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A Disease of Prosperity

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  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,663 Member
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    It wouldn't even need to be anything cataclysmic. Power going off for a few hours drives people into madness and desperation.
    If it happened, then the old addage "The strongest will survive" will again be the reality. I'd be looking to hook up with Bear Grylls.

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  • laur357
    laur357 Posts: 896 Member
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    There are many things you lose when you advance technologically, and we're in an era of rapid technological advancement. Populations are pushed to focus all their energy to continue to advance (focus on STEM education instead of arts/humanities/skilled labor, for instance) - we don't have to work as hard or remember as much "old/survival" knowledge because technology does that for us. (Calculators, industrial machinery, hot water heaters, GPS, the list is endless) We're also not used to discomfort - temperature extremes, minor aches and pains, hunger - because unless you're very poor, you can spend a minute or two fixing the discomfort without having to work for it. (In the US, obviously some of this is very different in other parts of the world.)

    Hell, I'm in my early thirties and still have all my teeth and have spare time in my day to let myself drive a car to a gym and run on a treadmill going nowhere for 45 minutes, then feel inconvenienced because I had to spend 8 minutes in the store buying a whole pound of butter on my way home. That is mystifying and incredible, and I would be completely screwed if I had to survive in a catastrophic situation.

    Technology, as a whole, is created and advanced to make life easier and more efficient. But we didn't really have time to map out the ways an easier and more efficient life might impact our bodies, minds, health, and happiness overall. Yes, we're soft. Prosperity and technology did a great deal to make us that way, and we're becoming dependent on it for overall survival. Only time will tell if it's a good thing or a bad one.
  • chocolate_owl
    chocolate_owl Posts: 1,695 Member
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    It's not just our fitness. We have no idea how to do anything without the Internet anymore. We'd be relearning survival from square one.
    snowflake954 wrote: »
    What I fnd really strange in our luxury world of today is the unhappiness and depression everywhere. Everytime I go home to the States more and more people among family and friends are depressed. It's an epidemic. It always leaves me puzzled. People that have much more than I had as a kid and it doesn't make them happy or serene. Very sad. For the OP--what are people that can hardly walk goning to do if catastrofie hits? Not a pretty picture.

    I've wondered often if the depression epidemic is related to our sedentary lifestyles, and to some degree, not fulfilling our evolutionary "purpose." Are our bodies bored? Are our minds bored by getting most of our stimulation from screens, only using our senses of sight and hearing? I think if we were suddenly out in "the wild" day in and day out, it would be a huge shock to our system, not just from our new levels of physical activity, but how our minds are stimulated and how we perceive the world around us. Also, I wonder if we live too long. Many now live several decades longer than they would have 100 years ago, but very few have the quality of life to truly enjoy their additional years.

    A few reasons why I'd die off almost immediately:
    -I'm a slow runner with overly tight hip flexors from constantly sitting.
    -I sleep on a cushy mattress on my side. I wouldn't get any sleep for a while because I'd be so uncomfortable on the ground, so I'd be exhausted.
    -I know absolutely nothing about how to forage for food, and Siri wouldn't be available to tell me if that berry is poisonous or not.
    -While I'm a decent engineer and could probably design a shelter, I don't think I have the strength or the skills to gather materials and assemble it.
    -I've never tried to start a fire of any kind. Ever. Not in a fireplace, not on a grill. Fire scares the crap out of me. And now I have to do it by making sparks instead of using a match or lighter? Pardon me while I freeze to death over here.
    -Me going hunting (with a spear??)? Lol. Maybe fishing. I could probably fish, but with my luck, we're in the middle of some nuclear apocalypse and all the fish are radioactive.
  • French_Peasant
    French_Peasant Posts: 1,639 Member
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    crzycatlady1 wrote: »
    cdavison2014 wrote: »
    Could we grow enough of our own food in our backyards with a few chickens to subsist? Could we heat our homes without electricity or gas delivered effortlessly to us? Could we provide ourselves with drinkable water? Interesting to think that moving even in small steps toward these could make us more fit and able to self-rely.

    In situations like pp mentioned we'd be raiding and fighting to the death for necessities like food and weapons. Having chickens and a garden would paint a big bullseye on you :D

    I have to agree.

