it would depend on luck for the first few days - I’ve got weapons and I know the fastest way to gtfo of the city so I can rendezvous with my family - they’ve got some arable property in an easily defendable, low population area. family isnt prepper level but they’re big into organic gardening/natural remedies - in the late spring through late autumn they dont need to buy groceries, the land provides… there’s plenty of water there in the area, and building a water wheel isnt that difficult, nor is wire wrapping (just tedious) so as soon as we survive the winter of year 0 (and winters are pretty mild) designing a grain mill (flour) and basic electrical generation (parts are just laying around) would just be a matter of a few months. my father is big into black powder tech - i grew up learning how to manufacture it, how to cast lead shot, how to care for rifles. 1700s level tech is very simple (not super accurate but it’s better than limited modern day rounds).
so, end of post apocalypse, year 1: permanent food and water supplies secured. electrical generation secured, electrical grid expanding. base acquired & outfitted. protection/weaponry secured.
years 2 - 45 (probably got another 45 years in me), hard but rewarding survival as I rebuild society. pass the reins onto my very large family. world domination in 250 years.
go back and read the OP to see what we’re discussing. a solar flare has no real impact on animals/people and an emp has even less effect. you’re fucked if you have a pacemaker but in that event you’ve got one foot in the grave as it is and your chance of survival is not realistic. you’re not even statistically relevant. only electrical devices that are powered on and arent shielded would be affected by and emp attack anyway, but the cabling and many of the components would still work just fine.
it’s not bragging to say that I would, with a little bit of luck for the first few days (honestly compels me to admit that I wouldnt need much luck), be able to survive a scenario that would kill 80% of the population - it’s fact. I suppose if my family didnt have property where they do, the experience they do, and I was raised in a different way then I’d probably die in a ditch like the vast majority of my neighbors, but the truth of the matter is that I am just better prepared than they are. basic survival techniques, situational awareness, and an educational mindset will take you a lot further than most things when your life is on the line.
maybe for the first few weeks but most of the population thinks fish comes from a can, and beef from the store. most people dont have the ability to live off the land - they’re just walking sacks of fertilizer
black powder tech is very simple, you just need a mediocre blacksmith - and that’s just a strong man (or a woman, maybe) - and a little bathtub chemistry. basic black powder rifles are not the most accurate, you need rifling for that (grooves that create a spiral down the inside of the barrel of the rifle), but it’s easily doable. long/recurve/compound bows are an option if you have the knowhow and material science.
trapping/fishing is an option, as is animal husbandry, but hunting would never disappear
it largely depends on if you’re in an urban setting (unsustainable population density) or an rural setting. in a rural setting, people are used to working together to make ends meet. in an urban setting, people are used to seeing everyone else as a stranger/potential threat - their social circle is smaller.
I currently live in an urban setting so I would gtfo immediately and go to a rural setting.
I agree - I could easily be killed by someone as I make my way to a safe location. there’s a gas station just down the block that gets knocked over every few weeks, crime is a common thing in my area.
oof, raw fish? most fish have parasites (which is why sushi/sashimi has to be frozen or chilled to a certain temperature). no, you’re right of course but those folks wont last long enough for it to matter.
and if, just spitballing here but lets say 75% of the population succumbs to this hypothetical disaster, then the remaining population will have significantly lower impact on the environment, giving it a chance to recover. if anything, it’d be a net gain as there’s a lot of intentional dumping of toxins right now.
oh yeah lakes/parks that the noaa/fish&wildlife departments stock up would be emptied soon enough. a fisherman needs patience though - and as fish stocks dwindle, you have to be patient for longer and longer…
well black powder is just a mixture of charcoal (you need wood and mud to make a charcoal pit), saltpeter (aka potassium nitrate), and sulfur. nitrate is found in many household products - hence the bathtub chemistry. there’s a lot of that stuff all over the place, it’s in just about everything - from salts, makeup products, fertilizer, plant food, etc. I’d use that first while building a natural extraction process since it takes a long time, months usually.
you’d take dung from animals (horse works well or cow patties), wood ash, dry straw, and lots of urine (barrels of the stuff). a few months later you drain off the liquid, boil it with finely ground charcoal and then filter it with cloth. simmer the strained liquid until it’s reduced by 3/4, you want it really concentrated. spill it out onto very shallow pans and let it dry to crystalize the nitrates. sulfur is readily obtained from many sources - usually volcanic but these days its in a lot of building/construction materials like gypsum. basic chemistry will allow you to extract it. I live near geologically active areas, so sulfur would be relatively easy to obtain in the future.
there’s no real set recipe for black powder, but approx 75% dried & powdered nitrates, 15% dried and powdered charcoal, 10% dried and powdered sulfur. you want to grind each individually and then mix them together in those ratios. now you have black powder. keep it dry and away from spaks/flame/heat - bull horns work really well for this.
casting shot is just melting lead in a specific form - my father probable still has his old tools for that but if he doesnt they’re not hard to make. the only tricky bit in the whole process of building your own diy black powder rifle is the barrel - you have to hand forge those around a mandrel (a rod of a specific thickness) - I’d use high grade steel rods for that, since they’re just laying around. blacksmithing is usually a two or three person setup. once I had a water wheel constructed I’d probably build a hydraulic powered trip hammer to make things easier.
oh I agree, if a military attack/emp were to occur we’d use our mutually assisted destruction weapon systems (military hardened bases, not susceptible to emp) & wipe them out. it’d be the literal end of the world over there.
yes, it was very optimistic. 5 to 10 percent of the current population of America (the rest of the world wouldnt matter at that point) is still 15 to 30 million people. even spread out there’s still a good chance to develop small kingdoms, and those would specialize as they always do. trade routes would organically develop over time. it’s true that we do get a lot of things from overseas but the North American continent has loads of untapped resources, it’s just cheaper to get them from somewhere else in the world right now (take coal for example over in west virginia - they’d specialize in coal extraction, processing, chemistry, industrialization).
personally, I think the climate would stabilize fairly soon after such a catastrophe, probably within just a few generations - and if not, so what? no one is going to be living in cities that are underwater anyway.
How long would you live if electricity for the whole world went out permanently?
I was having this conversation with my daughter and thought it was an interesting topic....
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I may have downloaded music from 1337xx.to . is there anything to worry about?
1337xx.to, not the real site. I only downloaded .flacs