I mean the scenario of a serious collapse of civilization with the use of nuclear weapons.
I wonder what is best grown from vegetables and what is not? For example, what about potatoes, beets, carrots, cabbage and cucumbers? I want to understand how to feed myself and other people, even if there are crop failures, droughts, bad soil, soil depletion, or something else. I doubt that forests will always be able to provide food, they will only be a good addition, but you should not expect stable food from them, as I managed to see, besides, I am planing to survive not alone, but with a group.
As for the location, since after the collapse, hungry crowds will rob villages and farms that they can reach or know about, I will have to build a house from scratch somewhere a hundred kilometers from cities and civilization, Although maybe I’ll be lucky to find an abandoned house? and plow the land and so on, and unfortunately, I don’t have the ability to prepare everything in advance, and I’ve never grown vegetables before and don’t know how difficult it is in the long run, especially as it used to be, without tractors and other things, but only with the help of a hoe and hard work.
I’m also wondering what healing skills I should know? Will basic first aid skills be enough, or should I write down or memorize how to deal with severe food poisoning, serious illnesses caused by exhaustion or parasites, etc.?
In general, if it is not difficult for you, please tell me where I can get the necessary and verified information without wasting extra time on videos or articles on YouTube, especially if they are edited or completely made with the help of AI including also articles? I don’t trust AI generated content, the authors of which I don’t know if they check the reliability of the information or if they check for five minutes or a maximum of half an hour, believing that everything seems logical and can be posted on the network.
I’m sorry that the post sounds so strange or perhaps paranoid, it’s just that there are so many things to talk about that I decided to cut it down somehow.
Find people and work together
I think on this stuff pretty often. I hate to say it, but you’re likely to die along with the rest of us.
Reality is that your best bet is to become a billionaire so you can build a bunker with a decade or two’s resources.
The thought that you (or anyone) would be able to just wander off into the wilderness and set up a new life is pretty much an impossibility. There are about 7 million people in my metro.
Water resources are going to become the biggest, first killer in my area. If you couldn’t turn on your tap, what would you do, right now, what would you do? The water table in my area is often over 500ft and I’d never be able to drill that deep.
On your own, you’re going to be fighting for what meager surface water localles are available, not wandering off to the middle of nowhere. Crops need lots of water here. People need to drink water too.
The “prepper” community leans pretty hard into guns. Partly because they do realize that it’s a hard truth that shits gonna get VIOLENT. Depending on who survives whatever wave 1 looks like people WILL be fighting over what meager scraps of resources remain. Even if you have good water, and good soil, and have sees stock, and don’t need to defend it all… food still takes time to grow.
I’ve reframed my prep around survival for a set period of time. I’m fairly set for a few weeks of food, water and can defend what I have. I have emergency communications with HAM radio and Mesh networks.
Most importantly I have a network of friends and neighbors who are my friends. Banding together is going to help me to survive.
To survive long term in an apocalyptic collapse of civilization you need to already be surviving in a manner that acts like the apocalypse has already happened.
In other words, if you don‘t currently have all the skills and community to live in a pre-industrial era, like farming (all the seeds and tools, cleared land), smithing (do you have a forge? Know how to make charcoal? Raw materials and skill?), animal husbandry (do you know the first thing about draft animals? Have all the tack and harnesses to put them to work?), a mill, textile making, etc… you are going to die. You cannot learn these things when it‘s too late, this way of life cannot be picked up as things are falling apart. These skills are why communities existed that could specialize skills and trades to make life livable and make it survivable as possible.
In a full nuclear apocalypse scenario there will be a nuclear winter that will kill the overwhelming majority of the population due to starvation. Radiation related illnesses will wipe out most survivors.
One cannot solo garden their way through a true collapse. Pests will destroy gardens, food preservation will be an issue, injury could be lethal.
You’re talking about a world in which a scratch can kill you. Are you asking because you’re writing a novel and you want to get the details right, or are you asking because you think you have a snowball’s chance in hell of surviving a total collapse of civilization?
If you’re writing a novel, the place to do your research is a library. You might need to go to a large library in a big city to have access to everything you need.
If you are intent on actually planning for the collapse of civilization, the best chance for survival is to do everything in your power to prevent the collapse. Because if civilization collapses, the people who need to read about what to do in the library are already fucked.
If you are intent on actually planning for the collapse of civilization, the best chance for survival is to do everything in your power to prevent the collapse. Because if civilization collapses, the people who need to read about what to do in the library are already fucked.
Unfortunately, civilization is moving towards self-destruction, it will collapse, it’s only a matter of time, and it seems that this will happen very soon, I don’t know what the minimum period is, maybe in a year or several, maybe in five or ten years, if billionaires are sent to the guillotine.
