dogs couldn't compete that they'd end up eating you.
And anyway, the hypothesis offered was "lone survivor." I still say that if you *knew* you were the lone survivor (which seems implied, though how you'd know that I can't imagine), there would be very little point trying to survive, and one would be likely to kill oneself sooner rather than later. If one believed that others had survived, then of course you'd go out looking. At which point, wandering around, you'd get set on by feral dogs / dehydration / disease / twisted ankle and die that way.
Man, Boy Scouts would totally come to the rescue for me. I would survive by teaching wilderness survival classes! The people would flock to me in droves.
"Artificiality" means nothing, but many species bred for human use are just not viable in the wild. Milk cows produce more milk than calves can drink, apple tree produce more fruit than their branches can hold, turkeys are slow and stupid (wild turkeys are completely different), and so on. I'm pretty sure that dogs would revert to a very generic medium-sized mutt.
I would definitely not read this book, which is just about the most boring thing you could read about a man left alone in the aftermath of a viral plague that wiped out most of humanity.
Intentionality in breeding is an interesting landmark for us, but I don't see how it matters in describing evolution. I don't really think "the wild" is so useful either.
Right, but in the wild species breed for survival. We're breeding for food or pets, and we don't care if they can survive in the wild because they won't have to as long as we're around.
I still say that if you *knew* you were the lone survivor ... there would be very little point trying to survive ...
I'd hang in waiting for those nice elephantoids from Footfall to show up.
I don't think that's intentional breeding. That's like saying don't parasites breed hosts?
Parasites don't breed hosts?
I've always had trouble with the concept of intentionality, perhaps because so much of what I do turns out to have not been what I intended at all. But if you want to include intentionality in the definition of 'breed", and you don't think insects have intentions, okay.
In the field of film drama about post-nuclear survival, Threads (more detail here) is the way-out-in-front leader. For a thorough survey (can you tell I'm writing a paper?) see Empty World.
I'm liking my Amish plan better and better. See, if there were survivors among the Amish, they could teach you how to farm and be self-sufficient. I'm feeling really calm, thinking of it.
Intentionality in breeding is an interesting landmark for us, but I don't see how it matters in describing evolution. I don't really think "the wild" is so useful either.
I agree. Since we were talkiing about what would evolve absent people, I used 'artificial' as shorthand for "peoples' effects on the evolution of other animals". That was a mistake, because it implicates all kinds of other notions about what is natural, etc. Let's pretend it didn't happen.
If human population is really small, food will be easier to get. Part of the difficulty with feeding people now is that almost all good land is already cultivated, and population has been increasing for millenia as agricultural production increased. Hunters and gatherers live OK as long as population is sparse. (Sahlins, "Stone Age Society").
Contemporary hunters and gatherers, if they still exist at all, have been driven to the least productive environemnts.
Aw, man. I missed all the fun on this thread, despite pointless survival fantasies being one of my all-time favorite daydreams.
A post-epidemic wasteland would be cake. I suspect most omega men could live out the rest of their lives purely by moving from one walmart to another. There's an expire date on canned goods, but it's not really a hard and fast rule, as I understand it. Don't eat from burst, bloated or foul-smelling cans and I think you'll be fine.
A desert island Robinson Crusoe situation, though? You would be pretty well fucked. Making fire mechanically is really, really hard.
Nothing would evolve absent people. Other living things would live, die, and reproduce. Evolution is a human concept.
Great, now we're going to spin off into philosophy. Or am I being trolled? The fact of evolution (if it is a fact) and the concept of evolution are not the same thing. The words "living," "things," "live", "die" and "reproduce" are also concepts, but you're happy to use them to talk about what would be happening absent people. Why rag on "evolution"?
Sex is a human concept. This does not prevent inhuman animals from having sex. Likewise the fact that evolution is a human concept does not prevent it from occurring absent human observers.
But why do you need fire anyway? Just move somewhere warm. And eat your food raw -- it's more nutritious that way.
But that's confusing the desert island and omega man brands of survivalism. If you can move elsewhere, you can make fire (but probably don't really need it for a variety of reasons). If you're stuck on an island you can't make fire easily but you DO need it, mainly for making food (and water, if you have a pot) safe for consumption. It'd also come in handy for warmth/scaring predators while you sleep/attracting rescuers.
If I were the last person left alive, I'm fairly sure I would die of starvation and/or insanity within a matter of, at most, a few months.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 9:48 AM
Even if we managed to get some seeds to sprout, all the steps from harvesting to edible product are mysterious to us.
??? Gardening=not rocket-science. Most things we eat, you could sit in your vegetable garden and eat raw. What steps are you talking about, other than normal cooking? (Well, grains, I suppose, but if wheat were too baffling, potatoes fill the same hole in the diet.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 9:51 AM
"the world would be quickly overrun by animals. Rats and bunnies first,"
This is so very true. When we go, the rodents take over, and they know this.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 9:53 AM
You're cheating on this exercise. You'd do the same thing as your friend; it would just occur to you three days later. There are better and worse decisions, really dire situations throw those distinctions into stark relief, and people generally pick the better choices when offered to them.
But I was all "find an easily-defended, well-provisioned exurban structure that I can use as a base."
I think most people already understand that, if you had been born of good 'Merkin stock, you'd have been the Son of the Unabomber.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 9:53 AM
We were thinking about grains, LB.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 9:54 AM
Cities would give you access to a lot of pilferable resources (canned food, bottled water, etc.) while increasing the likelihood of finding people but if it really was a pandemic or something, you'd have a lot of funky decaying bodies, so ewww.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 9:55 AM
Is it wrong that the first thing I can think of doing is heading for the nearest serious library to be raided for works on edible plants of the American NE, wilderness survival tips, archery 101, etc.?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 9:56 AM
you'd have been the Son of the Unabomber
It was a pretty funny moment when the words "easily defended" came out of my mouth, and his eyebrow went up, and I was revealed as Militia Man.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 9:56 AM
Is it wrong that the first thing I can think of doing is heading for the nearest serious library
No, that's sensible--I had something similar in mind, but of course first I'd try to find a generator to see if I still had internet access. I mean, come on--google and I could be the only one liveblogging the apocalypse.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 9:58 AM
The idea of childbirth as one of the last people on earth is really scary, too.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 9:59 AM
The idea of childbirth as one of the last people on earth is really scary, too.
