Surviving the Apocalyse?

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I would not survive. I hate the outdoors. I can't survive without air conditioning , heat in the Winter and clean running water. A couple of years ago my bath tub would not drain due to a pipe that had rusted shut. I had to use a bucket to take the water out and dump the water in the toilet. If I had to live without any plumbing I would just die. In the winter it gets down to -15 degrees below zero. I would not be able to feed myself and keep warm. I would rather die then survive a Apocalypse.

Interesting topic.

Myself personally, I could not see surviving long. Oh I would try the best I could, in fact it seems to be a big part of my basic nature constantly challenge limits of can dos and can't dos. I realize though too that a lone human being in that harsh and deadly world where most of the simplest things suddenly become complicated and dangerous, wouldn't do very well at all logistically. Supplies would need to be defended at all times or hidden. Can't defend and sleep at the same time very well. And besides, one small female against a few attackers at once. Yeah I'd be dead on the ground without back out. Give up the pack to save my own butt and that butt I gave it up to save in the now, will likely starve, or freeze, or be trapped somewhere without rope to climb out soon, etc. Fall off a cliff or out of a tree and end up injured alone is likely doom. As is an illness.

My feeling about it would be best team up with a group. I do get along well enough with NTs that I could maybe be somewhat accepted if I had a skill to offer. I do have decent co-operative skills thanks to having spent my life so far working with people. The teamwork thing is fine for me, so I;d be okay there. The problem is that because I come off in social situations as a bit odd and no one can really place or understand why, I would tend to be treated a little differently then others I think, just like in most of life. Somewhere I just know that would cause a confrontation and because tempers and emotions would likely be out of control constantly I could see either being killed by my own group, or put out, leading to the lone human problem.

Honestly though others have said it best anyway. Do we really WANT to survive such a thing? I'm not so sure that I would view my death, (and I do see myself as inevitable dead meat in this scenario,) as so tragic a thing. To me their is being a being with a beating heart and a functioning awareness and calling it "living" and actually having some exsistance that has any real point.

I was raised in the hills, I know how to find food and medicine, in fact wild foods use to be a minor special interest. Added to that no predators could sneak up on me, my cats can't. I'd be fine.

...Being "outside , especially , homeless I am - used to - living out of some minimal amount of suitcases/bags - by any " normal " standards " - .



e="SoMissunderstood"]Even though we Aspies hate change, but when confronted with it, or forced into that situation, I find that we are very good at adapting to our new circumstances (after throwing a little hissy-fit about having to do so, of course).

At the moment, I find myself homeless...well, relegated to my brother's upstairs music studio and I do own a run-down shed on a small block of land in the scrub, kms away from anywhere with no sewer, water, electricity etc (which I have been trying to sell, unsuccessfully without letting it go for much less than it's worth).

One thing that's actually 'usable' though is the small plot of land...if I wanted to, I could grow veggies and maybe run a few chickens and I know how to make bread and such.

If I had to live on/off the land and go out hunting, fishing and that, I could do it (I was taught).

Aspies sufferers tend to be more resourceful and flexible than NT's (I am always finding little things that can fix other broken things).

I liked the way people lived back in the 'old days', but doing it alone isn't any fun, but if an apocalypse came, if everybody lost all their money, wealth and possessions, I could survive, as I have been gradually decreasing all my possessions and attachments to them for years and know how to live out of a suitcase if I had to survive.

If there were zombies after it....maybe different story then. :p[/quote]

I don't believe in zombies, sorry. But if world war 3 broke out and the world fell apart I'd be OK, providing a nuke didn't fall on my head.

The surviving humans have to eat, I can find food anywhere. Plus while I'm quirky people adore me once they get use to me. I'm totally adorkable. I'm like a cartoon genius. I could do it alone, but I wouldn't have to, I'd be useful.

Dandelions and bistort rhimosones would sustain my minions... Er... friends until we could learn to leach acorns. And if some ones gets a booboo we just have to find some comfrey or one of a hundred other plants the old timers dubbed 'boneset'.

How to survive the apocalypse:
Find people you care about. Help them.

That's how people have been surviving apocalypses since before we were homo sapiens. We band together and help each other out, pooling skills and resources and protecting weak group members--especially children.

Now, you might not survive--it's never for sure that you will--but banding together with other people that you care about is your best bet, both for you and for them.

You wanna know a secret? Zombie apocalypse movies are unrealistically pessimistic. In those movies, the big threat is never the zombies; it's the other survivors. But that's not the way things go in the real world. In the real world, when there's a big threat like a natural disaster, people group up and stick together, and act pretty much like the civilized people they've been all along. When disasters happen, it's not every man for himself and grab the loot; it's "let's see if that old lady next door is okay; and, oh, hey, the Red Cross needs blood; anyone else want to go donate?"

We're not saints, of course; we get cranky and b***h at each other, and in really bad situations we'll care more about our own kids than the neighbor's kids, but on the whole, you can count on humans to remain humans during disasters, no more good or bad than you see them in everyday life.

I would thrive, I lived for nearly a decade on the road as a homeless gypsy, much of the time living off the land. and I know my medicinal herbs and what is edible and what is not. and how to deal with radiation poisoning and other such things (because of all the science news and documentaries I enjoy watching and reading). I would be best on my own not in groups, in groups you would have to deal with their so called leaders whom wouldn't know what they were doing where I have practical experience. and I am not one to lead, the first time someone wanted to argue with me I would just leave them to fend for them selves. and a lot of the documentaries I enjoy the most deals with ancient man and those whom lived in the ice age, how they survived and on and with what and how did they make and use their tools and survive, how to preserve meats and foods and use the fats for candles heat and lighting.. I know much. some things are just simple things you can do to survive, like getting water from sand or a rock, or eating mosses and insects when there is no other foods around. or that of surviving in heated deserts or frozen wastelands. making your own cloths and pottery. ancient humans were a LOT smarter then people give the credit for.

You (and other loner types) might be better off in small groups rather than large ones, and better off that way than alone... here's my reasoning: If you're incapacitated, someone else can care for you; plus, you can pass on your knowledge to a partner or a small group of friends, which means they benefit. But the group is small enough that you get your alone time, and small enough that anyone who tries to call the shots can't get very much power (the "dominant" member of a 2-4 person group isn't given very much power by the other group members). Another option is staying at the periphery of a larger group and providing services; think, the hermit living outside town, who comes in every month to trade.

I think anyone with experience with being homeless would have an extremely valuable skill set in a major disaster, especially rural homeless or former refugees. If you can't stay sane in a group of people, it would be prudent to at least maintain connections with people, so that you can draw on them if necessary.

As for me... my major goal in a disaster is just to be not too much trouble. I'll be running out of meds within two months, but before that I'm young, relatively healthy, and creative, with a history of having to survive some rather tough situations (never homeless completely without shelter, though). I figure, anyone who's ever eaten candy off the floor next to the candy machines in Wal-Mart, is probably a survivor already (yes, I have, not lately though). A major disaster would be more of the same, only everybody else would be in trouble too.

It would depend on the nature of the apocalypse and the individual. Most of the NT's I know would probably not fare as well as I would (no guarantees there) if we were in the same situation. Even for the survivors it will be a crappy existence with plenty of times they wished they'd died with the others and been spared such a bleak existence.