    There is a huge Amish population in my area, and a huge Amish population outside of Philly...once those cities empty out of people who think they can find all the food they need in the country, the Amish--the people best positioned to survive a cataclysm, and share their knowledge with the rest of us--would be absolutely overrun, their traction animals and production animals slaughtered, their seed corn devoured, and I don't even want to think about what would happen to their wives and children at the hands of a mob. It would be the same situation for any farmer, although the non-pacifist ones would go down with perhaps a brisker fight.

    And it would be extremely difficult to hide the copious amounts of food and production infrastructure required to keep a family alive.

    Assuming I need 3500 calories to maintain in "peasant" mode (which is an underestimation...just going off what I burn today during garden playtime) I would need 50 eggs a day to meet my calorie needs. So that would probably require 60 or 70 chickens, JUST for me, not for my husband or my two children, and that is assuming summertime production--many hens stop laying in the winter time.

    Or 14 lbs apples (from established trees at least several years old).

    Or 10 lbs potatoes (I hand-planted and dug 50 lbs of potatoes this past year....hard work for fancy little gourmet fingerlings. I probably spent more calories than I produced. Actually, I punched in some numbers and I might have produced a 14,000 calorie surplus).

    Or 1.5 gallons whole milk (just raising show rabbits requires significant infrastructure, investment and knowledge...I cannot even imagine with a cow).

    Or 17 lbs of dandelion greens (a little less than a bushel).

    Every day.

    Ideally it would be some combination thereof, but this illustrates the huge amount of food needed to meet the requirements of just a smallish laborer. Fats and sugars, two of our biggest bugbears today, would be items of extreme desperation and desire. There is apparently a thing called "rabbit starvation" where you are attempting to subsist off of meats that are too lean.
  • crzycatlady1
    crzycatlady1 Posts: 1,930 Member
    edited January 2017
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    chocolate_owl wrote: »
    It's not just our fitness. We have no idea how to do anything without the Internet anymore. We'd be relearning survival from square one.
    snowflake954 wrote: »
    What I fnd really strange in our luxury world of today is the unhappiness and depression everywhere. Everytime I go home to the States more and more people among family and friends are depressed. It's an epidemic. It always leaves me puzzled. People that have much more than I had as a kid and it doesn't make them happy or serene. Very sad. For the OP--what are people that can hardly walk goning to do if catastrofie hits? Not a pretty picture.

    I've wondered often if the depression epidemic is related to our sedentary lifestyles, and to some degree, not fulfilling our evolutionary "purpose." Are our bodies bored? Are our minds bored by getting most of our stimulation from screens, only using our senses of sight and hearing? I think if we were suddenly out in "the wild" day in and day out, it would be a huge shock to our system, not just from our new levels of physical activity, but how our minds are stimulated and how we perceive the world around us. Also, I wonder if we live too long. Many now live several decades longer than they would have 100 years ago, but very few have the quality of life to truly enjoy their additional years.

    A few reasons why I'd die off almost immediately:
    -I'm a slow runner with overly tight hip flexors from constantly sitting.
    -I sleep on a cushy mattress on my side. I wouldn't get any sleep for a while because I'd be so uncomfortable on the ground, so I'd be exhausted.
    -I know absolutely nothing about how to forage for food, and Siri wouldn't be available to tell me if that berry is poisonous or not.
    -While I'm a decent engineer and could probably design a shelter, I don't think I have the strength or the skills to gather materials and assemble it.
    -I've never tried to start a fire of any kind. Ever. Not in a fireplace, not on a grill. Fire scares the crap out of me. And now I have to do it by making sparks instead of using a match or lighter? Pardon me while I freeze to death over here.
    -Me going hunting (with a spear??)? Lol. Maybe fishing. I could probably fish, but with my luck, we're in the middle of some nuclear apocalypse and all the fish are radioactive.

    We've actually had pretty in-depth discussions with some family members about a catastrophic disaster situation and one of the biggest problems initially we think would be water quality. My husband has done work on our local water treatment plant and the backup system will work for one week, before it totally goes off line. My mother-in-law actually wants to stock up on chlorine tablets but so far we've talked her out of it lol.

    But, in these types of situations you'd most likely be breaking into other houses to forage/sleep (so not building shelters or sleeping on the ground), you'd spend most of your time hiding (so not a lot of running), you wouldn't be building a lot of fires because they attract attention, and I don't know that a whole lot of traditional hunting would be taking place-you'd most likely be taking canned/boxed goods from houses and any stores that haven't already been thoroughly looted.