Yeah, I think what I said last night was, "You can only knock up women you don't like."
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:01 AM
I'm with LB. Apocalypse now? Study!
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:05 AM
Aren't there a lot of movies explaining this situation? Wouldn't Rae Dawn Chong and the young Brooke Shields be around somewhere?
I imagine that the members of my harem could do the gardening when not attending to my other needs.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:08 AM
Old people die first, John.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:11 AM
Sort of depends on the breakdown, but I'd want to stock up on cigarettes and liquor for bartering purposes before I left town. If you survive, at some point you'll run into other camps, and one of those might have something you need, and I'm guessing luxuries are the only currency in the new world order.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:11 AM
I'd be fighting LB for the library books. Why try to re-invent gardening and hunting when survivalists have done it for you? But I'd grab bottled water and canned goods first.
I don't know where I'd live. Most of the planet flat-out hates human beings, and tries to freeze, humidify, or burn them out. When that fails, it sends in mosquitos to eat you.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:14 AM
5:
Wheat cultivation: Sow wheat. When it looks ripe, (???) scythe it down. Acquire kine from someplace, and have them tread the corn, omitting to bind their mouths. Sweep up wheat. Grind,
Okay, maybe that is hard.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:15 AM
Luxuries and mail, Armsmasher.
Posted by TJ | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:16 AM
Luckily, I have a flint & steel.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:17 AM
We're talking about a decimation of the world sufficient to suggest that you may be the last person on earth. Food is not an issue. Resources are not an issue. If every person in your state had one can of food, you'd still have (say) 500K cans. That looks like about more than 500 years of food to me, at 3 cans a day.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:19 AM
It all depends on the reason for the apocalypse. Nuclear war? Damn right I'm getting out of Dodge. I'm getting out of Dodge and heading for someplace remote and non-militarized: like switzerland or chile or something.
Pandemic? Hm... well, I haven't died yet where I am, so I'll porobably stick there. Raid restaurants for food. But leaving bears the risk of catching the disease, so...
Asteroid or super-volcano? Somewhere in the southern hemisphere. Argentina for the cows.
Facist government? Let me be a 2000-era celebrity for a sec: I'm moving to Canada.
What other ways can the world end?
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:19 AM
Cans don't last forever -- I think you've got ~5-10 years, not a lifetime.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:21 AM
How are you getting to Argentina?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:21 AM
And ogged's fear of beasties is silly. The deer can't magically appear; there has to be an algorithm that describes the upper bound of the population's growth.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:22 AM
20: You can't live healthily on canned food forever, I don't think. Don't a lot of nutrients leach out of canned food? Eventually you'd need fresh food for vitamins.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:22 AM
Furthermore, deer make for good eatin'.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:23 AM
I really don't care what the catastrophe is, I'll be heading to Austin.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:24 AM
21: How is there a Fascist government if I am the last person on earth?
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:25 AM
The deer can't magically appear; there has to be an algorithm that describes the upper bound of the population's growth.
Yes, they'll proliferate, until they're either eating everything green in site, and some start to starve, or until a predator also proliferates enough to cull the population. Either way, beasties everywhere.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:25 AM
21: people turned into zombies ?
Posted by gg | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:25 AM
I'm stealing a plane to get there (hi mr. cia guy, we're doing a hypothetical here. read this in context!). Do I know how to fly? No.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:26 AM
28: You've instituted your reign of compulsory wood-working and incompetent ice skating. Even the bears tremble at the sound of your approaching footsteps.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:27 AM
Cans of food are heavy. Eventually you'd run out of the cans within a walkable distance, and have to start walking to get to the next city.
At which point, you'd starve to death.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:27 AM
21 : A fascist government of Zombies?
Or perhaps of hyper-intelligent-tired-of-being-eaten deers.
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:28 AM
I think dehydration is a bigger worry than starvation. Water's heavy too, you know.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:29 AM
Oh, plus, we haven't even begun to take into account the problem of disease. One episode with typhus-laced water, and buh-bye human race.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:29 AM
Wait, how long does it take for gas not to be good anymore?
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:29 AM
Yup, water's a problem. Even if you find fresh water, odds are that it'll have germies that you're not used to. That's when you re-invent religion.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:30 AM
How is there a Fascist government if I am the last person on earth?
If anybody could do that, it would be you, Jeremy.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:30 AM
33. Come on -- on good roads, you can cover an awful lot of distance very, very quickly. 3 miles an hour x only an 8 hour day walking gets you about a hundred miles every four days. If the cans didn't go bad, you wouldn't starve in a lifetime through having eaten through your available resources.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:31 AM
I am assuming that people have just magically disappeared off the face of the earth (ogged missed the Rapture - surprising) - otherwise the factors Wolfson mentioned come into play. In that case, go to the local hardware store. Steal as many personal generators as you can. Take your car (or that of anyone else) and go to the gas station. Get gas. Go home and play X-box. Hook one of the other generators up to the fridge. Call around, see if any of your friends were Left Behind.
You need a much better defined apocolypse before you get to "grow wheat."
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:32 AM
37: When it gets released, it's no longer good for those around you.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:32 AM
We figured we'd eat a lot of fish, because nets are low-tech.
Have you ever tried to make one? Or a boat to use with them? There is an appalling amount of culture embedded in (and presupposed by) even the simplest objects (like flints, for instance). Dr B is right: if you really were completely by yourself, you'd be dead or mad within a fairly short while.
Posted by Kieran | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:33 AM
We all can agree, though, that "last person on earth" is way better than "one of small remnant of human race," right? Because I'm pretty sure in a Lord of the Flies situation most of us would end up being Piggy.
Posted by Matt #3 | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:34 AM
Are there any water germs that aren't killed by boiling it?
