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Apocalypse stories don’t often make sense. The energy and fuel situations are usually bonkers. The hordes of people who turn into lunatics is silly. Cooperation

Apocalypse stories don’t often make sense. The energy and fuel situations are usually bonkers. The hordes of people who turn into lunatics is silly. Cooperation is natural and good. My favorite post apocalyptic cult is the one featured in A Quiet Place 2. This world features aliens that will kill anyone who makes a sound. The protagonists are captured by this cult of like 30 people with little intro to who the hell they are. They do this strongman creepy virtue signaling for a while and then tie up Jim’s replacement with some noisy chains on a dock. Surprise surprise, Not Jim makes a noise (not with the chains for some reason), and sure enough the entire cult is immediately wiped out. … How did these people canonically survive for so long doing these dumbass shenanigans?

JKCalhoun 4y ago
> Cooperation is natural and good. I agree, but perhaps hard fought. "The Survivors", the 1975 TV series from the U.K. tried to do apocalypse more cleverly.
- O__________O 4y ago
  How so? Scanned the Wikipedia page for it and nothing popped out as notably clever: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivors_(1975_TV_series) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivors_(1975_TV_series)
  - KineticLensman 4y ago
    I don't know if I'd describe it's take as 'notably clever' but the focus wasn't on hordes of zombies / insane cults / etc but groups of people coming together and trying hard to rebuild some sort of life after a massive epidemic that kills most people. There were clashes between different groups, some resolved amicably, some with violence.
  - JKCalhoun 4y ago
    Actually depicted people trying to organize and cooperate, rebuild rather than running nitrous-fueled cars to trade petrol with the Bullet Lord or whatever. (I like those films too though.)
  - jtode 4y ago
    Pretty good actually, a Terry Nation show as I recall (the guy who invented the Daleks). Attempts to take the subject seriously and realistically (no zombies or daleks), with reasonable success.
jason-phillips 4y ago
> Cooperation is natural and good. Recently, after seeing people from Dallas haul their trailers to my small Texas town's grocery store so as to pillage our remaining toilet paper stock, my faith in the rational ability of my fellow Man has been somewhat reduced.
- taneq 4y ago
  The first time people got into literal fist fights in supermarkets over toilet paper, my faith in the rational ability of most humans was shaken. The third time around, it was gone. By now my expectations of humans are, sadly, extremely limited.
  - mmmpop 4y ago
    Hmm I'm bothered by people hauling trailers to horde toilet paper, sure. But I'd absolutely fight you for the last roll on the shelf.
    - slfnflctd 4y ago
      I would wipe my ass with my own hand before I'd engage in any kind of violence over fucking toilet paper. It's absurdly stupid and ethically bankrupt. Violence against another human being should be a last resort for self defense only.
      - achenatx 4y ago
        you say that from the comfort of your own fully stocked home. When your child is starving your perspective will likely change. Even if it doesnt, other people will be coming for you. If a group attacks other people, someone has to band together to step up to stop them before they come for each individual.
        marcosdumay 4y ago
        The thread is about toilet paper, not food. It's a perfectly understandable reaction for lack of food and water. It's absurd for toilet paper. But if you look hard enough, you will find people doing the same for Playstations, so it shouldn't be that surprising. (What does the US people have with toilet paper anyway? It seems to always enter the discourse of survivalists and other kinds of apocalipse dreamers, and anything that happens, it seems to disappear there. It's different on most of the world.)
walls 4y ago
> The hordes of people who turn into lunatics is silly. The hordes of lunatics already exist, and are just waiting for something to happen.
- oneoff786 4y ago
  Sure sure. But they either die or fall in line very quickly. Fiction always makes these out to seem like very powerful entities.
rtkwe 4y ago
AtR isn't so much a post-apocalypse in the usual total-collapse-of-civilization sense. It's post collapse of the US government really so technology, trade, and some infrastructure still exist. There's still a relatively strong remnant of the US around but they only hold sway in the north east and [0] some across Ohio extending as far as Missouri. As for cooperation there's a lot of that going on throughout Texas but there's also groups with very different ideas about what a good nation would look like and some are willing to use force to bring their ideas into being. That ultimately feels quite realistic to me. Pockets of cooperation that have to defend themselves from uncooperative elements. [0] partially fan made map with some comments by the author clearing up things that were only mentioned briefly in the book: https://www.reddit.com/r/behindthebastards/comments/oevzgd/after_the_revolution_map_v5/ https://www.reddit.com/r/behindthebastards/comments/oevzgd/a...
imbnwa 4y ago
A horde of lunatics stormed the capitol, some wearing outrageous outfits with names like "Q Shaman"
carapace 4y ago
Like in Waterworld, where did they get all those cigarettes? Who's growing all that tobacco?
- ehecatl42 4y ago
  Nick Naylor: Cigarettes in space? Jeff Megall: It's the final frontier, Nick. Nick Naylor: But wouldn't they blow up in an all oxygen environment? Jeff Megall: Probably. But it's an easy fix. One line of dialogue. 'Thank God we invented the... you know, whatever device.'
achenatx 4y ago
you can look at modern apocalypses to see what might happen; in rwanda hundreds of thousands of people were murdered in ethnic violence https://www.un.org/africarenewal/web-features/i-was-tested-limit-%E2%80%94-rwanda-genocide-survivor https://www.un.org/africarenewal/web-features/i-was-tested-l... in aleppo, blocks banded together, but there was starvation, robbery, murder, rape etc https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/21/three-years-after-its-fall-those-who-fled-aleppo-struggle-on https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/21/three-years-af... hurricane katrina superdome - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/sep/06/hurricanekatrina.usa3 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/sep/06/hurricanekatri... venezuela https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/17/world/americas/venezuela-children-starving.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/17/world/america...
vorpalhex 4y ago
"SHTF Survival Stories", despite it's sketch title and cover art, follows some of the Balkans war. People do cooperate.. just not in the ways you might want.