    We actually have a semi-serious plan in place where if something big happened and we survived the initial disaster we'd head to the lake (we live 45 minutes away from one of the Great Lakes by car, a couple hours by kayak if we took the nearby river that feeds into it), and commandeer a sail boat (ours is at a marina on the lake but not by where the river dumps into). Getting away from people is probably going to help your chances of survival quite a bit :p

    Note to self: stop reading Dystopian/Post-Apocalyptic books....

    :D
  • Cylphin60
    Cylphin60 Posts: 863 Member
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    chocolate_owl wrote: »
    It's not just our fitness. We have no idea how to do anything without the Internet anymore. We'd be relearning survival from square one.
    snowflake954 wrote: »
    What I fnd really strange in our luxury world of today is the unhappiness and depression everywhere. Everytime I go home to the States more and more people among family and friends are depressed. It's an epidemic. It always leaves me puzzled. People that have much more than I had as a kid and it doesn't make them happy or serene. Very sad. For the OP--what are people that can hardly walk goning to do if catastrofie hits? Not a pretty picture.

    I've wondered often if the depression epidemic is related to our sedentary lifestyles, and to some degree, not fulfilling our evolutionary "purpose." Are our bodies bored? Are our minds bored by getting most of our stimulation from screens, only using our senses of sight and hearing? I think if we were suddenly out in "the wild" day in and day out, it would be a huge shock to our system, not just from our new levels of physical activity, but how our minds are stimulated and how we perceive the world around us. Also, I wonder if we live too long. Many now live several decades longer than they would have 100 years ago, but very few have the quality of life to truly enjoy their additional years.

    A few reasons why I'd die off almost immediately:
    -I'm a slow runner with overly tight hip flexors from constantly sitting.
    -I sleep on a cushy mattress on my side. I wouldn't get any sleep for a while because I'd be so uncomfortable on the ground, so I'd be exhausted.
    -I know absolutely nothing about how to forage for food, and Siri wouldn't be available to tell me if that berry is poisonous or not.
    -While I'm a decent engineer and could probably design a shelter, I don't think I have the strength or the skills to gather materials and assemble it.
    -I've never tried to start a fire of any kind. Ever. Not in a fireplace, not on a grill. Fire scares the crap out of me. And now I have to do it by making sparks instead of using a match or lighter? Pardon me while I freeze to death over here.
    -Me going hunting (with a spear??)? Lol. Maybe fishing. I could probably fish, but with my luck, we're in the middle of some nuclear apocalypse and all the fish are radioactive.

    Well aren't you just a ray of confident sunshine!

    j/k :D Just teasing...

    My wife and I are not survivalists by any stretch of the imagination, but we do spend an awful lot of time doing things the old fashioned way, on purpose. Reading real books, carpentry with only basic hand tools, cooking and grilling over an open fire we started, when able to safely do so.

    We both also "Unplug" quite a bit during the warmer months.

    Survival with only the basics can be grueling. Survival during a worst case scenario, think WW3, would likely limit an awful lot of lives to hours or days, much less weeks/months/years.

    That said, I strongly encourage people to learn the basics. How to start a fire in the wild, build shelters, trap and hunt, clean and cook fresh kills. That may not sound very appealing to some people, but if theories about the age of the earth and the advent of civilization are even close to being accurate, then we are not that far removed from those roots to begin with.

    Couple that with the thought that civilization is, as some people believe, quite fragile. We in the west are quite sheltered these days. That may not last.


    /gets off his little soapbox lol
  • crzycatlady1
    crzycatlady1 Posts: 1,930 Member
    edited January 2017
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    Cylphin60 wrote: »
    chocolate_owl wrote: »
    It's not just our fitness. We have no idea how to do anything without the Internet anymore. We'd be relearning survival from square one.
    snowflake954 wrote: »
    What I fnd really strange in our luxury world of today is the unhappiness and depression everywhere. Everytime I go home to the States more and more people among family and friends are depressed. It's an epidemic. It always leaves me puzzled. People that have much more than I had as a kid and it doesn't make them happy or serene. Very sad. For the OP--what are people that can hardly walk goning to do if catastrofie hits? Not a pretty picture.

