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IMHO, in a realistic survival situation, unless you already live in an extremely remote area, like hundreds of miles from even a small city, the other survivors

by ufmace 10y ago

IMHO, in a realistic survival situation, unless you already live in an extremely remote area, like hundreds of miles from even a small city, the other survivors are going to be a much more immediate concern. Unless of course whatever the disaster is results in immediate casualties in the 95%+ range in all major cities, and you somehow survive this. There would be a huge number of people in the area and no prospect of feeding all of them. They would all be very determined indeed, and many would have their own guns. Everyone would either starve, die at the hands of raiders/thieves, or become raiders and thieves themselves, and thus have plenty of supplies from whoever did prepare. Having a gun would help, but more important would be to have a large group with military-like organization strong enough to stand up to the stresses involved in surviving such an apocalypse. If you already have that or can make it/become part of it, you'll survive. If you don't, then your guns probably won't help you much, no matter how fancy they are and how much ammo you have. So IMHO, to realistically prep, you'd have to either live way, way out in the boonies already, already be part of some kind of warlord militia in our current mostly peaceful world (a street gang might do it), or just accept that this is basically never going to happen anyways.

Alex3917 10y ago
> There would be a huge number of people in the area and no prospect of feeding all of them. I'm currently in NYC, where clearly there are way more people than edible plants. Even if you look at only the 1% or whatever who know which plants are edible, there still wouldn't be nearly enough plants to feed them. But in any sort of post-apocalyptic scenario, the first thing that would happen is that people would be unable to mow their lawns and the parks. So within two or three weeks the amount of edible plants would go up 100x. Still not enough food to make staying in a city viable for the longterm, but probably enough that you could feed yourself while hiking or biking to a more remote area.
- PhasmaFelis 10y ago
  You think a few weeks will turn lawn grass into an abundant food supply? Actual wheat takes months before it's ready to harvest. If, on the day of the apocalypse, every single person in NYC dug up the lawns and parks and planted every inch with edible grains, they'd all starve to death long before getting any bread. If they planted before the apocalypse so that the harvest came in just before the shit went down, they'd still starve to death, because a city doesn't have enough arable land to feed even 1% of its occupants. The amount of land required to keep NYC fed is larger than the city itself. That's putting aside the fact that there's nothing in lawn grass that humans can get enough calories out of to even make up for the effort of harvesting.
  - Alex3917 10y ago
    So in your typical NYC grass you have: dandelion, chicory, common mallow, burdock, curly dock, bitter dock, red clover, plantain, various onions and mustards, etc. All of that stuff gets pretty big very fast if you don't mow over it. Obviously you still can't feed yourself on only plants, but the quantity of edible plants would probably outstrip the number of people who knew what they were. NYC has 30,000 acres of public parks, and tons more unofficial open space.
    - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
      Just because you can eat something doesn't mean it will keep you alive. Dandelion greens, for example, definitely don't provide enough calories to make up for what you spend gathering them. I'm not sure they have enough to make up for just the effort of chewing and digesting them. Everything you've mentioned there is just greens except for the plantains and onions, which will certainly be stripped bare in days. The rest might liven up a salad, but it definitely won't give you the protein and calories to stave off starvation.
      - Alex3917 10y ago
        Red clover actually has a lot of protein. The folks who survived the Irish potato famine were the ones who never abandoned the traditional Celtic practice of eating clover in favor of potatoes.
        PhasmaFelis 10y ago
        Maybe so. You still won't meet your bulk calorie needs from greens alone.
- ufmace 10y ago
  Just moved into NYC myself actually. I'm pretty sure that if some disaster knocked out all transportation, including food delivery trucking, then at least 95% of the whole east coast urban area would be dead in a month. Even getting out isn't good enough, because millions of others will be trying to get out at the same time. You'd have to already be out before it happens. I don't think that knowing which plants are edible will help much either. You'd also have to somehow not die from robbery, disease, etc, and be able to protect your "garden" from millions of desperate starving people who will probably put anything green in their mouths no matter the real nutritional value just because they're desperate. Don't underestimate what a parent will do when they watch their kids starve to death. I don't think owning guns will help much in such a dense urban area. There's just too many people. Even if you have effectively unlimited ammo and a very defensible position, you'd probably still get overwhelmed in short order. Even if you don't actually have much of anything, people will assume that anyone with that much protective firepower must have a lot of stuff to protect. Maybe if you're already set up to be a warlord king with a few hundred people under your command. That you can feed somehow, and also have the ammo and position for. IMHO, anyone who really thinks that anything like that is going to happen should just move to rural Montana or something now and get started with the farming and such. I moved here, so you can guess what I think.
  - hga 10y ago
    Good analysis, but you missed the hiding in plain sight -> hiding in general strategy. Until you're not gaunt enough from lack of food, who's to know you have stored a lot of grain? Water access is a much bigger issue (why aren't you out scrounging for it, showing up at the military water access points if your city is lucky enough to have some, etc.), but if no one knows you're even there in your dwelling, assuming you can store enough water, you might be able to wait it out. Ah, bigger issue there is probably a general fire forcing you out of it. In which case you're screwed, and should have bugged out long before the first mass wave of refugees.