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:34 AM
water's a problem? head yourself down to REI and pick up all the water purification gadgets you can carry. hell, that's the first thing you do, go down and get yourself a nice selection of camping equipment. then go get yourself a nice bike. then, fuck, i dunno, head for the nearest small coastal city with a good library and selection of porn stores?
Posted by fiend | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:34 AM
32: COL
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:35 AM
Dr B is right: if you really were completely by yourself, you'd be dead or mad within a fairly short while.
Trust the Irish to see the sunny side of life.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:35 AM
I was thinking it would be a small, laboriously constructed net. Boat=big piece of wood.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:35 AM
#40: You might manage to subsist for a while by walking town to town, until you twisted your ankle or something. Or the weather got hot. Or cold. I mean, people die in goddamn national parks.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:36 AM
Water: Bleach, iodine, boiling, water filters looted from stores. Not a huge problem.
Once you make it through the first few months and all the bodies have rotted, the disease risk is going to drop way down, anyway. There's still giardia and such, but nothing that you're going to catch from other people.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:38 AM
Ogged really seems to be assuming that all of the natural resources have been destroyed, too. I mean "laboriously constructed net" and appropriating a piece of wood for a boat are really unnecessary. Even in Tuscany, you'd find that stuff lying around.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:38 AM
A bike! Hadn't thought of that, but it's brilliant. I was thinking I'd raid the Wal-Mart, but REI would also be excellent.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:38 AM
Big piece of wood? You're trying to land a big fish, which against all odds you've caught before dying of sunburn and/or exposure, and you fall in the water. The wood drifts away.
Dead.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:39 AM
Yeah, but there are no am/pms in national parks, or at least, they are a long, long way away from each other. I wonder if your perspective on this is informed by living in a small college town. In New York, assuming that Jeremy Osner's minions don't assassinate me, I think I'd be okay for a while. I might get lonely and depressed though, possibly enough to kill myself.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:39 AM
You'd be okay for a while, sure. Months, probably. Until you had an accident, got sick, or lost your can opener.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:41 AM
55 to 50. Why can't I drive? Are we assuming the roads are impassable? If so, why?
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:41 AM
50: Oh, sure, you last until the first accident that leaves you needing medical care. But if you were lucky, that could be quite a while.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:41 AM
Then you DIE.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:41 AM
peoples,
just because it's the end of the world doesn't mean cars stopped working. it's not like you're going to do anymore damage. I'd go to a gas station, fill as many gascans as possible, and start driving away from where I was. that is, assuming the gas pumps still worked. otherwise, I'd start siphoning from other cars. might take a while, but...
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:41 AM
I'm with Tia. I'd stay in NYC, moving into the Met, all Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler-style.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:41 AM
I would feel lost without the transvestite strip club industry. 55: I will hunt you down!
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:42 AM
I mean "laboriously constructed net" and appropriating a piece of wood for a boat are really unnecessary. Even in Tuscany, you'd find that stuff lying around.
Yeah, you're totally right. It's fun to think about how helpless we'd be if it weren't, but after a pandemic, it would be. So you've got a decent shot at living out your natural life, I think.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:43 AM
i'd just go to a warm region (puerto rico or sicily being ideal!) and pick breadfruit and prickly pear off the trees, dig crabs from th e sea rocks, and be happy! except for the potential lack of good conversation, what's the problem?
i guess i would have to keep a good fire going at all times so i could boil my water (and boil off sea water to get salt)... but that's the only big technical difficulty, no?
all the beasties would be afraid of my fire, as would other human beings, and i'd be toasty too.
i'm not sure how this is psychologically revealing, except maybe the part about how i wouldn't immediately trust other humans, unlike your friend.
Posted by mmf! | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:43 AM
Fish coins out of the fountain to use in snack machines! Until you DIE.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:43 AM
Also: I'm pretty sure filling your car or gas cans at a gas station requires a working electric grid, or a generator and knowledge of where to connect it to power the pumps.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:44 AM
Even without, Robinson Crusoe was based on a true story. Isolated people stranded in the wilderness with very limited resources can survive for extended periods.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:44 AM
56: I concede that accidents and illness are a problem, but there is more than one can opener in New York
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:44 AM
Are we talking about being the last person on Earth? In that case: cry, cry, masturbate. But if there's any reason to believe that once the dust settles you'll meet other survivors, even if it's just that you've survived and assume others have, I think I'd want not to throw in the towel. Try to create a stable situation and hope a wandering tribe finds you some day—certainly, I'm not leaving my perch in Austin if I can avoid it. The survival instinct, surely that's going to ward off madness for a while?
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:44 AM
What kind of apocalypse is this?
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:44 AM
Cala is the only one here I'd trust for a second.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:45 AM
Re cars: you don't really need gas, as you can just use the cars that are left, most of which will have some gas in the tank. Just pick ones parked outside homes, break in, find the keys, drive off.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:46 AM
66: Gas is available in free standing cans.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:46 AM
Water: Bleach, iodine, boiling, water filters looted from stores. Not a huge problem.
Where are you getting the water? I guess you live in NYC, no biggie.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:47 AM
#67: Yeah, but Selkirk was stranded on a temperate island with resources, and he had hope of returning (which would stave off the insanity)--*and* he was only there for a few months, not the 22 years (or however long it was) in Robinson Crusoe.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:47 AM
What kind of apocalypse is this?
Post-pandemic.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:48 AM
Without the parameters for apocalypse, it's pretty tough to decide what to do. Power supplies won't fail immediately simply because nobody is left to monitor them. But if they've been physically destroyed or damaged, then well... Ogged, what kind of apocalypse are you running here?
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:48 AM
Becks, the Gugg's probably a much better fortress.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:48 AM
People are using wildly different conceptions of "calamity" here. There's no way to tell who's living and who's dying, and why, until we settle on what exactly the fuck happened.
(And how is it that you and almost no one else survived? That seems wildly implausible - I can't even think of a hypo. Either everyone's dead -- bang -- or there must be a relatively large number of people alive, even if they aren't in your immediate vicinity.