    I've wondered often if the depression epidemic is related to our sedentary lifestyles, and to some degree, not fulfilling our evolutionary "purpose." Are our bodies bored? Are our minds bored by getting most of our stimulation from screens, only using our senses of sight and hearing? I think if we were suddenly out in "the wild" day in and day out, it would be a huge shock to our system, not just from our new levels of physical activity, but how our minds are stimulated and how we perceive the world around us. Also, I wonder if we live too long. Many now live several decades longer than they would have 100 years ago, but very few have the quality of life to truly enjoy their additional years.

    A few reasons why I'd die off almost immediately:
    -I'm a slow runner with overly tight hip flexors from constantly sitting.
    -I sleep on a cushy mattress on my side. I wouldn't get any sleep for a while because I'd be so uncomfortable on the ground, so I'd be exhausted.
    -I know absolutely nothing about how to forage for food, and Siri wouldn't be available to tell me if that berry is poisonous or not.
    -While I'm a decent engineer and could probably design a shelter, I don't think I have the strength or the skills to gather materials and assemble it.
    -I've never tried to start a fire of any kind. Ever. Not in a fireplace, not on a grill. Fire scares the crap out of me. And now I have to do it by making sparks instead of using a match or lighter? Pardon me while I freeze to death over here.
    -Me going hunting (with a spear??)? Lol. Maybe fishing. I could probably fish, but with my luck, we're in the middle of some nuclear apocalypse and all the fish are radioactive.

    Well aren't you just a ray of confident sunshine!

    j/k :D Just teasing...

    My wife and I are not survivalists by any stretch of the imagination, but we do spend an awful lot of time doing things the old fashioned way, on purpose. Reading real books, carpentry with only basic hand tools, cooking and grilling over an open fire we started, when able to safely do so.

    We both also "Unplug" quite a bit during the warmer months.

    Survival with only the basics can be grueling. Survival during a worst case scenario, think WW3, would likely limit an awful lot of lives to hours or days, much less weeks/months/years.

    That said, I strongly encourage people to learn the basics. How to start a fire in the wild, build shelters, trap and hunt, clean and cook fresh kills. That may not sound very appealing to some people, but if theories about the age of the earth and the advent of civilization are even close to being accurate, then we are not that far removed from those roots to begin with.

    Couple that with the thought that civilization is, as some people believe, quite fragile. We in the west are quite sheltered these days. That may not last.


    /gets off his little soapbox lol

    This. Millions would die within a few days/weeks just from of lack of medical care and access to prescriptions. I'm sure we all know people who take prescription drugs to function. Or have family/friends who are in cancer treatments, use dialysis, etc etc. If those things were suddenly no longer available a lot of people would die very quickly. Not to mention those in nursing homes etc. One of the ways we're 'soft' now is that we have access to medical care that allows otherwise sick/infirmed people to live. Take that away and yeah-not a pretty picture.
  • Cylphin60
    Cylphin60 Posts: 863 Member
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    Just a thought. The thread is titled "Disease of Prosperity."

    If it's a disease, what's the cure?

    Not sure I'd want to be part of any control group used to research that....nope.
  • French_Peasant
    French_Peasant Posts: 1,639 Member
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    chocolate_owl wrote: »

    A few reasons why I'd die off almost immediately:
    -I'm a slow runner with overly tight hip flexors from constantly sitting.

    xvhl6ky7bcs9.jpg

  • T1DCarnivoreRunner
    T1DCarnivoreRunner Posts: 11,502 Member
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    Since I would die within a few days of running out of insulin, I would definitely not survive a major society-collapsing disaster. Sure, the first thing I would do is raid pharmacies, but whatever I get won't last indefinitely.

    As to long-term human survival, we have to be realistic.... humans will be extinct within a century, more or less, anyway. Has anyone been paying attention to the latest climate change information?! We have already begun to see some rather unusual climate patterns and natural disasters that can be contributed to global climate change. As time goes on, flooding will continue with greater frequency and affecting larger land areas. Those who survive will relocate inland. Food insecurity will continue to increase as food growth declines due to climate and due to greater habitation of existing farm land.
  • Cylphin60
    Cylphin60 Posts: 863 Member
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    i'd rather have a zombie apocalypse.

