Dangers of becoming complacent

[Sekwo]

(15 July 2023, 15:15)bigpaul Wrote: just because people live the modern life dosent mean its the right way to live, its just what we are used to.
you go out to work so you get paid so you can pay bills, what if you didnt have to?
a modern life is NOT a natural life.
given the choice between a modern lifestyle and a simple life I know which I would choose and it wouldnt be the former.

I have never seen anyone who has a "simple lifestyle" who isn't in many ways reliant on the modern world.

I look at these programs of people living in Alaska ... they all have iron pots and guns and knife ... and most have petrol driving vehicles or boats. They wear clothes from manufactured materials, even if they make their own, they use manufactured needles and threads.

About 20 years ago I went with a group on a tour of some "simple" and "off grid" houses. Those houses were only possible because of some very modern & advanced technology. All that modern technology needed for their "simple" lifestyle disappears after a major calamity. All we have left, is either what we can scrounge from what is left of this modern world, or really simple iron-age technology which doesn't need the complex materials.

If you've grown up in the UK in the iron-age from iron-age parents, with iron-age cattle and crops, you can easily survive in the UK in the iron-age ... except about half of children did not. But adults can. But if you suddenly cut off all access to modern technology and materials, the only people who have a good chance of surviving would be a few cattle farmers in isolated areas, who regularly get cut off and so who never lost all the skills of living independently. Even they would rapidly lose all power, within a few years, they would be constantly weaving to make even enough clothes for one simple set of clothes for each person. And few of them would ever learn how to smelt iron ... because all the good ores were used up long ago in the UK leaving the stuff that is incredibly difficult to smelt.

[bigpaul]

a simple life is possible especially post SHTF because that is all there will be, one either lives that life or dies.
adapting to the new circumstances is what is required.
to survive a simple life post SHTF one has to prepare for the eventuality, "scrounging" or expecting to fall over what one has neglected to store is a mugs game and open to attack from others who have also not prepared.
when I was off grid before I didnt need that much, the bare minimum of tools, and enough clothes to have "one on, one in the wash", all cooking was 1 pot cooking.
trying to make survival too complicated will see a lot of people dead.

[bigpaul]

of course, many people cant do it so that is why the mortality rate after societal collapse will be so large.

[Pete Grey]

(16 July 2023, 08:50)Sekwo Wrote:

(15 July 2023, 15:15)bigpaul Wrote: just because people live the modern life dosent mean its the right way to live, its just what we are used to.

I have never seen anyone who has a "simple lifestyle" who isn't in many ways reliant on the modern world.

I look at these programs of people living in Alaska ... they all have iron pots and guns and knife ... and most have petrol driving vehicles or boats. They wear clothes from manufactured materials, even if they make their own, they use manufactured needles and threads.

Sekwo I do not understand your definition of “modern”.

Iron pots and knives ?, woven clothing ?, 3000 year old “technology”.

I think most here would not even call the Victorian era modern with all of their innovation.

In the 1950s my grandmothers house had no electricity and was lit by gas, the “wireless” was powered by an “accumulator” which was recharged at the local hardware shop.

In our street we had electricity, coal fire of course, we had the only house with a car, no fridge or washing machine, not even running water, no bathroom, there was only one house in the street with a television, 9in b/w.

A party yard with a shared wash-house, no lighting, laundry done in a copper boiler heated by firewood, the only tap in the yard, an outside toilet.

“Modern” is the 1970s on. Modern is every house with electricity, a bathroom, central heating, double glazing etc.

[bigpaul]

we arent talking about going back in time- "The Iron Age"...anyone got a working copy of The Tardis? No! didnt think so.
we use what we have now, but get your supplies in quick because once the supply chain collapses post SHTF that is all there is. no more will be made.

[Sekwo]

(16 July 2023, 23:50)Pete Grey Wrote:

(16 July 2023, 08:50)Sekwo Wrote:

(15 July 2023, 15:15)bigpaul Wrote: just because people live the modern life dosent mean its the right way to live, its just what we are used to.

I have never seen anyone who has a "simple lifestyle" who isn't in many ways reliant on the modern world.

I look at these programs of people living in Alaska ... they all have iron pots and guns and knife ... and most have petrol driving vehicles or boats. They wear clothes from manufactured materials, even if they make their own, they use manufactured needles and threads.

Sekwo I do not understand your definition of “modern”.

Iron pots and knives ?, woven clothing ?, 3000 year old “technology”.

I think most here would not even call the Victorian era modern with all of their innovation.

In the 1950s my grandmothers house had no electricity and was lit by gas, the “wireless” was powered by an “accumulator” which was recharged at the local hardware shop.

In our street we had electricity, coal fire of course, we had the only house with a car, no fridge or washing machine, not even running water, no bathroom, there was only one house in the street with a television, 9in b/w.