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:48 AM
Oddly, I think my cat would be in better shape in CALAMITY® than I would. She'd be überpwning, what with all the rats around.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:49 AM
aha. since none of the rest of you have thought of salt (which is pretty important to survival), i would make a secret little sea-salt-recuperating set-up, trade with the rest of you survivors, and be a primitive rich magnate person with turquoise bracelets and lots of venison smoked over my fire, while the rest of you crash bikes and look for canopeners.
that's assuming supplies have disappeared from stores and all. yeah.
Posted by mmf! | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:49 AM
Re cars: you don't really need gas, as you can just use the cars that are left, most of which will have some gas in the tank.
Assuming you won't be making any long trips, anyway.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:49 AM
People are using wildly different conceptions of "calamity" here. There's no way to tell who's living and who's dying, and why, until we settle on what exactly the fuck happened.
(And how is it that you and almost no one else survived? That seems wildly implausible - I can't even think of a hypo. Either everyone's dead -- bang -- or there must be a relatively large number of people alive, even if they aren't in your immediate vicinity.)
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:49 AM
Post-pandemic, I'm staying put. No point going somewhere else where I might get sick.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:50 AM
Assuming you won't be making any long trips, anyway.
You just need to get to the next town.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:50 AM
You just need to get to the next town.
That's true; in the next town you can get power-ups for your weapons.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:51 AM
What kind of apocalypse is this?
A shitty, ill-defined one. OTOH, after 70+ comments, it does appear to distinguish between at least two groups of people: those inclined to see the sky falling, and those not. I am rolling with TD, Becks, Tia, and (IIRC) fiend. You lot stay off our property.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:52 AM
weapons?!
Posted by mmf! | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:52 AM
And in the next town, armor and food just lies around in the open.
They've got zombies, though. Did a number on tourism.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:52 AM
71: what are the rest of us, chopped liver?
Posted by mmf! | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:54 AM
SCMT, you can be my copilot. After all, drinking alone is a sign of alcoholism.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:54 AM
weapons?!
Animals, I tell you! Animals! I really think they'd be the biggest threat to your survival, after pessimism.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:54 AM
What if none of the can openers survived the apocalypse either? Then it's really shitty.
And if all the people are dead, how are all the animals still alive? I think we all get killed by the same sorts of things, no?
So there are no animals to eat. Fish, maybe. What will quickly take over the earth are insects. Probably giant mutant ones, too. Have fun.
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:55 AM
Sorry mmf!. You're totally in! You're outpost Cancun (or Puerto Rico), after all. (Also, why does your screen name include an "!"?)
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:55 AM
And if all the people are dead, how are all the animals still alive? I think we all get killed by the same sorts of things, no?
Well, no, that's why bird flu is so distressing: it's a rare case where the same-ish disease kills two very different species. In case of a pandemic, there's a very good chance plenty of animals would survive. But you're right about the insects.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:57 AM
93 is like the far-side cartoon in the fallout shelter where they've forgotten the can-opener.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:57 AM
95: um... AIDS?
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:58 AM
I really think they'd be the biggest threat to your survival, after pessimism.
Rats and other vermin, maybe. Deer and bears can only yield X kids per year, and I don't think their baseline numbers are great enough to be worrisome in your lifetime.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:58 AM
Animals, I tell you! Animals! I really think they'd be the biggest threat to your survival, after pessimism.
If animals and pessimism are your two biggest problems, you're doing pretty well for yourself.
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 10:58 AM
I'm pretty sure in a Lord of the Flies situation most of us would end up being Piggy.
tell them you're a dentist. If someone gets a toothache, though, run away.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:00 AM
A shitty, ill-defined one.
I take umbrage. It says "pandemic" right in the post. It's just that the "no wheat" concern is probably misplaced, and confused people.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:00 AM
97: Also ebola.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:01 AM
Rats and other vermin, maybe.
How many generations before the dogs are completely feral? Not many! Death by Boopsy.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:02 AM
97: Also ebola.
I didn't know that. Still, lots of animals would be left.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:03 AM
Early man was hunted by birds!
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:04 AM
Deer and bears can only yield X kids per year, and I don't think their baseline numbers are great enough to be worrisome in your lifetime.
What's worrisome? Pennsylvania had to reinstitute bow hunting of deer a few years back because after a few year conservation program, 800,000 deer became 3 million deer, and they were eating the suburbs.
That said, I'm not worried about the bear, deer, and other animals too much. Deer don't eat people and venison is tasty. Bear don't eat people unless provoked.
I'd raid the local sporting goods store for a gun and ammo, though. No people = lots of available ammo, at least to give me enough time to find other people or learn to carve a bow.
Until you break your ankle and DIE of course. We're not meant to be solitary creatures. If we did, we'd have claws and not soft little bodies that pretty much suck.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:05 AM
How many generations before the dogs are completely feral? Not many! Death by Boopsy.
This raises a good question: would my own dog turn on me? How long would he keep following my commands once I no longer had any food to give him? Would he lead me to food and then share, or fight me for it?
Suddenly I am very afraid.
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:05 AM
It says "pandemic" right in the post
Then the problem time is not when you're the last person on earth, but in the chaos leading up to it. What does a world look like when lots and lots of still living people believe there might not a future for them? Not good. If you survived the riots and the chaos, I like your chances when your biggest and worst possible competitors have been removed from earth.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:06 AM
(Also, why does your screen name include an "!"?)
I have always read her screen name as a grunt, an interjection -- hence the punctuation.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:07 AM
From Ogged's link:
Researchers regard the fossil of the ape-man, or australopethicus africanus, as evidence of the "missing link" in human evolution.
We need a better press corps. Our fossil record shows dozens of kinds of proto-men—what would distinguish any one of them as the link?
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:09 AM
Deer don't eat people and venison is tasty. Bear don't eat people unless provoked.
Deer can kill people. And in the new world order, who's to say how the bears will behave?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:09 AM
you just have to do what you're supposed to do anyway, that is, keep boopsy convinced that you are the alpha bitch. or dog.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:09 AM
learn to carve a bow.
Also in that same sporting-goods store.
It's interesting, I find myself thinking as if I'd have access to about a year's worth of consumables, but no more, so things like gardening and archery rather than firearms would be important. But that is kind of silly.
