Survival
 

Inspired by another thread about the end of the world I thought we needed a thread to hold all of our vast knowledge about surviving the collapse of civilization. Not necessarily the end of the world, cause for me that entails us all dieing, so the point of survival becomes moot. But in the unlikely event of the downfall of world civilizations via war or natural disaster one must have a plan for survival. So here's what I want know:

What are your plans for survival?

Not necessarily what type of provisions you've got stored away in your compound, but what steps would you take to protect yourself? Also any off the top of your head recipes for things that we take for granted, such as penicillin, gun powder, electricity, etc.

Here is a link to a great book about surviving different levels of zombie attacks. The thing is, even though it is writen as a spoof it is easily modified for any survival situation.
Oh yeah, it is really funny as well.

http://www.randomhouse.com/crown/zombiesurvivalguide/

try and rebuild civilisation with some hot girl :)

grab a truck, loot the city, drive to my parents in the country, blow the bridges and roads with some homemade thermite and other explosives then trade with the reserve near there an neiboring communitys

Good luck blowing up all those miles of road.

quite frankly, i feel safe with the sks and 2k rounds and a couple handguns

If there is an entire collapse of world civilation, somehow through my rose colored glasses I think nothing would happen to Australia, we'd be all like w-t-f mate

Bwa hahahaha....

That's all aussies ever say, and the french just want to sleep....
(however, you actually have to pronounce the letters, not the words they stand for)

Very, very funny video :D

Staying on topic....

Although not exactly fun, I believe that you can drink your urine twice before it becomes toxic....

Hmm, I think I'd pass on the urine drinking the first time. I'd just make a fire and boil some water.

various random thoughts on the subject in no order

-look for a truck that will run on all fuels- and spare parts for the same-
-find somewhere reasonably safe, with ample safe water, and try to avoid attracting attention to it (that could be the hardest part)
-loot for Canned food and shotguns-
- while looting, get some of those polly tarps, of varoius sizes- recently discovered they are the best multi purpose camping thingie on earth- build a shelter, windbreak, ect- with no trouble at all, and packs down to nothing
- learn to shoot and maintain a gun before all hell breaks loose
- loot / have first aid supplies
-have a variety of fire starting tools handy
-have a variety of light sources handy
-have duct tape (cheesy, but helpfull)
-have a lot of rope and twine
-have a good machete, and axe handy, of loot one
-have a good servicable fixed blade knife handy
-loot libraries- get books on the stuff you dont know how to do
- have books on the edible plants in your area
-and read them in advance
-have a small tent, and know how to put it up in the dark
-if you have medications that you need, know everything you can about them, so that you can loot pharmacies effectively
-have a good supply of various cold remedies, asprin, ect
- know first aid
-get a bike- pedals need no fuel

more later maybe

thermite to cut bridges, trees an such an rubble in certin key points not as hard as you would think long as one plans ahead an makes the stuff ahead of time

Actually...when the world ends, I hope I'm one of the first to go. That's not something I want to be around for.

Even assuming you have sufficent quantities of thermite to blow a bridge (and by the way, I think regular explosives would work better), why would you waste your time doing that?

so no one from the city could bleeding follow to the country. I live in a big ass city an if lines of transport for food are cut off alot of people are gonna starve. An if they move out into the country (searching for food) past certin bridges my parents are at risk.

If I take out a bridge or two alot less people can get near my parents an their neibors land...... anyway its only a few jars of thermite which isnt hard to make considering thermite is only iron oxide (rust) and aluminium shaveings.

I know this sounds cold hearted but my philophsy on life is protect me and mine first, then worry about the rest

Actually your own urine is sterile to you and it's been discovered to have really good healing properties. (ie Gargle with your urine to cure a sore throat, etc..)

I think I'll stick to mouth wash, thanks.

make lots of friends and buy lots of ammo.

Maybe I'm the only guy here with actual thermite experience, so I feel compelled to tell you two properties of the chemical that I have learned through experience.

1) It isn't easy to make.
The process isn't simply: "Put rush and aluminum in a dish." It's a fairly complicated recipe involving baking the mixture at a very high temperature (beyond what your average home oven might acheive).