    *looks around da hood....*

    It may have already happened. blah
  • French_Peasant
    French_Peasant Posts: 1,639 Member
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    Gamliela wrote: »
    I lived in two different small towns in Italy, one a mountain town on the east and earthquaky side of the Appenines, another in the south near the Adriatic sea in Calabria. Both towns were organized in such a way that the majority of houses had access to large areas of land which were planted with grapes, nut or fruit trees, gardens and stone sheds for chickens and goats. The women were out everyday, managing the garden, hqnging the daily wash out, and tending milking etc the animals, rain, snow or sun. Their houses, even in winter had the windows and shutters open to the air a good part of the day amd smoke coming out of the chimneys. So my take away to you is, move to a small medieval town in modern Italy? No, no, I left. Too backward, there is a lot of superstition and strangeness that goes with that way of life which, trust me, none of us would be prepared for either that goes right along with not being physically tough enough to endure that life. I don't have the solution to centralization of food products, long distance shipping of food products, mechanization of everything, and the delocalization of products, or that families no longer take care of one another and neither do governments care. Sorry to end this on a dark note.
    edited with an apology.

    What kinds of superstition and strangeness? Sounds like the start to a good mystery novel! The way you describe it already sets such a vivid scene.
  • WallyAmadeus
    WallyAmadeus Posts: 119 Member
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    We now have an exceptionally efficient food distribution system which can take avocados across the country in the dead of winter and give us processed foods which have a 100 year shelf life. We now have more people working in service positions than in positions requiring manual labor. Our environment has changed, and so the outcomes of that environment...abundant high calorie, nutrient poor food...service positions which are high on stress, but low on calorie burn. 50 years ago, people didn't chose to be lean...food was more expensive, cars were more expensive, earning a living was based upon physical skill/strength.
  • amusedmonkey
    amusedmonkey Posts: 10,330 Member
    edited January 2017
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    Gallowmere1984 wrote: »
    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    Humans are unbelievably resilient, more resilient than you would think. Syria had all the luxuries someone in the first world has. People were generally living comfortable lives. Now, a war torn country where food is scarce and healthcare is nearly nonexistent, people are who haven't been killed have adapted to survival. If anything happens, of course some will not survive it, just like any disaster, but you would be surprised how tough some seemingly "soft" people are.

    This is a very good point. Another modern example of this would be the blockade and siege on Sarajevo in the early 90s. Dig up some of the interviews with the private citizens who lived through that, if you want an idea of just how resilient and cooperative humans can be when forced.

    It basically became an environment where lighters and toilet paper were extremely valuable forms of currency. We always seem to worry about food and shelter, but even in a huge city, facing permanent blocks on aid, sanitation and the like were a much bigger priority. A human can survive a long while without food. A bad case of cholera or dysentery can wipe you out in short order.

    Very good example. Humans have a tendency to organize and help each other after the initial chaos of a disaster cools down, and they make do with whatever they have. That post apocalyptic scene where people go into this survival mode killing each other, looting, and running from danger is just the initial stage. We often know, consciously or not, that cooperation gives us a better chance for survival and we instinctively organize. There would still be looters and killers, but many of them would be alienated by the group making their chance for survival smaller and gradually weeding many of them out.

    While not a disaster, just an example of how people make do when they no longer have access to their usual comforts. I remember back in my teens the car broke down and we got stranded in the middle of nowhere. That was before cell phones were a thing, but we did live a reasonably comfortable life back then. We dipped the car cleaning rag into the gas tank and used it along with throw away paper and some pieces of wood that were laying around to start a fire to keep warm because it was nearly nightfall and it was getting cold, while my step dad attempted to fix the car. We had never had to start a real fire before that outside of things like grills where tools make it easier, but we managed. Then we slept in the car all crammed together in the backseat for warmth covering ourselves with windshield covers. In the morning, my mom walked about 15-20 kilometers to the nearest town to get help. My step dad has heart disease so she was the best candidate for the task. My step dad played games with us to make waiting for mom less stressful. A few hours later she was back with help. The man who helped us took us to his house where we met his family and were offered food. There, we were able to call relatives and he sent a tow truck to the location. This pales in comparison with a real disaster that lasts days if not years, but does show that even without our phones, heaters, comfortable beds and luxuries we can still function when thrust into it, we just prefer the comforts when they are available. In that incident, we instinctively knew how to assess our immediate needs and prioritise them, perform tasks we were not familiar with and pick the right people for the right tasks.

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