On dogs -- problem. Packs of feral dogs suck. I would say you would want a large dog of your own for animal defense reasons. Probably a bitch, to maintain supply of puppies once she got old.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:09 AM
Who's been killed by a deer? Seriously?
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:10 AM
would my own dog turn on me? How long would he keep following my commands once I no longer had any food to give him?
If the problem really is lack of food, my guess is you'd eat the dog before the dog ate you.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:11 AM
Elk are more dangerous than bears. But bears generally don't like to take chances on eating people when fish are easier to find. But still, neither of the species goes out of their way to chase down the madman with his cans and fire when there's other things to eat that taste better.
Plus, I don't think bears roam very far south. We're all staying out of the mountains and the north because the planet hates us anyway.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:12 AM
I always thought mmf! was about to speak when the thug behind her clapped a hand over her mouth. or its what lois lane says when she's gagged and tied to a chair, and superman bursts through the wall to rescue her.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:12 AM
104: And mad cow disease.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:12 AM
I would say you would want a large dog of your own for animal defense reasons.
There are lots of things you would want, no? And as long as I'm just choosing things out of thin air, "a large dog" is not my first choice.
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:13 AM
You want an awesome bow, not pilfered, you gotta take strips of horn and wood and bark and make a fatty glue and get all recurve on that shit.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:13 AM
71: Cala is the only one here I'd trust for a second.
I'm hurt.
Posted by Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:14 AM
In terms of dumbass-tourists-killed, in Canada's national parks elk are the greater culprit. Mostly because people think of elk as harmless and aren't as careful, whereas everyone but the idiots know not to try to touch the bear.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:14 AM
Who's been killed by a deer? Seriously?
Link.
There are numerous cases of people being killed by deer that they have raised. One of the most recent cases was in October 31, 2000 in Minnesota. According to the report in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, A Forest Lake man was killed when the family's pet whitetail buck gored him to death. In Kansas on September 16, 2000, a 75-year old woman was killed by an eight year old buck that she had raised. Her husband found the woman's body when she failed to return from feeding the deer. The 200-pound buck had gored and trampled her.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:15 AM
So raising pet deer when apocalypse comes is right out. Check.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:16 AM
A large dog is easily acquired. Spot feral pet, lost, alone, and hungry (do this quickly post-apocalypse, before it develops coping habits.) Open can of Alpo. When dog approaches, skritch behind ears saying "Who's a big boy, then?" Dogs that are used to people are easily befriended.
And a big dog would be awfully useful, defense wise, against all those other dogs who lack fear of people but are hungry.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:17 AM
122: do they kick you to death? or do they actually bite you? and what pisses them off? If we're talkin post-apocalypse, I bet there's plenty of room for me and the elks.
elk.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:17 AM
Of course, in my apocalyptic world, I ain't trying to domesticate Bambi.
Yum.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:17 AM
Yeah, but Selkirk was stranded on a temperate island with resources, and he had hope of returning (which would stave off the insanity)--*and* he was only there for a few months,
No, he was marooned for nearly four and a half years. However, when they found him he had a substantial collection of what he called "goat wives" that were keeping him warm through the temperate island nights. The goats he caught but didn't like, he ate.
Posted by Kieran | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:18 AM
what he called "goat wives"
Finally, Emerson is happy.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:19 AM
Usually it's a kick or an antler gore. They don't usually charge people though (on a hike this summer we passed elk munching leaves (about 50 ft way) and shared a campsite with a mule deer that lived in the shrubs); unless they're mating, territorial, and you try to approach them.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:20 AM
"goat wives"
Free sex, and no arguments about the patriarchy. Woot!
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:21 AM
Discover Magazine had a fascinating article about what would happen if humans just disappeared, using NYC as the example. Unfortunately, only the first two paragraphs are online, and I'm pretty sure I've recycled the print mag already.
One surprise: roaches would die out really quickly.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:21 AM
Deer can be very dangerous in the spring. Don't approach that cute doe who came into the bar with the 12 point buck. His rack is bigger than yours, most likely. Don't get caught in a confined space, such as an elevator, with a deer. That goes double if you are 75 years old and can't hobble very fast.
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:21 AM
first two paragraphs, that is.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:21 AM
Apo, give me a link and I'll see if I can LexisNexis that sucker.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:22 AM
roaches would die out really quickly.
I think roaches have no habitat outside of human dwellings.
Posted by Kieran | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:24 AM
136: Right, and they need the heat of our residences to survive the winter.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:25 AM
If there's a pandemic calamity, I want to be in the Bay Area. Not only do I know where the freshwater streams, salt flats, vinyards, mountain lions stalking grounds, etc. are, the native americans in that area had sufficient nutrition from gathering that they never bothered to move on to cultivating crops.
Too bad I'd have to get there first.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:27 AM
137 -- Wha'bout roaches that infest human dwellings in the tropics?
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:27 AM
Shit, not in LexisNexis.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:28 AM
125 and others: I had no idea it would be this soon.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:28 AM
Ah, but somebody's got it saved on his site as a PDF!
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:29 AM
And the roaring torrent of comments grinds to a shuddering halt as everybody reads the article...
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:33 AM
Packs of feral bunnies are no problem, if you are careful not to disguise yourself as a giant carrot. Carrot scented massage oils are out, too.
To avoid dehydration, follow a watercourse. Streams may run fast, but they almost always leave a clear trail. Stick with it, and you'll catch up to the stream soon enough.
To get to San Francisco, go by way of Tehatchapi, don't use the Donner party's route. I think LB's estimate of travel speed is a bit high, but you should be able to walk there in 18 months. The problem is crossing the Mojave.
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:34 AM
feral bunnies are no problem
Tell that to Jimmy Carter.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:35 AM
That is a great article. Are all of the dire allusions to earthquakes felling Manhattan assuming that the 125th St. fault is a serious threat? Cause I hadn't really heard that.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:37 AM
huzzah! no more brussels sprouts!
