Hypothetical question - Living off the land

[RovingArcher]

I wasn't going to throw this out there, but I have to share it.

Here in the states, we have a very rich agricultural and livestock community that produces a wide variety of foods that are shipped overseas to many countries and in great volumn.

What bothers me is the lack of common sense and the amount of greed that went into how they produce such great quantities of food. A good portion of the grain, including wheat and corn, are of a hybrid type that cannot reproduce. They genetically manipulated the reproductive system so it would bear more fruit, but became sterile in return. Our ag community is over using the land and using more and more potent poisons to kill off the pests that are gaining strength in the battle by becoming more immune to the poisons. These insecticides are entering our water systems and killing off a wide variety of beneficial insects, fish, plantlife, etc., including bees, which pollinate the wild food sources and other non hybrid food sources. They are putting growth hormones and antibiotics into the meats sold and it's having an affect on not only the youth of today, but their children and so on. What adverse effects the increased size of our youth will have on them further into their lives is beyond me, but one thing is certain, they will require more food than their parents did and there will be more of them to feed.

I won't go into that little rascal, the prion, which is the cause of mad cow, chronic wasting disease and many others. It is more wide spread than we know.

You can see my concern about the future of not only domestic food capabilities, much of which is shipped to other countries, but also our wild food sources. Add an increasing drought situation in many of our food producing states and we could all be in for a harry ride. The saying, you don't mess with Mother Nature is really starting to ring true I think.

 

[Great Pebble]

I don't like to shatter anyones illusions but for the first few years after any societical collapse, I reckon you'll find the ability and willingness to kill, rob and if necessary eat anyone that takes your fancy a lot more valuable than any skill in living off the land.

Mek!

 

[Gary]

This is a very interesting thread and shows the gulfs that exist between us all in our daily lives and the places where we live.

Thus far the answers have ranged from cataclismic (although as I say I have seen it happen and those of think it OOT - well I am sure the former yuloslavian people all thought 'it cant happen here' too) to the down right Naive.

In defence of both arguments I think the end result would be a product of the severity of the problem which brought it about in the first place - but more important is the fact that we can all see how easily the worse case scenerio could happen.

Now that is really scary! :yikes:

 

[george]

Hypothetical question - if Britain were to return (for whatever reason) to people having to live off the land, how many people do you think the UK could support?

So how many people do you think the UK could support?

George

 

[Tantalus]

an interesting thought that made me chuckle

supermarkets and shopping centres are some of the largest covered spaces

imagine communities living in them for safety in numbers and going out to forage on a daily basis

:shock:

Tant

 

[Kim]

Yes, the answers that people give are very much down to their lives experience, those who have been in countries and seen first hand what can happen when people are forced to confront the idea of survival will have a certain take on what could possibly happen here. But I do believe in niavety, not from a stand point that indicates a lack of knowledge but in the belief that horrific situations bring out the best in people as well as the worst. There is no black and white answer to what society could possibly turn into because life isn't like that. I don't for one second believe it would be all doom and gloom because people still find ways to laugh and reasons to find friendship and trust in others no matter how bad things are. People die, that's life, and yes, there would be a hell of a lot more heading in that direction, but again, that's life. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing to have more death around because then, just maybe, people would stop being so afraid of what is a fundemental part of life. We could do with less people on this earth, and having no government would do me quite happily. However, people also survive, that's what we do, and the choices facing us wouldn't just be about how we'd survive practically, but what kind of people we were in surviving. Who would you choose to be...someone who fired at a stranger or took a chance on finding out who they were? I hasn't to add, that's not to say I wouldn't have a gun.
On a seperate issue, I seem to be the one with the most hope over the outcome of such a situation...doing away with the old and finding something new. Nothing wrong with a bit of anarchy. I can't help wondering if that's got something to do with me being female...a genuine curiosity on my part as I've no idea if it has or not. Shame there aren't too many others here to compare notes with....

 

[Adi007]

So how many people do you think the UK could support?

George

I see that it all really depends on what level of technology that we are taken back to and for how long. For this it's useful to look back in time say at the population on the UK:

~ 0 AD - 1 million
~ 1000 AD - 1.5 million
~ 1350 AD - 3.5 million
~ 1650 AD - 6 million
~ 1800 AD - 11 million
~ 1850 AD - 21 million
~ 1910 AD - 37 million
~ 1945 AD - 49 million
~ 1999 AD - 59 million

This gives you an idea of what population levels that different technology levels "might" be able to support. What is clear is that it is modern technology that is responsible for supporting out existing population and without it a drop would be inevitable. The longer (and bigger) the crisis, the worse things would get.

 

[Metala Cabinet]

Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing to have more death around

We could do with less people on this earth

What, are you volunteering then? Or is it just other people?

 

[george]

Interesting Adi - but I wonder how many we could support now given that our knowledge base is so much greater now. Ok we have lost a lot of the traditional skills but even just the fact that we understand more about germs and disease transmission would change things a little.


If we knew then what we know now about disease, even if we didn't have modern medicine, I wonder what the great plague would have been like? Would fewer people have been affected, for example, given that we understand about disinfectants and disease vectors?

