Would You Know How to Survive After the Oil Crash?

Aurora · Post by **Aurora** » 18 Sep 2009, 08:49

AlterNet - 17/09/09

Do you know how to make shoes? Can you build a house? How about grow food? Do you have a doctor and a dentist in your circle of friends?

These are the questions that Andre Angelantoni thinks you should be able to answer in order to plan for the next 10 to 15 years. Angelantoni believes there are radical changes ahead for our society -- and no, it's not the rapture he sees coming, but a post-peak-oil world.

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Post by **adam2** » 18 Sep 2009, 19:41

I would certainly agree that we need to be more self reliant in case of a great crash.
Probably going a bit far though to suggest that we should learn how to make shoes and build houses. Even after a great crash some cobblers and builders should survive.

I believe that I could make crude shoes, though probably far inferior to those that I can buy cheaply at present which is why I have stocks to last many years.
I would need leather or similar, and dont know how to make that, though I could probably learn.

I could build a basic house, but would require manufactured building materials, such as bricks, timber, glass, tiles/slates, screws/nails, water pipe, sanitary ware, electric cable, hardware.
I dont believe that even a victorian house could be possibly built by one person. Though a basic log cabin should be feasible.

And yes I do know a doctor, and have installed a stealth PV system for him, so might be able to ask favours in return.

fifthcolumn · Post by **fifthcolumn** » 18 Sep 2009, 20:02

Yes.
Round up a couple of followers with guns.
Go door to door and loot.

I think that is the likely way survivors will survive.

Cran · Post by **Cran** » 18 Sep 2009, 20:16

you probably won't survive very long if you go door to door shooting people.

Even if the people you are looting don't kill you it's likely that you'll get in a fight with your followers at some point and kill each other.

fifthcolumn · Post by **fifthcolumn** » 18 Sep 2009, 20:24

Cran wrote:you probably won't survive very long if you go door to door shooting people.

Even if the people you are looting don't kill you it's likely that you'll get in a fight with your followers at some point and kill each other.

This is not *my* plan but I'm pretty sure that it will be somebody's plan.

And if history tells us anything, it's that in times of scarcity it's the guys with guns who end up in charge.

jonny2mad · Post by **jonny2mad** » 18 Sep 2009, 20:39

if people go to the stage where they need to build their own houses and boots you have the collapse of civilisation and Id say a fast crash .

in that situation having guns, ammunition stored food in caches being able to be part of a future militia or being really far out of the way are the things that might save you, thats if you dont get a nuclear war and your in the target zone .

my ex brother in laws father was a chinese warlord warlordism isnt some far fetched impossible thing you get in books it still exists in lots of troubled places .

a situation where you have to make your own house and boots Id say would be pretty awful not because making boots or houses is impossible but because of what else would be likely to be going on ....mass starvation people fighting over just about everything I dont think in that sort of situation you would have much time to make boots or houses you would be to busy hiding or trying to kill people .

think of the road but in the early stages before people are so thined out

nnnnnn · Post by **nnnnnn** » 19 Sep 2009, 10:48

I'm not sure why we would need to build our own houses, unless we go to war.
Most house stay perfectly habitable for a very long time, even with no maintenance.

And if we all cycle every where then our shoes won't wear out as fast

eatyourveg · Post by **eatyourveg** » 19 Sep 2009, 20:05

I'm with Johnny and my friend Mr DBS and his chums The Cartridge Family.

Grizzly Mouse · Post by **Grizzly Mouse** » 21 Sep 2009, 07:12

My plan is to live of long pork. But dont worry I will only eat people I dont like.

Plenty of serial killer are not found for ages, even with modern forensics when the police no longer have these tools or there arent any ploice after a crash solving murders is going to become allot harder.

mobbsey · Post by **mobbsey** » 21 Sep 2009, 11:48

fifthcolumn wrote:Yes.
Round up a couple of followers with guns.
Go door to door and loot.

Guns are great, but bullets are a finite and non-renewable resource.

Luckily, WTSHTF, as the Americans are the biggest consumers and also some of the biggest owners of guns they'll speedily reduce their own population and so the erosion of the global resource base; then when they run out of bullets the Mexicans and Canadians can go in and pick over what's left.

But seriously, that's the "Dr. Strangelove" solution. Actually, it's more like the question posed in the Henry Fonda film 'Failsafe', on which Dr. Strangelove was based. In a nuclear exchange the only people who will survive are those shielded behind heavy walls -- like convicts or bank clerks/accountants. In the fight for resources that followed who would win: the convicts, with their superior understanding of violence and the use of force?; or the clerks and accountants, with their greater understanding of organisation and strategy?

Mark · Post by **Mark** » 21 Sep 2009, 13:32

So even after the crash, there's a 50/50 chance that we'll still live in a world run by accountants ?

Is there a emoticon that lets out a groan ?

JohnB · Post by **JohnB** » 21 Sep 2009, 17:46

The world is currently run by people who SHOULD be convicts! And in a world with limited resources, accountants should be very useful in helping to use resources efficiently. We're not all evil, money grabbing people whose parents weren't married