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:38 AM
It seems like the article is only saying cockroaches would disappear from Manhattan Island -- and by extrapolation from other human-inhabited sites where it gets cold in the winter time.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:38 AM
148: Right, using NYC as the example, I said. They'd do just fine in warm climates.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:39 AM
I read somewhere, once, that Manhattan would probably be the longest surviving identifiable artifact in case of a total collapse of civilization lasting many, many thousands of years. Not the buildings, but all of the rectangular foundations blasted into the bedrock are going to be identifiable for a long, long, long time.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:40 AM
I fear the "unrecognizable broccoli ancestor" mentioned in the article.
Posted by Kieran | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:42 AM
I read somewhere, once, that Manhattan would probably be the longest surviving identifiable artifact in case of a total collapse of civilization lasting many, many thousands of years.
If Manhattan is the new Athens, what's the new Sparta? Jersey?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:42 AM
But it does say that feral dogs won't be a problem!
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:42 AM
The concept of Ogged being killed by a deer is just too much fun.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:42 AM
FEAR ME!
Posted by unrecognizable broccoli ancestor | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:42 AM
so, does anyone else imagine the first kid to see an elephant-sized sloth asking his parents if he can take it home with them?
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:44 AM
Tragically, it would probably be a female deer who might have consented if Ogged had just been a little more patient. Not all does are Cosmo-reading sluts who'll put out on the first date.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:45 AM
156: Probably not, dude.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:45 AM
Elk are huge and not much like deer.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:48 AM
Does that regression to ancestors described in the article really occur? Why wouldn't those species just die out?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:50 AM
157: Deer go through an estrous cycle, so "I'm not in the mood" becomes a statement about biology, not affect. Timing is everything in such situations.
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:50 AM
149: Ah, I see. I was misreading your initial comment.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:51 AM
Many of the things you have learned about courtship will have to be forgotten when you switch species.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:53 AM
160: Well, it wouldn't be immediate. But you'd probably get more natural genetic mutations (i.e. less cross-breading, etc.) so it probably would occur. Given a lot time, you'd probably get megafauna/flora again too. They weren't killed off because they were inefficient animals, but because they were hunted and killed. Given a regression to previous environments as put forth in the article, my layman's guess is that it would happen.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:54 AM
I don't think that regression to an ancestral type happens. As I understand it, evolution only goes in one direction. Of course, with artificial selection stopped, with people no longer culling disfavored animals, phenotypes which are not seen because they are culled at birth could survive and might well have a reproductive advantage
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:56 AM
Did anybody read "The Evolution Man" by Roy Lewis? A seriously great book without much application to the topic at hand.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:57 AM
165: I agree. We've had artificial selection for a long time now. It's not necessarily that they've been culled at birth, but they've been wiped off the earth. Being foul-tasting and unrecognizable was probably advantageous, and it'd probably happen again.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:58 AM
There are a number of fun science fiction books/series along these lines. Off the top of my head:
The Postman by David Brin (nuclear war)
Wolf and Iron by Gordon R. Dickson (nuclear war(?))
Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (Asteroid Strike)
Conquistador and the Island in the Sea of Time series by S.M. Stirling (alternate world/involuntary time travel, native populations largely destroyed by modern germs)
All good reads. I'm sure there are many more.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 11:59 AM
As I understand it, evolution only goes in one direction.
Evolution doesn't have a direction. It's only called "regression" in that article because the environment to which species would adapt happens to have existed in the past.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:00 PM
I don't think that regression to an ancestral type happens.
Well, breeds would remix, and the resulting mutts would probably look more like the raw material from which domestic horses/cattle/dogs had been bred than current domestic animals do. But you're right that there isn't some mystical snap-back function on evolution.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:00 PM
I think the snap-back function is ctrl-Z on God's keyboard.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:02 PM
168: Time of the Wolf by Michael Haneke (Hidden, The Piano Teacher) is a fantastic movie with similar theme, though there are a fair number of people around. Pretty much the opposite of a good read, though.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:03 PM
Isn't the Texas Longhorn an example of what happens when feral cattle are left to breed for a few generations? I don't think it woulld take too long to get back to the aurochs.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:05 PM
What about our current evolutionary situation is "artificial"? Today the top mammal is so dominant that it helps if he thinks you're tasty—that's a natural progression.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:06 PM
A lot of domestic animals and plants are not viable without extensive human care.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:06 PM
167: right, that too. After the dinoaurs, new megafauna evolved, but they didn't look a whole lot like the dinos. Things would evolved to fill niches that people have emptied (e.g. large predator niche) and the animals that have sacrificed adaptive advantage to tastiness (e.g. Tyson chickens) would go away
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:07 PM
No, it doesn't help if he thinks you are tasty. He reduces the amount of natural variation, and tends to kill you. If you are untasty, he kills you and wastes your variation. Death is generally considered a not good state of being.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:07 PM
168: Also, Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Posted by Matt #3 | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:08 PM
177 to 174
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:08 PM
177: I don't think that's so from the evolutionary standpoint. From the evolutionary standpoint, all that matters is successful breeding. Well, that's not true either, probably, but closeish.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:10 PM
Species aren't selected for on the basis of the fit individual, but the fit species. Tyson chickens are awfully fit. But not in my backyard!
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:10 PM
168:
Emergence, by I can't quite remember. Maybe David Palmer? Post-biowar, 1/100,000 people survive, protagonist is an 11-year-old supergenius girl. Suitable for blog discussion, as large portions of the book are devoted to question of whether 11 is the post-apocalyptic age of consent.
Actually quite entertaining, if I remember from 20 years ago.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:10 PM
Charlton Heston's The omega man did this the best. The zombies couldn't come out during the daytime, so all of the things discussed above would be relevant. At night, you better be prepared to fuck up some zombies, though.
Posted by Joe O | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:11 PM
180: Idea jinx!
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:11 PM
180: Continuous successful breeding matters. This requires living long enough to breed. Being tasty is often not conducive to living.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:11 PM
Jim Crace's next novel, so he said anyway at a reading last year, is all about American pandemic in which everybody dies, and the remnant left over and pack up and move to Europe—Tuscany, I think. Weird.
