If Fallout were real...

[Neon Dingo]

YEA DYING RULES DUDE

You can die in modern times just as randomly, I fail to see how it's any different. Maybe it's more frequent or whatever in a post-apocalypse, but at least it's not some kind of pansy-ass world where everything is done for you.

Ha, but GOLDEN GLOBES PORN STUDIO SUCKED, I RECKON IT WAS A BIT OUT OF PLACE!

I was being sarcastic.

Because we have it WAAY to easy now a days. If youre fucking lazy you can just go down and get your social security check and drink it up or something. Were raised this way, life is easy...Anyways, point is, we evolved to fast and now our "animal" genes, insticnts and needs are bored to death. Cant you see? Dingos got a point here.

They don't see what I'm trying to say though because they're too dependant on the system. I'm glad you can see though.

People have become soft. They're too dependant on modern luxuries that are not needed. Sure, music is great. But you don't need it. The only reason it'd be boring without music is because you've had it all your life. If you never had readily available music and it was a rare occurance it'd be much more appreciated. Music is great, yes, but honestly you wouldn't be crying all day over missing it because after a while you'd come to realize that it isn't all that necessary, albeit was good while it lasted.

Men play sports, videogames, and "hunt" (Modern hunting is not really hunting, it's placing a large amount of food on the ground and waiting for animals to collect so you can play target practice from the tailgate of your pick-up truck) for a reason. Their male hunting instincts have become repressed in a consumer world. People have become subjugated. Why do we continue to see gangs? Because people need an outlet for their repressed agression and they have a natural tendency to band together. A gang is no different than a pack of wolves.

People weren't meant to sit in weather controlled boxes all day. They were meant to roam the wilderness. You cannot deny that.

Before you decide whether or not a post-apocalyptic world would "rule," think about whether or not you actually have the ability to survive in one. Really think about it. Most people have no clue whatsoever how to "stalk a deer through the forest with a handmade spear."

Right, and they'd die because they've failed at life. That's natural selection in a nutshell.

Next, think about how many people would just barely be scraping by in life, through subsistence farming or scavenging or bullying/killing.

That would be great. That's how it should be. Actually having to WORK for the things in life instead of walking up to the grocery store and buying a package of shrinkwrapped lunchmeat with a piece of plastic, using money that you didn't even earn. Too many things in this world are too easy. Our society actually aides the weak and the handicapped by supplying them with food that they didn't even earn. What a stupid idea. That just lets the weak thrive and swell into large numbers and it pisses in the gene pool. It creates overpopulation (a huge problem of modern society). That's not how nature works. The weak should die off so they don't become parasites off of the strong. Call it "cold hearted" all you want, but I just don't believe in that bullshit and it's not how nature works.

Culture would be shattered, and there wouldn't be many people with the time to make serious music, art, or literature - the saving graces of humanity.

First of all, "culture" is poison, good riddance to that. Secondly, who's to say that music, art, and literature can't still be created? It's not like you wouldn't get to the point where you'd not have any free time. If you banded together in small communities of course there'd be these sorts of things. Indians created some very intricate artwork and music. Most of their stories were told by word of mouth.

I also fail to see what makes this "culture" so important anyway. I'd actually have a much better time without all of the shit. Most of it is lies and sensationalist bullshit used to control the masses anyway.

Nuclear weapons would cut right through the bullshit like a hot knife through....bullshit.

I believe most of the people in these thread never experienced an extreme situation such as the one I suggested . First live throught that weekend , after that you can talk about believes and values all you want .

You'd be right about that. Those people would probably die. But me, I'm a survivalist. I've done quite a bit of camping and I adapt very well. I know how to make soap, I know how to treat all different types of wounds and injuries, I know how to make weapons, and I know how to make all sorts of shelters. I know how to do CPR, I know how to skin small and large game, and I know how to build a fire. I know just about everything you need to know to stay alive. It's not that fucking hard. You just have to stop becoming so helplessly dependant on machines to do all the work for you.