If you’re writing a novel, the place to do your research is a library. You might need to go to a large library in a big city to have access to everything you need.
To be honest, I just burned out from it, but yes, it’s my hobby, but I’m not interested in the genres of the post-apocalypse or the end of the world.
First, live somewhere that won’t be a target. Most of the Continental United States is going to suffer from a direct blast or suffer consequences of fallout. Then, after that, you’re going to have the degradation of various facilities which will release toxic chemicals into the environment.
You’re going to have minutes of prep time to decide what to do, so don’t expect to be able to leave where you live if you plan to hunker down until the attacks are over then move.
There are some basic initial conditions to consider before you can even start answering this:
- What climate are you in?
- What kind of terrain are you in? (Mountains, lowland forrest, jungle, coastal…?) 2a) Do you have the option to get to a new type of terrain / climate?
- What kind of tools/materials do you have access to from the start (we’re talking, do you even have a hatchet/knife, jacket, backpack, water-tight container, etc., or is this a “the clothes on your back” situation?)
I have some experience in some of the worst survival conditions you can imagine (far sub-freezing coastal and mountain climate). In those conditions, your by-far first priority is heat and shelter. The cold will kill you in hours if you don’t know what you’re doing. Even in far better conditions, knowing how to survive just being outside (before you even consider food) is what will probably get most people in an unsupported survival situation.
Fact is: You can survive for a week or two without food, but most people would probably be so preoccupied and exhausted by just existing outside unsupported over more than a few days that they wouldn’t have the capacity to do anything more than exist. The first prerequisite for survival is to have enough experience and good enough routines when it comes to keeping yourself dry, warm, and rested, that you actually have leftover capacity to start thinking about things like finding food, moving to more advantageous terrain, making tools, improving your shelter, etc.
If this is a hobby to you, I could recommend trying to do some minimalistic camping. Learn how to build a good shelter, and how to make a fire with a fire steel (is that what it’s called in english?). You could start out with as much gear as you need, and cut down on gear as you get more comfortable. Figure out what you need to do to stay warm and dry, even if you’re outside for several days in the rain/sleet/snow. Maybe most importantly, you’ll get some experience on what different conditions are like when you’re outside in them constantly, and can’t go inside to fix and dry your gear.
Regarding food: My personal experience is that the most reliable source of food you can find is probably fish. Fishing requires very minimal gear and works year-round pretty much everywhere in the world. I’ve been on a couple self-sustained trips just living off the fish I caught (not more than a few days, but I caught enough that I didn’t go hungry). If I were in a long-term survival situation, the first thing I would need to know is probably how to preserve fish more efficiently than I do today. If you have fish and berries, you should be able to keep chugging along for a couple months, which should be enough time to start developing even more long-term solutions.
Bottom line: I think that in a situation like the one you describe (surviving unsupported outside of civilisation), most people would be done-for by exposure within a couple weeks. Some people would be able to survive past the first couple weeks before succumbing to starvation. If you’re able to make it more than the first couple months, that’s when you can even begin considering things like “what is a good farming strategy”. Of course, this is not considering the people that would survive off looting, occupying buildings, etc., only considering people that try to survive in the wilderness.
- What climate are you in?
Quite good, the air is fresh, in the summer it is quite tolerable, albeit hot, in my country, fortunately, fascists may not build data centers. maybe…
- What kind of terrain are you in? (Mountains, lowland forrest, jungle, coastal…?) 2a) Do you have the option to get to a new type of terrain / climate?
Mountains, I’m not there yet, but they’re pretty close to me, about 100-200 kilometers.
- What kind of tools/materials do you have access to from the start (we’re talking, do you even have a hatchet/knife, jacket, backpack, water-tight container, etc., or is this a “the clothes on your back” situation?)
I want to make such a set for myself, what do you think?: One or two knives, possibly a third spare, One axe, not too big, but strong and durable, A high-quality hiking backpack, needles and threads for repairing clothes and backpack, knowledge or a written recipe for creating strong threads from improvised means, which nature gives(I know it sounds a little silly and not realistic but, by the way, I would like to learn a few craft specializations, maybe this will help me in exchanging services with other survivors?), A plastic two-liter bottle of water, and another bottle but empty. Then clothes: winter jacket, thermal pants, two pairs of thermal socks, two pairs of autumn socks, autumn pants, summer light pants (I’m not sure, but it seems that unlike shorts they should save at least a little from cuts or something else, I’m not good at this), shorts, summer socks, autumn shoes but also suitable for winter or rainy weather, light but durable summer shoes. Solar compass (if the one from the store breaks, I don’t trust the moss).
In general, as you can see, my knowledge is pathetic, by the way, what about “water-tight container”? I’m ashamed to admit, but I didn’t think about it. Can this increase the life of tools by slowing down rust in high humidity for example?