JKCalhoun 4y ago

> Cooperation is natural and good. I agree, but perhaps hard fought. "The Survivors", the 1975 TV series from the U.K. tried to do apocalypse more cleverly.

O__________O 4y ago
How so? Scanned the Wikipedia page for it and nothing popped out as notably clever: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivors_(1975_TV_series) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivors_(1975_TV_series)
- KineticLensman 4y ago
  I don't know if I'd describe it's take as 'notably clever' but the focus wasn't on hordes of zombies / insane cults / etc but groups of people coming together and trying hard to rebuild some sort of life after a massive epidemic that kills most people. There were clashes between different groups, some resolved amicably, some with violence.
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  Actually depicted people trying to organize and cooperate, rebuild rather than running nitrous-fueled cars to trade petrol with the Bullet Lord or whatever. (I like those films too though.)
- jtode 4y ago
  Pretty good actually, a Terry Nation show as I recall (the guy who invented the Daleks). Attempts to take the subject seriously and realistically (no zombies or daleks), with reasonable success.

jason-phillips 4y ago

> Cooperation is natural and good. Recently, after seeing people from Dallas haul their trailers to my small Texas town's grocery store so as to pillage our remaining toilet paper stock, my faith in the rational ability of my fellow Man has been somewhat reduced.

taneq 4y ago
The first time people got into literal fist fights in supermarkets over toilet paper, my faith in the rational ability of most humans was shaken. The third time around, it was gone. By now my expectations of humans are, sadly, extremely limited.
- mmmpop 4y ago
  Hmm I'm bothered by people hauling trailers to horde toilet paper, sure. But I'd absolutely fight you for the last roll on the shelf.
  - slfnflctd 4y ago
    I would wipe my ass with my own hand before I'd engage in any kind of violence over fucking toilet paper. It's absurdly stupid and ethically bankrupt. Violence against another human being should be a last resort for self defense only.
    - achenatx 4y ago
      you say that from the comfort of your own fully stocked home. When your child is starving your perspective will likely change. Even if it doesnt, other people will be coming for you. If a group attacks other people, someone has to band together to step up to stop them before they come for each individual.
      - marcosdumay 4y ago
        The thread is about toilet paper, not food. It's a perfectly understandable reaction for lack of food and water. It's absurd for toilet paper. But if you look hard enough, you will find people doing the same for Playstations, so it shouldn't be that surprising. (What does the US people have with toilet paper anyway? It seems to always enter the discourse of survivalists and other kinds of apocalipse dreamers, and anything that happens, it seems to disappear there. It's different on most of the world.)

walls 4y ago

> The hordes of people who turn into lunatics is silly. The hordes of lunatics already exist, and are just waiting for something to happen.

oneoff786 4y ago
Sure sure. But they either die or fall in line very quickly. Fiction always makes these out to seem like very powerful entities.

rtkwe 4y ago

AtR isn't so much a post-apocalypse in the usual total-collapse-of-civilization sense. It's post collapse of the US government really so technology, trade, and some infrastructure still exist. There's still a relatively strong remnant of the US around but they only hold sway in the north east and [0] some across Ohio extending as far as Missouri. As for cooperation there's a lot of that going on throughout Texas but there's also groups with very different ideas about what a good nation would look like and some are willing to use force to bring their ideas into being. That ultimately feels quite realistic to me. Pockets of cooperation that have to defend themselves from uncooperative elements. [0] partially fan made map with some comments by the author clearing up things that were only mentioned briefly in the book: https://www.reddit.com/r/behindthebastards/comments/oevzgd/after_the_revolution_map_v5/ https://www.reddit.com/r/behindthebastards/comments/oevzgd/a...

imbnwa 4y ago

A horde of lunatics stormed the capitol, some wearing outrageous outfits with names like "Q Shaman"

carapace 4y ago

Like in Waterworld, where did they get all those cigarettes? Who's growing all that tobacco?

ehecatl42 4y ago
Nick Naylor: Cigarettes in space? Jeff Megall: It's the final frontier, Nick. Nick Naylor: But wouldn't they blow up in an all oxygen environment? Jeff Megall: Probably. But it's an easy fix. One line of dialogue. 'Thank God we invented the... you know, whatever device.'

achenatx 4y ago

you can look at modern apocalypses to see what might happen; in rwanda hundreds of thousands of people were murdered in ethnic violence https://www.un.org/africarenewal/web-features/i-was-tested-limit-%E2%80%94-rwanda-genocide-survivor https://www.un.org/africarenewal/web-features/i-was-tested-l... in aleppo, blocks banded together, but there was starvation, robbery, murder, rape etc https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/21/three-years-after-its-fall-those-who-fled-aleppo-struggle-on https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/21/three-years-af... hurricane katrina superdome - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/sep/06/hurricanekatrina.usa3 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/sep/06/hurricanekatri... venezuela https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/17/world/americas/venezuela-children-starving.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/17/world/america...

vorpalhex 4y ago

"SHTF Survival Stories", despite it's sketch title and cover art, follows some of the Balkans war. People do cooperate.. just not in the ways you might want.