by ufmace 10y ago

Alex3917 10y ago

> There would be a huge number of people in the area and no prospect of feeding all of them. I'm currently in NYC, where clearly there are way more people than edible plants. Even if you look at only the 1% or whatever who know which plants are edible, there still wouldn't be nearly enough plants to feed them. But in any sort of post-apocalyptic scenario, the first thing that would happen is that people would be unable to mow their lawns and the parks. So within two or three weeks the amount of edible plants would go up 100x. Still not enough food to make staying in a city viable for the longterm, but probably enough that you could feed yourself while hiking or biking to a more remote area.

PhasmaFelis 10y ago
You think a few weeks will turn lawn grass into an abundant food supply? Actual wheat takes months before it's ready to harvest. If, on the day of the apocalypse, every single person in NYC dug up the lawns and parks and planted every inch with edible grains, they'd all starve to death long before getting any bread. If they planted before the apocalypse so that the harvest came in just before the shit went down, they'd still starve to death, because a city doesn't have enough arable land to feed even 1% of its occupants. The amount of land required to keep NYC fed is larger than the city itself. That's putting aside the fact that there's nothing in lawn grass that humans can get enough calories out of to even make up for the effort of harvesting.
- Alex3917 10y ago
  So in your typical NYC grass you have: dandelion, chicory, common mallow, burdock, curly dock, bitter dock, red clover, plantain, various onions and mustards, etc. All of that stuff gets pretty big very fast if you don't mow over it. Obviously you still can't feed yourself on only plants, but the quantity of edible plants would probably outstrip the number of people who knew what they were. NYC has 30,000 acres of public parks, and tons more unofficial open space.
  - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
    Just because you can eat something doesn't mean it will keep you alive. Dandelion greens, for example, definitely don't provide enough calories to make up for what you spend gathering them. I'm not sure they have enough to make up for just the effort of chewing and digesting them. Everything you've mentioned there is just greens except for the plantains and onions, which will certainly be stripped bare in days. The rest might liven up a salad, but it definitely won't give you the protein and calories to stave off starvation.
    - Alex3917 10y ago
      Red clover actually has a lot of protein. The folks who survived the Irish potato famine were the ones who never abandoned the traditional Celtic practice of eating clover in favor of potatoes.
      - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
        Maybe so. You still won't meet your bulk calorie needs from greens alone.
ufmace 10y ago
Just moved into NYC myself actually. I'm pretty sure that if some disaster knocked out all transportation, including food delivery trucking, then at least 95% of the whole east coast urban area would be dead in a month. Even getting out isn't good enough, because millions of others will be trying to get out at the same time. You'd have to already be out before it happens. I don't think that knowing which plants are edible will help much either. You'd also have to somehow not die from robbery, disease, etc, and be able to protect your "garden" from millions of desperate starving people who will probably put anything green in their mouths no matter the real nutritional value just because they're desperate. Don't underestimate what a parent will do when they watch their kids starve to death. I don't think owning guns will help much in such a dense urban area. There's just too many people. Even if you have effectively unlimited ammo and a very defensible position, you'd probably still get overwhelmed in short order. Even if you don't actually have much of anything, people will assume that anyone with that much protective firepower must have a lot of stuff to protect. Maybe if you're already set up to be a warlord king with a few hundred people under your command. That you can feed somehow, and also have the ammo and position for. IMHO, anyone who really thinks that anything like that is going to happen should just move to rural Montana or something now and get started with the farming and such. I moved here, so you can guess what I think.
- hga 10y ago
  Good analysis, but you missed the hiding in plain sight -> hiding in general strategy. Until you're not gaunt enough from lack of food, who's to know you have stored a lot of grain? Water access is a much bigger issue (why aren't you out scrounging for it, showing up at the military water access points if your city is lucky enough to have some, etc.), but if no one knows you're even there in your dwelling, assuming you can store enough water, you might be able to wait it out. Ah, bigger issue there is probably a general fire forcing you out of it. In which case you're screwed, and should have bugged out long before the first mass wave of refugees.