Posted by greg | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:12 PM
But the species is breeding regularly. It doesn't matter whether an individual survives to breed if his cousin chicken sires a gross of chicks. And I imagine the farmers are selecting close relatives of tasty chickens to breed.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:13 PM
But I don't get the "artificial" designation. We're mammals. We do stuff, it contributes in one way or another to selection. "Artificial" sounds right if we're talking about an agent outside the system (alien overlords) or some virtual ecosystem within the system (laboratory). But if it's on Earth, it's all in the game.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:13 PM
How are aliens not natural?
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:14 PM
Okay, Matt Weiner Matt Weiner Matt Weiner. You can have ideas again.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:14 PM
I don't get the "artificial" designation
People conventionally use "artificial" to denote the products of human agency--point taken about us being mammals, but we're pretty well different from the rest.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:16 PM
Evolution doesn't have a direction.
It doesn't have a direction in the sense of forward/back, or progress/regress. However, it does always go from less reproductive success to more reproductive success. A very successful species is never replaced by a less successful species.
It's only called "regression" in that article because the environment to which species would adapt happens to have existed in the past
But environment doesn't dictate what will appear. Even if the earth slowly changed back into to what it was at dino time, there's no reason to believe that the same dinosaurs which lived 70 million years ago would re-emerge. Those niches might be filled by things evolved from mammals, or insects, of who knows what
188: I used 'artificial' in the sense of 'produced by artifice, made by people'. That may be my own ideosyncratic definition
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:17 PM
On the off-chance that someone else was quietly freaking out about earthquakes in NYC, here is a nice worry-amplifying article.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:17 PM
190: Again?
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:17 PM
well, since I have to defend myself here:
But I don't get the "artificial" designation.
Artificial selection, as I was using it there, means that humans as predators aren't killing naturally. Most of the adaptations in the non-human world have been dropped in favor of human machinated adaptation (tasty Broccoli or chicken's with large titties [so there Dr. B!]).
In re 187:
I'm not saying that the selection would happen right away. But I bet the chickens would start being selected for pretty quickly (smaller breasted chickens move more quickly I think).
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:20 PM
168: also try A Canticle for Leibowitz for an interesting take on post-calamity earth.
Posted by fiend | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:24 PM
But environment doesn't dictate what will appear.
Well, not precisely, but similar niches will tend to lead to convergent evolution. The Eastern Seaboard doesn't now have a niche for a 100 lb+ feline-type predator, but it used to. If it again had such a niche, I wouldn't be surprised if a population of lynx or something threw off a much bigger kitty.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:25 PM
I'm with you -- if there's anyone else around, I don't want to have to deal with them. Living by myself sounds great, as long as I don't ironically break my glasses right before I walk into the library.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:25 PM
197: It also depends which type of evolutionary theory you belong to. My guess it would be a gradual growth in the size of kitty until it became disadvantageous to grow any bigger.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:28 PM
194: Okay, start then. There's no longer a prohibition, that's all I know.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:30 PM
How are aliens not natural?
Once the Cardassians show up, sure, they're part of the ecosystem, or rather the old understanding of the global ecosystem disappears in favor of the new galactic (whatever) definition. Our current ecological understanding is pretty much limited to terrestrial agents.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:32 PM
Small breasted chickens move more quickly, and that can help them avoid an untimely end involving garlic and butter. But moving slowly can be advantageous, too. Sometimes a chicken has to slow down and smell the pheremones in order to reproduce. There's a conundrum here.
similar niches will tend to lead to convergent evolution
Convergence in form, yes. Bats look a lot like birds. But while I wouldn't be surprised by a 100+ lb feline, I would be equally unsurprised by a 100+ lb fox or badger
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:34 PM
And, yeah, maybe I'm being a little obtuse about "artificial," but it's a problematic designation—do you draw that line at domestication? Mechanization? Genetic manipulation? Many different demarcations for human agency? Plus I think we should save the "artificial" superlative for our robot overlords.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:36 PM
I'm glad that while I was away someone brought up feral dogs, but I see Ogged dismissed the threat way too quickly. It's precisely *because* feral dogs couldn't compete that they'd end up eating you.
And anyway, the hypothesis offered was "lone survivor." I still say that if you *knew* you were the lone survivor (which seems implied, though how you'd know that I can't imagine), there would be very little point trying to survive, and one would be likely to kill oneself sooner rather than later. If one believed that others had survived, then of course you'd go out looking. At which point, wandering around, you'd get set on by feral dogs / dehydration / disease / twisted ankle and die that way.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:36 PM
203: I'd say manipulation of nature and breeding. Humans are the only animals I know of that breed other animals.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:38 PM
Man, Boy Scouts would totally come to the rescue for me. I would survive by teaching wilderness survival classes! The people would flock to me in droves.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:39 PM
Yeah, I spent time on a farm as a kid. I think I'd be ok.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:41 PM
Humans are the only animals I know of that breed other animals.
Don't insects breed flowers? Surely flowers wouldn't have evolved as they have without the choices made by insects
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:42 PM
"Artificiality" means nothing, but many species bred for human use are just not viable in the wild. Milk cows produce more milk than calves can drink, apple tree produce more fruit than their branches can hold, turkeys are slow and stupid (wild turkeys are completely different), and so on. I'm pretty sure that dogs would revert to a very generic medium-sized mutt.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:43 PM
208: I don't think that's intentional breeding. That's like saying don't parasites breed hosts?
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:43 PM
I'd head for Amish country, where there would be lots of old-fashioned farming implements around, good land, &c.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:45 PM
I would definitely not read this book, which is just about the most boring thing you could read about a man left alone in the aftermath of a viral plague that wiped out most of humanity.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:45 PM
Noted without comment.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:45 PM
Intentionality in breeding is an interesting landmark for us, but I don't see how it matters in describing evolution. I don't really think "the wild" is so useful either.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:47 PM
Right, but in the wild species breed for survival. We're breeding for food or pets, and we don't care if they can survive in the wild because they won't have to as long as we're around.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:49 PM
215-214. What I meant to say as well is that "the wild" isn't any better, but it's what will be left after humans disappear.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:50 PM
I still say that if you *knew* you were the lone survivor ... there would be very little point trying to survive ...