Hell, I'll admit it, modern luxuries are great. But they aren't worth it. They cause atrophy and they negate our biological purposes. We are a culture of excess.

You don't need a television. You don't need a car. You don't need any of that. It makes things too complicated and causes cancer.

[airsoft guy]

Well I personaly like the idea of living in a post-apocalyptic world, granted it would be a very hard life and death would be an everyday occurance, but still the idea is very lucrative, especially for the reasons set down by Neon Dingo. Personaly though I could not stalk a deer with a homemade spear. Why? Because I don't need to, we own firearms for that. Besides, hunting a deer al by your lonesom with a home made spear isn't the best way to get food, you lose so much energy doing it that you'll need to get back out there and kill yourself another one, that means it would be easier to gather your food, go out and find plants to eat until you found yourself a firearm or someone with one that would be willing to help you, of course you need have something to offer him, like a place in your tribe for him and his family. Unless you have firearms a life in the PA would be excedingly difficult and couldn't be done unless you had over 10 people who could devote much of their time to hunting and gathering. You're lucky if you live near water because then you can fish and that takes less energy than wandering around looking for berries. A water source also means you can stay in the same place year round because all sorts of critters come to the water to drink and you can use it for crops. Almost immediatly after an atomic attack you could start building a town, of course you have to wait a few days for the fallout and radiation to die down a bit (after 200 hours it's generaly safe to venture outside since all the super deadly radiation has broken down, that's how these things work, the more unstable something is, that's why it's radioactive, the shorter half life it has meaning it goes away quicker).

I'm rather lucky to live in Washington, and where I am especially, I'm far enough from Seattle that I don't have to worry about the initial blast and I'm still far enough away from Tacoma that not a whole lot will happen from there. Also we have those bigass rain forests on the Cascade Mountain Range where we could go and live, plenty of animals to hunt there, things grow very well and best of all everything we need to build stuff is right there, lots of trees to build cabins and for burning. We would have a problem with power since there's not a lot out there except logging camps and they are usually powered by generators so if we used those we would need to venture out and obtain fuel for those. Perhaps we could barter or just kill for it, I'd rather barter but if push comes to shove I'll be damned if I'm going to be dog food. Another good thing about Western Washington is that we have warm summers and rather mild winters, sure we've been known to have our winters turn your boys into testcicles, but for the most part it's still rather warm out here, nothing a roaring fire can't fix.

As much as I'd like to live in an PA I wouldn't want it to be exactly like Fallout, especially since in the real world more cars are going to be around so we don't have to walk everywhere, and the ground wouldn't be all scorched like that. Even if it was within a few years it would turn green again. About the only thing I really want from Fallout in an PA world is the interesting towns run by survivors who, if the bomb hadn't dropped, probably would have never been elected to run any public office, or really have the desire to anyways.

Here's my big gripe with the PA world, socialism is a good thing if you like to live. I love to live, but I hate it that my stuff is someone elses too. My town wouldn't have any of that nonsense, you wouldn't be forced to give anything up to nobody unless we were under attack or something like that. Being part of the militia would be almost manditory, important people wouldn't have to fight and neither would cripples. Members of the militia would do most of the hunting and gathering and fishing because it doubles as scouting, they also do the guarding and go along with our traiders for defense.

Most likely none of this is going to happen in our lifetime, it would be cool but I suppose the closest thing you could come to it would be a long hunting and fishing trip where you just lived off the land, only bringing the basics of survival with you, or if you like the idea of combat you could go and play in a paintball scenario game or airsoft, or you can sit down, open a Pepsi and play Fallout.

EDIT:
Men play sports, videogames, and "hunt" (Modern hunting is not really hunting, it's placing a large amount of food on the ground and waiting for animals to collect so you can play target practice from the tailgate of your pick-up truck) for a reason. Their male hunting instincts have become repressed in a consumer world. People have become subjugated. Why do we continue to see gangs? Because people need an outlet for their repressed agression and they have a natural tendency to band together. A gang is no different than a pack of wolves.