Does modern knowledge in areas like that make up for the loss of traditional skills in terms of sustaining life in the hypthetical TEOCAWKI situation ?

George

 

[Ginja]

Good question this one ...

As with everything, I guess it depends on the circumstances. If we were all forced to start living off the land in an apocalyptic-style situation (a la 'Mad Max') then I would expect the population to fall dramatically as people started keeling over from starvation, disease, exposure and of course, the most dependable of human conditions, violence! In this case - ie. some kind of fuedal or anarchic state - it would be very difficult to maintain a large, or growing population; hence I would hazzard a wild guess at the population being, say, 10% of what it is today.

If, on the other hand, our move to start living off the land was a more peaceful and coordinated/cooperative venture, then I see no reason why we couldn't support roughly the same numbers as we do today - assuming things like renewable energy, sustainable development, co-operative farming, skills-pooling and other so-called 'hippy sh*t' were properly organised and accepted as the norm. A very utopian situation, it has to be said!

BUT ... the cynic in me thinks the most likely scenario is that we'd degenerate into a war-mongering, canabalistic, babarian society that would wipe itself out in a maelstrom of sociopathic hatred, insatiable greed, blind pig-ignorance and microwave ready-meals.

Hence, the population would be reduced to a grand total 1 ... me ... as I'm naturally the lone survivor in this case ( ) and faced with the dirty job of seeing to the mountain of beer, fine wine and pies that would go to waste if no one polished it all off before the end of the world commeth.

Ah well, I live in hope ... !

G

 

[Adi007]

What, are you volunteering then? Or is it just other people?

That's the differences between "in theory" and "in practice" ...

 

[Kim]

In this particular scenario...I think I'd abandon the statement ladies first and quite happily volunteer someone else to help reduce the population explosion!!!

):

 

[Adi007]

Interesting Adi - but I wonder how many we could support now given that our knowledge base is so much greater now. Ok we have lost a lot of the traditional skills but even just the fact that we understand more about germs and disease transmission would change things a little.

I think that while out knowledge base is broader than ever, it is an inverted triangle that is now balanced on an even finer point than ever.

A few examples - we are all comfortable with concepts such as antibiotics and nuclear power, but how many of us could put these into practice?
We are comfortable with planes, trains and automobiles but have less and less knowledge of how these things are made and work.

It was Arthur C Clarke that said that a technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic but look around you and ask people how things work (even simple things like light switches, cars, water coming out of taps, microwave ovens) and you'll find that most explanations that people can give are only a small step away from magic ad it may as well be gnomes and pixies that control out world!

If we knew then what we know now about disease, even if we didn't have modern medicine, I wonder what the great plague would have been like? Would fewer people have been affected, for example, given that we understand about disinfectants and disease vectors?

Why is it that with this amazing knowledge that we are happy to pollute out air and water at local levels as well as global? Again, we have happy with concepts but fail to grasp the whole idea.

Does modern knowledge in areas like that make up for the loss of traditional skills in terms of sustaining life in the hypthetical TEOCAWKI situation ?

It should but on the whole it doesn't seem to ...

 

[Gary]

The problem there Adi is technologically we are superior beings - psycologically we are still only one step above our ape ancestors and while we like the invent things are arent able to think things through properly. After all who in their right would have invented the atomic bomb if they had thought if through?

SCIENCE IS THE NEW RELIGION? I THINK SCIENCE IS A CURSE!

Not that I think we should all still be living in the stone age I just think our minds should have developed at a more sustanable rate, a rate at which we could intellignetly say - oh we are over populating the planet and destroying it and ourselves in the process, let do something about it. Lets globally control birth. Lets cut back on this and that, lets stop using these chemicals or chopping down this forest - that'll fix it.
Instead of that we seem to say - oh well Im ok, I earn all this money I have this big house with all this expensive imported wood, I use this and this and that chemical to clean my car or freshen the air where my dog farts, so who cares the ice caps melting by the time it goes I'll be dead anyway. How cares there are starving masses in africa we can fiddle with genetics and feed them, next there will be twice as many but hey we did a good job this year and a little more fiddle and we'll solve that one too - or words to that effect.

We are our own worst enemies.

As for people volunteering to be one less of the population - in some OTT scenerios the living may well envy the dead!

Of course its all hypothetical and hopefully we will never know.

 

[george]

OK fine - up to a point - I understand the basic (very basic) theory of how a computer works, but dump me on a desert island and tell me to make one using only the materials to hand and I'd have to build you an abacus.

However ask me why I shouldn't eat day old shellfish in that same desert Island situation and I won't give you a story about the gods not approving or somesuch - I'd be able to understand about the bacteria that are growing in it and the affect that it would have on me. Using that knowledge would be a big help in keeping me healthy.

I agree with what you say in general, but If in the TEOCAWKI scenario all we are left with is modern knowledge about how things work - even though we couldn't rebuild what we have now, we would be a hell of a lot better off in many ways than an Egytian peasant 2000 years ago trying to work out why his family keeps getting sick even though he makes sacrifices to the right gods.