I think it’s cool that you like to plan/practice for survival situations, and I think I can give some pointers:
Regarding “water tight container”, I was thinking primarily for carrying water (e.g. bottles). You’re probably going to want at least 4.5 L of water capacity unless water is very abundant where you are.
Regarding tools: I would say your no. 1 priority is a good, big, slightly heavy multipurpose knife. Basically, something small enough to clean a fish, but big and heavy enough to cut down a tree. My personal favourite is one of these.
In general I think my major tip regarding all kinds of gear (especially clothes) is that you want to minimise the number of pieces of kit you’re carrying. You don’t need several pairs of shoes, you don’t need shorts, etc. to be perfectly clear: I have ONE set of kit that I use from +30 C to - 30 C. There is not a single piece of kit that I carry in summer which I don’t also carry in winter. So, some starters:
- If it’s not either wool or an outermost (shell) layer, you don’t need it.
- Your shell layer has one job: To keep the elements (water + wind) out. Its job is not to keep you warm. A jacket that you can only use in winter, because it’s too warm in summer, is not a jacket you need.
- Always think in layers. If it gets colder, add more. If it gets warmer, remove some. You should not be carrying one sweater for + 10 C, and another for - 10 C, you should instead be carrying an innermost layer for 20 C, and 2-3 progressively thicker layers that you add on top as the temperature drops.
So basically, any idea of “summer clothes” (in the sense I assume you mean) can probably go straight away. Wool socks, a thin wool t-shirt, and a pair of hard-shell trousers with good air openings are summer clothes, they just happen to also be winter clothes when combined with other layers.
I think my best tip to get a feel for this is to pack a kit with everything you think you need, then try to hike maybe 20 km / day for a day or two with that kit. My bet is that your kit will be halved (at least) after the first couple attempts, as you notice how much weight you can cut out.
Finally, I would say that the single piece of kit I have with the highest weight/utility ratio (besides a knife) is possibly my sleeping mat. A good sleeping mat is the difference between feeling alive or not after a night outside, and it weighs next to nothing for what it’s worth.
As for the location, since after the collapse, hungry crowds will rob villages and farms that they can reach or know about, I will have to build a house from scratch somewhere a hundred kilometers from cities and civilization
I actually think places like villages are your best bet. An organized rural community of a few hundred people will be much better off than a single person or household living alone in the wilderness. You can share the work required and you’ll have a safety net in case anything goes wrong, like if you’ve been injured for example. You can also organize defence by putting up guards etc.
I’ve thought about it, but I still want to prepare for the worst, given that I can’t predict what to expect from the future, and the scenarios of a very likely future are not very comforting, to say the least.
I understand that villages are better choice, and I’d rather stay there than suffer alone and risk a quick death from exhaustion, but I’d still like to prepare for the worst, because unexpected gifts can be expected from our lousy world.
You cannot prepare for both; it’d take too much time and energy to focus on one path and diversifying your efforts would lead to either one failing even worse.
I think commonplace civilians like you and I have probably no chance. Solar is one thing. Water-sourcing and -filtering is entirely another. You also need lots of land and farmhand knowledge to grow food lasting beyond a year; winter would kill a lot. Even chickens, which could be a major source of sustenance otherwise, barely produce eggs during the winter.
Our best bet is really a co-op.
I think commonplace civilians like you and I have probably no chance. Solar is one thing. Water-sourcing and -filtering is entirely another. You also need lots of land and farmhand knowledge to grow food lasting beyond a year; winter would kill a lot. Even chickens, which could be a major source of sustenance otherwise, barely produce eggs during the winter.
Our best bet is really a co-op.
I agree.
winter would kill a lot
In this case, people do not seem to grow anything in winter, let the soil rest and eat food canned in the basement, so to speak, which does not spoil from a few months to half a year if you are lucky.
True, canned fish with rice and chickpeas could go a long way! But if civ truly collapses, all of them would become extremely hard to come by… So you’d best start hoarding now… getting your solar setup in order… Etc.
Nuclear war leads to nuclear winter. If the explosions wont kill you then the cold and crop failures will. This is basically what killed the dinosaurs too except instead of nuclear bombs it was an asteroid.
Well, hope dies last.
I think this is all so dependant on so many factors that yes - you can be better or worse prepared but it might absolutely not mean anything related to the situation in the end.
So going for a ‘a bit prepared’ is good enough.
That’s my 2c at least.
So regarding your questions I’d go for basic knowledge regarding things you mentioned. The easy stuff, basically.
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You are talking about subsistence agriculture, start there. If I was looking for reliable information about I would go to a public library.
You should read The Knowledge by Lewis Dartnell