That's illegal and you can't do that unless you're doing it as pest control for predators like cougars and such, and even there they're not letting people do it anymore. There are still people who do go out and hunt, they stalk their prey or lie in wait for it using calls and such, sure it's modernized but it's still not that different from what people did hundreds of years ago.

[Walks with the Snails]

@ Neon Dingo

So in other words, we need to go back to being monkeys. Not sure if I'd call that progress. Your lauded natural selection is what helped us stop being monkeys.

If we're so horribly maladapted for modern times, the logical step would be to voluntarily change our genes and get rid of the caveman crap that's no longer adaptive to the world we've created for ourselves. It's most likely going to happen once people get used to the idea and ditch their hangups. The technology is almost there, it will just be a matter of using it. Natural selection is crap. It's random, inefficient, and most of all slow. At best, if we all went back to the Stone Age and stayed there, all it would do in a million years is make us a bit more muscular and adapted to mindless survival and reproduction, maybe ditch some of that higher thought that leads to our brains consuming so many resources and making childbirth difficult. That's a step back, not a step forward. What's natural selection going to do about making an insightful theoretical physicist, or a compassionate doctor, or a skilled musician? Bacteria can find food. Let machines do what our cavemen ancestors wasted all their time on, being mindless slaves to our bodies and appetites is exactly what we should move away from, not embrace.

[Nuclear Gandhi]

I strongly suggest you read 'Brave New World'.

[Neon Dingo]

So in other words, we need to go back to being monkeys. Not sure if I'd call that progress. Your lauded natural selection is what helped us stop being monkeys.

No, I never said anything about being monkeys. Monkeys are dirty, stupid, and smelly. We're not monkeys. We can solve complex problems and communicate in better ways than monkeys can.

I think our current modernized society is self-destructive. I think it would be progressive if we reverted back to a simpler life. There has to be a balance between man and environment, not a complete fucking domination and subjugation.

If we're so horribly maladapted for modern times, the logical step would be to voluntarily change our genes and get rid of the caveman crap that's no longer adaptive to the world we've created for ourselves. It's most likely going to happen once people get used to the idea and ditch their hangups. The technology is almost there, it will just be a matter of using it.

Yeah, that's not going to happen. We're actually not as advanced as we think we are. We're far off from being able to fuck around with DNA. We'll destroy ourselves before we start manipulating genes and irreversibly fucking ourselves over even more. Your idea is pretty stupid, to say the least. "Playing god" with DNA is pointless. We don't need to do that. We're just fine with what we have. There's no reason to create a race of super humans.

Natural selection is crap. It's random, inefficient, and most of all slow. At best, if we all went back to the Stone Age and stayed there, all it would do in a million years is make us a bit more muscular and adapted to mindless survival and reproduction, maybe ditch some of that higher thought that leads to our brains consuming so many resources and making childbirth difficult. That's a step back, not a step forward.

Not really. Evolution exists for a reason. You exist because of evolution. Millions and millions of years of what you call "slow and inefficient" evolving has brought us to the point where we can survive in a much more efficient and advanced manner than we could before. Hastily fucking around with DNA that we don't exactly know the ins and outs of is going to destroy those millions of years of perfection. Evolution is slow because it is precise and careful about making us as perfectly suited for the environment as possible. When scientists have control over your DNA so will the government. The government will alter it and create a race of zombies that only know how to sit and do office jobs all day.

Natural selection is not crap. That's probably the most bass-ackwards thing I've ever heard somebody say. Natural selection weeds out the parasites and gets rid of waste. It is highly efficient. Parasites that latch onto strong people and suck up their resources is what is inefficient. Basically what you are saying is that we should change the very inherent instincts of man.

Why don't we replace ourselves with fucking robots instead? I think that'd be a better idea. Robots wouldn't have to eat and they'd live for hundreds of years.

OH WAIT. Humans would cease to exist because the robots would kill us for being inefficient resource wasters.