I'd hang in waiting for those nice elephantoids from Footfall to show up.
I don't think that's intentional breeding. That's like saying don't parasites breed hosts?
Parasites don't breed hosts?
I've always had trouble with the concept of intentionality, perhaps because so much of what I do turns out to have not been what I intended at all. But if you want to include intentionality in the definition of 'breed", and you don't think insects have intentions, okay.
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:50 PM
sorry, 217 was me. I must seek to broaden my horizons, and accept cookies.
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:52 PM
In the field of film drama about post-nuclear survival, Threads (more detail here) is the way-out-in-front leader. For a thorough survey (can you tell I'm writing a paper?) see Empty World.
Posted by Kieran | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:55 PM
196: I thought about throwing it in there, but Canticle is not in the immediate aftermath, it's hundreds of years later.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:55 PM
I'm liking my Amish plan better and better. See, if there were survivors among the Amish, they could teach you how to farm and be self-sufficient. I'm feeling really calm, thinking of it.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:55 PM
But if Harrison Ford were there too, I wouldn't be able to resist the temptation. Then I'd be cast into the wilderness.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:57 PM
Where you would DIE.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 12:58 PM
By DEER.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 1:00 PM
Earth Abides, by George R. Stewart is still my favorite post-apocalyptic novel.
just about the most boring thing you could read
But eb! Ish reacts to the apocalypse by driving cross-country looking for a woman to share his misery with!
Posted by Paul | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 1:01 PM
Intentionality in breeding is an interesting landmark for us, but I don't see how it matters in describing evolution. I don't really think "the wild" is so useful either.
I agree. Since we were talkiing about what would evolve absent people, I used 'artificial' as shorthand for "peoples' effects on the evolution of other animals". That was a mistake, because it implicates all kinds of other notions about what is natural, etc. Let's pretend it didn't happen.
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 1:01 PM
and ELK!
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 1:01 PM
219-
That Threads movie looks interesting. But films that aren't available on Netflix do not exist to me.
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 1:04 PM
If human population is really small, food will be easier to get. Part of the difficulty with feeding people now is that almost all good land is already cultivated, and population has been increasing for millenia as agricultural production increased. Hunters and gatherers live OK as long as population is sparse. (Sahlins, "Stone Age Society").
Contemporary hunters and gatherers, if they still exist at all, have been driven to the least productive environemnts.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 1:05 PM
Nothing would evolve absent people. Other living things would live, die, and reproduce. Evolution is a human concept.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 1:06 PM
Nothing would evolve absent people. Other living things would live, die, and reproduce. Evolution is a human concept.
If I had a stronger understanding of epistemology, I'd say something more substantial than nuh-uh.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 1:10 PM
Nothing would evolve absent people. Other living things would live, die, and reproduce. Evolution is a human concept.
Life, death, and reproduction are human concepts.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 1:10 PM
DEER!
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 1:11 PM
Exactly, Ben! Once we're gone, everything ceases to exist!
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 1:12 PM
Aw, man. I missed all the fun on this thread, despite pointless survival fantasies being one of my all-time favorite daydreams.
A post-epidemic wasteland would be cake. I suspect most omega men could live out the rest of their lives purely by moving from one walmart to another. There's an expire date on canned goods, but it's not really a hard and fast rule, as I understand it. Don't eat from burst, bloated or foul-smelling cans and I think you'll be fine.
A desert island Robinson Crusoe situation, though? You would be pretty well fucked. Making fire mechanically is really, really hard.
Posted by tom | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 1:12 PM
I'm pretty sure everything will cease to exist as soon as I'm gone.
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 1:13 PM
Nothing would evolve absent people. Other living things would live, die, and reproduce. Evolution is a human concept.
Great, now we're going to spin off into philosophy. Or am I being trolled? The fact of evolution (if it is a fact) and the concept of evolution are not the same thing. The words "living," "things," "live", "die" and "reproduce" are also concepts, but you're happy to use them to talk about what would be happening absent people. Why rag on "evolution"?
And then you would DIE.
Posted by Kieran | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 1:15 PM
Making fire mechanically is really, really hard.
I think the trick is to wait for a lightning storm catches something on fire and to just keep the fire going all the time.
But why do you need fire anyway? Just move somewhere warm. And eat your food raw -- it's more nutritious that way.
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 1:16 PM
Worse still, it's a theory.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 1:17 PM
Uh, Riddley Walker, anyone?
I like Canticle, too.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 1:17 PM
Kieran, you know I'm not a philosopher.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 1:18 PM
Sex is a human concept. This does not prevent inhuman animals from having sex. Likewise the fact that evolution is a human concept does not prevent it from occurring absent human observers.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 1:18 PM
Kieran, you know I'm not a philosopher.
Me neither.
I think it follows by modus tollens that if there were no people, there would be no people who were not philosophers.
Posted by Kieran | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 1:19 PM
241: Then stay out of our treehouse, goddammit!
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 1:20 PM
Ooh, now *there's* a reason for an apacolypse...
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 1:20 PM
This is what I meant by breeding.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 1:20 PM
And yes, I am shamelessy driving traffic through my site.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 1:22 PM
214: I don't really think "the wild" is so useful either.
The Trouble with Wilderness.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 1:23 PM
apacolypse
You spelled the name of the movie wrong.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 1:25 PM
But why do you need fire anyway? Just move somewhere warm. And eat your food raw -- it's more nutritious that way.
But that's confusing the desert island and omega man brands of survivalism. If you can move elsewhere, you can make fire (but probably don't really need it for a variety of reasons). If you're stuck on an island you can't make fire easily but you DO need it, mainly for making food (and water, if you have a pot) safe for consumption. It'd also come in handy for warmth/scaring predators while you sleep/attracting rescuers.
Posted by tom | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 1:27 PM
I can't spell that fucking word. It's right up there with "recommend," which always wants two c's, I think.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 1:30 PM
Right on, ac. To Lancaster!
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 01-12-06 1:32 PM
Mnemonic: apocalypse and apostropher begin the same way. Coincidence?
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