Hypothetical question - Living off the land

[Laurentius]

Do you know how far away from signs of human activity it was? The answer was 7 miles and it is in Scotland BTW!

That far?

I have always harboured the romantic notion that the West of Scotland is the last Wilderness in Europe it has certainly felt that way on Rannoch Moor and what about Wester Ross?

Signs of habitation for sure, but that was before the clearances, there is a lot of room to be alone up there and lets face it, what sane person is going to head out there when the apocalypse comes? A nice place to die alone unmolested by zombies at least.

As for me, wilderness is temporal as well as geographical there are times when no-one is out and about and Christmas springs to mind, I have enjoyed a remarkable degree of solitude not that far from the beaten track in Wales over Christmas, and that is where I am going this year as usual, if civilization should end before I get back, well so be it.

 

[Chinkapin]

Here is a relatively modern day example of people banding together to survive. I doubt that any of you have ever heard of it, and precious few Americans would be aware of it either. During the American Civil War, Arkansas was a very divided state. The Federal armies controlled the northern parts of the state and the Rebel armies controlled mainly the southeastern part of the state. Guerrilla bands that consisted mostly of Southern irregulars, roamed in between the two regular armies and were concentrated mainly in the Ozark Mountain area. By the last couple of years of the war they were primarily well armed, mounted bands, of criminals who preyed off farmers in the area.

They stole, money, horses and food routinely and killed anyone who resisted. Farmers in the northern part of the Ozarks, banded together, built stockades, moved their cattle and livestock near the stockades, put their families inside, posted look-outs and tried to protect and harvest their crops as best as they could. It proved successful. The people of the area were years hunting down and ridding themselves of these vermin, but it was eventually successful.

If you think about it, it was all kind of medieval. Stockades (castles) nearby garden plots, a weak and inefficient central government, etc, etc. And to think this happened as recently as in the lifetime of my great-grandfather. This is not ancient history. Amazing really.
Those bands of "killer zombies" everyone on BCUK likes to joke about have a habit of popping up like like weeds when local law and order collapses and chaos rules, even if only temporarily.

 

[Minotaur]

I just thought it an interesting aside but on another forum someone posted that the OS had found the point that was the furthest from signs of human activity. Do you know how far away from signs of human activity it was? The answer was 7 miles and it is in Scotland BTW!

I have an idea this is not what it sounds like. Something in the way they measure it, like any human activity counts, so in Scotland pylons, and the crofters houses are human activity. There is a place in Scotland, main land Scotland, that you cannot drive to, there are no direct roads.

It's probably only a matter of time before a large outbreak of a nasty disease hits a large part of the western world. Something like the Spanish Flue outbreak of 1918, which is reckoned to have killed off up to 100 million people, when there were a lot less people around then there are today:

Add in the modern world, and all hell breaks lose. As I said one of the interesting things about swine flu was by the time they were worried, it was to late to do anything to stop the spread. A strain of Ebloa that has a 72 hour delay and we are all in big trouble.

If a significant proportion of the population got ill and died then everything would fall apart for quite a few years but I am sure humans would bounce back in the end. Does make you wonder & there is not that much you can do to prepare for things like that, especially if it goes on for months or years.

I would like to agree with you, but you only have to look at the Dark Ages to know that if the people who know how to do things leave, it all goes to hell. Modern medicine has doubled life times in the last 100 years or so, but you remove the ability to get something as simple as antibiontics, or surgery, and it drops again like a stone.

 

[Laurentius]

I would like to agree with you, but you only have to look at the Dark Ages to know that if the people who know how to do things leave, it all goes to hell. Modern medicine has doubled life times in the last 100 years or so, but you remove the ability to get something as simple as antibiontics, or surgery, and it drops again like a stone.

However we are all descended from the survivors of the dark ages. I am not a social darwinist or survivalist because I have been involved with disabled people to long to accept the notion of disposable people, but in the bigger picture, we are a species that vies for space on the planet along with every other, and that over time the population is governed by what the environment can support at any given era in history. Civilizations have risen and fallen when resources have run out, or invaders moved in.

Over time population will drop to a sustainable level, not an if, but a when. The question is how much of our technology will survive into future generations, because if it doesn't we are all ultimately doomed unless at some point in the far distant future we can either reverse engineer the sun or get off the planet.

 

[rik_uk3]

Look back to the 'Dark Ages', knowledge and technology was often protected by enclaves of religious orders/the Church, who will be the guardians next time around? Small groups, isolated and guarding computer data perhaps?