2) It's not explosive.
Thermite is very hot and burns furiously, but it does, surprisingly, need a substantial ignitor. Moreover, when the thermite reaction does take place, it burns, brightly and hotly like a road-flare. There is no explosion.

I simply can't imagine the quantities that would be needed to vaporize, or even cut, your average 2 lane highway bridge. You would need several hundred pounds of thermite, at a minimum, to make even one straight-line cut through the bridge. Concrete and steel are fairly tough substances to vaporize (burn).

This was my problem with Lassus plan.

I'm with Fire on this one. That public library you don't ever visit? That would be your best friend.

Blissfully I now know where I can get a massive, and I do mean massive, generator if I should ever need it. And it's in a place that few would ever think to look, save maybe the people who it actually belongs to. But at a time like that they might even overlook it.

Don't they make cars that will burn vegetable oil? I thought I read something about that. Although at the end of civilization I think all the fast food restaurants would probably be closed...

vaporize is not the same thing as burn... vaporize is the process of liquid turning to gas.... if you're talking about turning solid into gas, that's sublimation

another thing- would need more know how than i have got, but electric fences now can be powered by solar thingies- seems like its an option to mess with those to get power- this leads me to my next idea- in adition to stuff books you would want to cultivate friendships with people who know a variety of things that you do not- like my friend the machineist, and my buddy the electrician- fortunately I know em from my everyday biz- so if the SHTF then its not that hard to get them together

guns. ammo. beer. pickup. Items needed for weekend in West Virginia, or the Apocalypse... you decide.

I think that survival would mean doing whatever is necessary, obviously what we would never consider under normal conditions. Remeber, other survivors will probably be doing the same so duck n cover too

i like how people think of survival in terms of "how long can i live by any means possible." "i need to isolate myself and my family from the entire rest of the world." i laugh

its pretty fucking obvious that the only way to truely survive is in groups of at least 20 or so. you cant possibly do everything that needs to be done with only a few people to do the work. knowledge would be the key to survival.....next would come supplies. how do you get the most knowledge and the most supplies? more people.

i could just see it though.....we'd probably all kill eachother in the first weeks out of panic and distrust. i know for a FACT that i'd try to get pretty much everyone of my close friends and their families and get the fuck out of my town. from there, it'd be so much easier to survive.

I don't understand why everyone wants to get the hell out of town. Towns and cities have a lot of resources. I do agree with banding together with others to form a group, saftey in numbers. I wouldn't mind taking my chances living in the city after the fall of society, as I believe I'm sufficently armed to handle a crowd of marauding people. Most likely, neighborhoods would band together, with the odd looney heading into the hills. This is the human social dynamic, and it's the reason why we live in big cities in the first place.

fewer people = fewer people to go off the deep end and become a threat- also, resources are limited in cities, and food hard to find/grow- if an average city in the us is cut off, its got, what, like three days worth of food on average for the population- as for banding together in small groups, good call, and effective....

well if society started to break down my station would probably send me down with the satellite truck to cover it. In anticipation of that I have extra tapes and batteries stored in the truck ;)

Fire, big cities have resources for everyone for three days, but who says that I'm going to share? Seriously, I would become a raider and take food and resources for my community from others.

I probably need to have a month or two of supplies and water. But assuming a worldwide breakdown in order rather than a nuclear or natural holocaust that kills most everybody, I'd try to get to a community that has most of what it needs to survive: access to water, food, transportation, even energy.

I live in a town like that. We're relatively near a major metro area, but separated by a barrier of mountains that could be enforced as a pretty good border. The weather is mild and we grow crops here all year long. We've got a lot of artsy craftsy shit going on, so we've got people who can weave and knit clothes and spin yarn, and we've even got sheep that can be sheared for wool. We're on the coast, so fish can be caught. The only reason this place isn't knee-deep in squid is that so much is caught for export; but if that stopped because of world-wide economic breakdown, we'd have more calamari than we could eat. There's a port, so we could access the outside world by sea even if the land was crap. And there are oilfields 50 miles away in a sparsely-populated area. So I think that my area, and probably some others like it, would find a way to hold things together come anything short of something that totally screws the environment or kills more than 50 percent of the population.

I've seen that movie. With Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner.
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0053137/