At the rate we're going we're going to slurp up all of the remaining resources in the next 50 years. We need a good old-fashioned cleansing. Look at deer. If nothing hunts them, they thrive, and thrive, and thrive, and thrive, and thrive until there are no plants left. Then they die. That's what we're leading to. It's only a matter of time. Our technology for space colonies is too far behind to make up for the rapidly increasing population of the world.

What's natural selection going to do about making an insightful theoretical physicist, or a compassionate doctor, or a skilled musician? Bacteria can find food. Let machines do what our cavemen ancestors wasted all their time on, being mindless slaves to our bodies and appetites is exactly what we should move away from, not embrace.

Wasted all their time? Embrace machines? What? That sounds like a bunch of shit to me. What if all of the machines stopped working one day and our caveman genes have been deleted? We're pretty fucking screwed then. Machines never have a 100% error-free track record. I mean look at the power blackouts! What more proof do you need that machines are flawed and can't take care of us?

When the power goes out and we don't have "caveman genes" we'll just sit on the ground and have seizures and starve to death like a baby bird that has fallen out of the nest.

Those "caveman genes" are put there for a reason. They're a failsafe in case all the shit decides to hit the fan. Also, these horrible caveman genes you hate so much help you in your everyday life. Everything you do relates back to them in some way.

This is the kind of shit the church does. They force people to repress their "caveman" instincts to reproduce. They throw people into cages and beat them because they had "sinful thoughts" about a member of the opposite sex.

What if the church decides it would be a moral imperative to change our genes to where we can't have sexual thoughts about the opposite sex? What if these fuckers are in charge and they actually do that?

Don't you realize toying with genes is just stupid?

Repressing caveman instincts with science is no different than repressing it with religion.

[trythebill]

Neon Dingo, I would suggest a one weekend adventure, it would be more than enough for your survival needs, after that you would be happy to live in such boredom...
Travel to the wilderness, spent two days without eating and drinking water, walk or swim 25 km everyday, finally don’t sleep for those two days. After that your boring live with hot meals, a warm bed and no real work at all will look like paradise.

you guys are all fucking idiots, way to take a post out of the realm of relevancy. in the "fallout" world i don't think you would starve, die of exhaustion, or any of the other moronic things you all suggested. As long as you posses rudimentary knowledge of wilderness survival, firearms use, and a pair of balls you would be fine. If there was a massive population die-off food would not be hard to come by, there would still be some functioning vehicles left, and if not, you could always find a fucking bike you idiots. There are hundreds of ways to catch and kill food in the wilderness, people don't seem to realize that without a large number of humans stomping around the wild animal population would explode, leaving you easy and plentiful targets should you need food.

I think most people are not loners and would band together to form a collective and settle down, and they would be better off that way. As for me, i'd go at it alone. just me, my sks and a map and a compass, because as you may well know people as a whole are fucking idiots.

Don't think too hard about this, chances are you'd get shot in the face a week after it all happens by some survivalist redneck hiding in a tree anyway.

[InvisibleMonkey]

Living in a post-apacolypse would be really tough for the first few months, but then you would get used to it. You'd eventually work out some osrt of system and after time your survival instincts would kick in and it would be relatively easy. Also the human body is made to adapt it's environment and "we have evolution for a reason" as Dingo said to me earlier. I would probably want someone to travel with, the lack of people would probably drive me insane, actually now that I think about it, that could be kind of fun. I could be the crazy guy of the wastelands!

[airsoft guy]

You'd probably be the Chicken Fucker and we'd have to put you down, like Old Yeller, except you didn't kill the chicken, you just, um, had sex with it... and you're not a dog.

Back on topic though, people are essential to your survival or you will go insane, it's a rule of survival, your first thing is to make sure you're safe and to go over everything you have then you need to find shelter and to keep yourself dry and warm and then as you're waiting you need something to do, that's why if you go hunting or backpacking or camping out in the sticks you should have a book or a deck of cards. Those will only work for a few days, sure you'll be out there wandering around with your rifle but after about a week the mushroom people start kicking your ass in the night and somer hunters from a local town find you a month later caught in your own snare trap along with your journal. In this journal for the past 50 pages all it says is,"The mushroom people eat the sky!"