George

 

[Adi007]

I agree with what you say in general, but If in the TEOCAWKI scenario all we are left with is modern knowledge about how things work - even though we couldn't rebuild what we have now, we would be a hell of a lot better off in many ways than an Egytian peasant 2000 years ago trying to work out why his family keeps getting sick even though he makes sacrifices to the right gods.

I'm not saying that you're wrong but my impression is that it's debatable if you ask me. On this forum we are not seeing the norm - most people here have spent time outdoors living off their skills and knowledge and have a better than average knowledge of the outdoors and can find comfort when others might not. But even I when I come back home really appreciate how much easier turning a tap is to get water or how warm central heating is.
However, the flip-side is look at how we are almost struggling to keep alive and reclaim skills that were almost taken for granted 50 years ago. I look at some of the footpaths and trails around my area that I see people walking along in Gore Tex gear, modern boots and with supplies when less than 100 years ago the same paths were walked daily by people on their way to work - once there they worked a long day and walked the path back home afterwards, 6 days a week, pretty much all year round without modern gear. Are we better or worse?
Look at the loss of knowledge of medicinal plants and edible plants. I look around my local areas and see how things have dramatically changed in as little as 30 years. Whole rafts of skills have been left behind, substituted for a short term, unproven moder way of life.
I'm not trying to be negative here but there is little doubt that things are going to change one way or another - whether in 50 years time we'll all be riding around in hover cars or on horse back I don't know, but our current way of life (harming the environment, consuming non-renewable resources and seeing enormous population growth) is going to be short-lived.

 

[george]

I'm not trying to be negative here but there is little doubt that things are going to change one way or another - whether in 50 years time we'll all be riding around in hover cars or on horse back I don't know, but our current way of life (harming the environment, consuming non-renewable resources and seeing enormous population growth) is going to be short-lived.

No problem with this, I agree totally that something is far wrong. I also agree with Gary when he says that psycologically we are still only one step above our ape ancestors. It's almost impossible to extrapolate the effect that one new idea or invention will have 25 or 50 years down the line, (though with some things like GM it's pretty easy to guess!) but things have a snowball effect and we never seem to wait to find out the result of one thing before we're on to the next.

In this TEOCAWKI scenario though I can't help but wonder what would be the most useful piece of knowledge to have that would be the most help to the most people?

Would it be how to make soap? How to make gunpowder? The use of medicinal plants? What?

What do others think?

George

 

[Kim]

Most useful piece of knowledge George...

we don't have to repeat the mistakes of the past...find a better way.

 

[Gary]

George your right and your wrong - easy eh!!

Your right - with our knowledge of disease ect we would be able to heal a few more people and keep things cleaner than our ancestors and such but we wouldnt be able to process more medicine or make more food and so maybe we would only be delaying the inevitable.

Today we are so detached from nature, and the nature of the animal we are, we cant grasp the fact that without our science we are lost, just look at all the topics on BCUK about gear and gadgets if you need proof - dark ages britian had a population it could support and the balance was a delicate one, if the population grew people starved or they had a war - is was simple.

Another problem we have today is the depletion of our nature resources, a dark age hunter would have found water fowl in the millions choking our streams and estuary,herds of deer and wild pigs roaming the forests - now if we were reduced to hunting the same streams and estuaries wouldn't provide anything near enough as for game?????????? Squirrel anyone??

But forget food - we could all do with loosing some weight anyway. Lets look at clean water, how will we clean all the polluted water we will need to drink let alone use for cooking and all the other tasks we use if for (a resource we dont have the foggiest idea how to use economically btw) we could boil it, where would all the wood come from?

Anybody ever lived in a house which has no heating at all? It's like a fridge colder inside than out, so how do we heat these houses, how do we survive a winter? Fires maybe great but where do we get the wood? I am sure most of us have had camp fires and been amazed how much wood we burn - well imagine how much you would use 24/7 to heat your house cook your meals and boil your water. Then imagine how much 50 million of us would use - Do we have enough woodland to last us?

We depend on technology and we trust it to keep us safe - and in fostering that trust technogy has taken away the natural resources we would naturally fall back on and thus making us need it more.

Last thought - what about the will to live! Yep, its all gone tits up (sorry ladies breasts up) millions of people, the sick, the old, the weak minded ect will literally curl up and die. In the USA yellowstone SAR's team did some research over a 10 or 20 year period and they have found that lost hikers today are more likely to die within the first 24 hours of a survival situation than they were two decades ago, they have no answer as to why this should be because these people are usually well equipped, often better now than then and yet that is what they find - could it be we are loosing the will to live? Could our blameless society, the nanny state be making us weak willed and punny creatures how give up at the first signs of hardship?

Interesting thoughts.


This is a good thread.

 

[Kim]

could it be we are loosing the will to live? Could our blameless society, the nanny state be making us weak willed and punny creatures how give up at the first signs of hardship?

You're right Gary...and you're wrong...
...because then you have the other end of the scale and people like the rock climber who cut off his own hand to set himself free from rocks and my old favourite Joe the climber who walked miles with a broken leg...

Would solve part of the sustenance problem though eh, if people just curled up and made a bit of space.