A party yard with a shared wash-house, no lighting, laundry done in a copper boiler heated by firewood, the only tap in the yard, an outside toilet.

“Modern” is the 1970s on. Modern is every house with electricity, a bathroom, central heating, double glazing etc.

I'm using "modern", in place of a "highly integrated society". In other words, a society which is reliant on goods and services from outside the people we meet day to day. Basically, that is anything produced by manufacturing ... most of which now happens in China, so clearly none of that is available when the SHTF. It's also any "services" like electricity, internet, water and gas.

Also, there is no iron smelting in the UK, and most of the usable reserves of iron and coal have gone. Likewise, copper, tin, etc. Plastics are also out. So, there will be no new metals produced in the UK and with our economy totally destroyed, rapidly anything produced by metal will disappear, because we'll have nothing of value to trade for other people's metal.

Likewise, with the economy shot and even if any part of the energy infrastructure is still working, we won't be able to afford to buy the energy from abroad, everyone left in the UK will turn to wood for heating and cooking. But, that will just mean we will rapidly cut down every tree, as occurred in the 18th century, and even if just 10million survive in the UK, soon fire wood will be in short supply (particularly as huge areas of woodland would likely go up in smoke during the nuclear exchange).

So, basically the modern world, whilst still available to a few, will be largely inaccessible to most of those remaining alive in the UK.

[bigpaul]

the surviving population in the UK after a major catastrophe is likely to be less than 10% of what it is now, more likely to be less than 5% because 99% of the people alive in Britain today have not even the slightest glimmer of how to look after themselves once all the services and resources are no longer available, so we are looking at maybe 6 million tops, 3 million maybe , probably even less, especially once all the normal food supplies are used up, no piped water- how many people know you have to filter any water? hygiene will go out the window, nasty diseases like Typhoid and Cholera and Dysentry always reappear after any major collapse of infrastructure.
forget the modern world, whatever that is, welcome to the new world.

[Sekwo]

(17 July 2023, 11:11)bigpaul Wrote: the surviving population in the UK after a major catastrophe is likely to be less than 10% of what it is now, more likely to be less than 5% because 99% of the people alive in Britain today have not even the slightest glimmer of how to look after themselves once all the services and resources are no longer available, so we are looking at maybe 6 million tops, 3 million maybe , probably even less, especially once all the normal food supplies are used up, no piped water- how many people know you have to filter any water? hygiene will go out the window, nasty diseases like Typhoid and Cholera and Dysentry always reappear after any major collapse of infrastructure.
forget the modern world, whatever that is, welcome to the new world.

I can't argue with that. If all you cut off the UK from international food trade, we'd soon be starving. If you then reduce energy for farms, the output drops by well over 50%. Take away modern fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides, and the food outputs drops massively again. If half your land is so contaminated that you cannot grow crops, it then massively drops again. Add in the effect of a nuclear winter ... even a mild one, and even if you escape the UK, you'll end up in some foreign land, where the locals are going to put feeding you last in the long list of their own priorities ... and western money ... it will be good for is kindling for fire,

[bigpaul]

Britain at the moment grows 60% of its own food, thats NFU figures, but most of that is mono cropping, high in imported chemicals and pesticides, remove any imports and not much will grow.
its all stock (animal) rearing around here, Sheep, Cattle and Pigs, most ground is too hilly for crops, go a few miles
west and you start to see crops in the fields.
we wont need a nuclear winter to reduce the population, conditions in a societal collapse will do it for us.

[Sekwo]

(18 July 2023, 08:52)bigpaul Wrote: Britain at the moment grows 60% of its own food, thats NFU figures, but most of that is mono cropping, high in imported chemicals and pesticides, remove any imports and not much will grow.
its all stock (animal) rearing around here, Sheep, Cattle and Pigs, most ground is too hilly for crops, go a few miles
west and you start to see crops in the fields.
we wont need a nuclear winter to reduce the population, conditions in a societal collapse will do it for us.

Thanks for the figure. In a SHTF situation, we immediately lose 40% of the population as we only have the food for 60%. We then lose another half because we don't have the money to buy the petroleum to power the machinery for agriculture. That's us down to 30% of the population. We don't have the fertilisers etc. So let's cut it again by half ... that down to 15% of the population. If you assume 50% of land is so contaminated, it doesn't get used for farming, we're down to 7.5%. If you then assume a nuclear winter halves global food production, we're down to 3.25%. That is the long term sustainable level (if my assumptions were right). If 97% of the population is about to die, you can bet it won't be a smooth transition. Instead, the process of dropping population level to a sustainable one, will likely see an overshoot. Call it a 50% overshoot ... and we're down to 98.5% mortality.

Basically, we can see Eton students who went to Oxbridge and did law, who thought they were destined to rule the country, ending up being thankful for starvation wages, pulling a plough and sleeping with the pigs in their sty. (and fighting them for the scraps)