Oh and on the topic of hunting in the PA world, you're going to try and do that as easy as possible, so you're not going to be stalking so much as waiting for them to come after your salt lick. Maybe you're going to do everything the hardway and kill all the old people but I think the rest of us will try and rebuild the world and use the war to teach the wee children to never let it happen again. A cleansing is needed, yes, but that's a lot of people dead, a lot of good people, smart people, useful people. Granted the the gene pool will be cleaned of all the goose shit but you have to drain most of the pool to do it. I'm rather conflicted about this though, there are way too many people around. In 1850 the population of the planet reached 1 billion people, it took us millions of years to do that, and now in 150 years we have 6 billion people sucking up oxygen and pissing in our rivers, the population grows too fast, we need to stop it or slow it but I'm a fan of personal rights and keeping th governemnt out of my life, and I certainly don't wish an atomic war to happen, I'd like it to happen, but I don't wish it, and right now that's about the only solution I see.

[Neon Dingo]

It would be imperative that you band together. Humans are social animals and a coalition of say 4 or 5 people would be highly efficient and much safer. If I were in such a group I'd deem it necessary to "vote off" any member of the group that is unproductive, lazy, parasitic, or harmful to the existence of the others.

I'd much rather use a rifle than a spear, but it may be hard to obtain a rifle, given the conditions.

Those will only work for a few days, sure you'll be out there wandering around with your rifle but after about a week the mushroom people start kicking your ass in the night and somer hunters from a local town find you a month later caught in your own snare trap along with your journal. In this journal for the past 50 pages all it says is,"The mushroom people eat the sky!"

Hahahaha, that's pretty funny shit right there. Speaking of mushrooms, it'd be useful to know what plants are edible and what aren't. I own a U.S. Army Survival guide that has full color pictures of what's edible and what's not. It even has poisonous animals and animals that would make good clothing.

Mad Max aspirations aside, I'd really like to have a dog with me. Dogs have a very good sense smell, hearing, and night vision. They'd prove to be a great ally and would probably be even more useful if trained.

A post-apocalyptic world is a positive result extracted from a negative event. Many great people will die, and that sucks. Many who would have undoubtedly been great people to live in a PA world. I guess that's life though. Shit happens, even on a global scale.

[Aneurysm]

trythebill wrote:

blablabla fucking idiots , living in the fallout world would be an easy thing , plenty of food blablabla

But Bill that could only happen IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE !!!!!!



I got one word for you : RADIATION
For fuck sakes stop sitting in your couch drinking some soda and dreaming of living in the games you play , Neon expressed an interesting point of view on the way of life humankind has nowdays , but that is enough . Joining a bunch of movies ideas and tv series together so you can justify you would survive is just stupid. Madmax or the vault dweler wouldn't be there to save your ass , you fucking moron .

[Neon Dingo]

I got one word for you : RADIATION
For fuck sakes stop sitting in your couch drinking some soda and dreaming of living in the games you play , Neon expressed an interesting point of view on the way of life humankind has nowdays , but that is enough . Joining a bunch of movies ideas and tv series together so you can justify you would survive is just stupid. Madmax or the vault dweler wouldn't be there to save your ass , you fucking moron .

It doesn't actually HAVE to be a nuke (although all of my chips are on it), it could be a supervirus, a meteor, or some other freak natural disaster. But yeah, radiation would SUCK initially. Radiation at ground zero will remain for several decades. Living in an urban area is pure stupidity and is practically suicide.

Now ground zero aside, there's the fallout clouds. Fallout is basically tiny particles of beta radiation that looks like white powder when accumulated. If you ingest any fallout particles that may be on your food you will get very sick and possibly die or have your DNA mutated. Your children will have three eyes and a tail. Contrary to popular belief, food will not be irradiated by gamma rays (which pass through non-dense material and are invisible) from a nuke. A can of beans hit with gamma rays will not do anything to make it harmful (In fact, it would probably kill off bacteria). It's the fallout particles that cause the real harm. They travel for several hundred miles by wind and coat EVERYTHING. Going outside and inhaling a nice big whiff of fallout will more than likely kill you or irreversibly fuck you up.

I found a REALLY good site concerning surviving a nuclear catastrophe. Here are some of the 23 common myths regarding survival.

MYTH #01: Almost everyone will suddenly be killed on doomsday.
MYTH #02: Most people would be quickly killed by the bomb blasts, thermal radiation, or radioactivity.
MYTH #03: You can build an adequate shelter in your basement.
MYTH #04: You must filter the air coming into a shelter to remove the fallout.
MYTH #05: Water would become radioactive.
MYTH #06: There would be no dangerous radioactivity after a couple of weeks.
MYTH #07: Radiation sickness is not contagious so there is no danger in assisting those affected.
MYTH #08: Food exposed to radiation becomes radioactive and is therefore not edible.
MYTH #09: If you have a special radiation suit (like you see in the movies and on TV) you will be protected from the radiation.
MYTH #10: New crops of food grown in future years will not be radioactive.
MYTH #11: There is no such thing as a fallout pill.
MYTH #12: There is a fallout pill that will protect you from all radioactivity.
MYTH #13: There would be dangerous radioactivity for thousands of years.
MYTH #14: There would be no dangerous radioactivity after a couple of years.

http://www.ki4u.com/survive/doomsday.htm

I highly recommend giving this site a read if you're interested at all, even in the slightest, in post-nuclear survival.

[airsoft guy]

There are two things you need to understand, Mad Max is here for the gas and the Vault Dweller is a bitch compared to Mad Max, if they ever met Mad Max would kick the Vault Swellers ass and make him wear a skirt, unless you're a cheater then the game crashes because you can't beat Mad Max.

Now then, all late night rambling aside, there are places that in the event of a nuclear exchange wouldn't get too much radiation from fallout. Sure if I'm living in Seattle and the Ruskies decide to blow away the Experence Music Project I'm bonered, hardcore bonered, even if I did survive the blast I will die within a few days if I'm lucky. But since you would be able to tell if an atomic war is comming a lot of people would flee the cities in the weeks and days before the attack and go somplace they think is safe, currently there are a lot of places that are safe because there are fewer nukes for them to let fly with. I mean all you really have to do is go out where no one is going to shoot and wait, if there is a war stay inside for at least 8 days, maybe a few weeks to be on the safe side and then come on out and band together and rebuild the world. We shouldn't think it's fun, but what can I say? We're sick individuals, and besides, what's life if we can't at least fantasize about losing it in a gunfight in a bombed out city? You know what it is? It's like masturbation without the cleanup, a simple fantasy, some people are into S&M I'm into P&A. Here's a Kleenex.

Onto the topic of obtaining firearms, go out and get one. I think everyone should own at least one gun for protection, unless you're a felon or something like that, you know, there are rules still to who can and can't have a firearm. They're not that expensive or that difficult to get as long as you pass the backround check, and now you usually don't have the 5 day waiting period thanks to NICS(National Instant Check System) unless you live in particularly socialist state.

My dog is worthless, he's deaf and fat and stupid, but I still love him, I'll keep him in town, out of trouble.

I also get my info from a U.S. Armed Forces survival guide that I swiped from my dad, it's not much but it tells you the basics of surviving in different situations. The pictures are not color, and they're not pictures, they're drawings. I don't care, I know enough people willing to help me who know shit because i can help them and I know other shit.

[axelgreese]

First of all, "culture" is poison, good riddance to that. Secondly, who's to say that music, art, and literature can't still be created? It's not like you wouldn't get to the point where you'd not have any free time. If you banded together in small communities of course there'd be these sorts of things. Indians created some very intricate artwork and music. Most of their stories were told by word of mouth.

I also fail to see what makes this "culture" so important anyway. I'd actually have a much better time without all of the shit. Most of it is lies and sensationalist bullshit used to control the masses anyway.

Yes, the native americans created a very nice culture didn't they?

[Grey Fil]

Well lets see:

A world where the life expectancy at birth is 25, where there is no treatment for a toothache, where the water may be heavily poluted and radioctive. Where I eat sick rats for breackfast and where I do not trust anybody because they may kill me to steal the few possesions I have.

Hell Yeah, I would give up my couch anytime! :roll:

[CF]

I see the point here. While I don't agree that living in a post-nuclear world would rule, I would like a world/society based upon the original points of the first post. I've often pondered the idea of moving to New Zealand (where I was born) and go live there as a wilderness tour guide or something.
I just don't like society as it is now.

[Insane-Lark]

CF I have a friend in NZ who has a store for sale in Orangue. Nice biz if you don't mind week long mail routs combined with deliveries & the roads washing out in the rains. He, his wife & daughter lived there for a good while until she decided that there is such a thing as too rural & being paid in chickens for services rendered isn't a positive. Ever hear the Roger Waters song Go Fishing?

As for me in a Post Apoc world. No. I have lived without electricity, know how to dress out food etc but who wants to live without any modern ammenities? Not this wench. Makes an interesting fantasy but the reality would suck.

[Neon Dingo]

Onto the topic of obtaining firearms, go out and get one.

I'm only 17 (turnin' 18 soon) so my hands are tied for another couple of months. But I think you're right, everyone should have one for protection, except the people that are too stupid to recognize their worth as a useful tool.

Oh yeah, I also agree with you about Mad Max. He's the most hardcore there is, really.

A world where the life expectancy at birth is 25, where there is no treatment for a toothache, where the water may be heavily poluted and radioctive. Where I eat sick rats for breackfast and where I do not trust anybody because they may kill me to steal the few possesions I have.

Actually, when you think about it, life would probably not be dissimilar from frontier life in the 1800s. The life expectancy of a frontier settler was around 50 years, which is not bad, not bad at all. I actually don't want to get old and slowly rot to death living to 80 sitting in an old folks home playing checkers all day anyway. I'd rather have a shorter, but more fulfilling life than a longer, boring existence in suburbia.

Toothcare is probably THE significant factor in upping the decades of one's lifespan. Decent toothcare is not hard to achieve, really. You may not have toothpaste, but other methods can be used. Hell, if you know anything you should know that you can brush your teeth with baking powder. Baking powder is actually better for you than toothpaste because it doesn't have all the artificial sweeteners, preservatives, or dyes. Corn starch, bicarbonate of soda, sodium aluminum sulfate, calcium phosphate acids, all found in nature.

Furthermore, water cannot be radioactive if you store it right, and you don't have to live in polluted areas if you're smart and know how to navigate the country.

[Megatron]

It would suck. First of all, most domestic animals and people would die. Could you imagine the smell? Buildings would burn down easily, no medicine, no electricity and no more food besides stuff growing nearby. Mabye you could use a car and a bike for a while, but after one or two years they'd have become damaged/stolen.

Going hunting with a spear? In most areas the wildlife isn't exactly pouring with big animals. Smaller animals are usually to fast and stringy.
Mabye you could kill a few cows, go to a zoo, but otherwise I doubt many of us have fields full of deer nearby. Even if you did, wouldn't you have to track it, leave supplys behind etc. Hunting with a gun would be fine if you had enough ammunition, could look after a gun and all that other shit. You'd be better off eating vegetables for a while, mabye finding a farm and looking after it.

It would be hard to group together. It would probably be more worth-while to kill someone for boots, food etc.

And if the world was nuked, wouldn't most people be sterile?

[Spazmo]

Dingo, I think you're completely missing the point of humanity's evolution.

Every successful species has one or more often several distinguishing characteristics that allow it to survive and thrive in our world. A tiger, for example, has big teeth, claws and can move very quickly, allowing it to survive in it's habitat. Mice are small, quick and able to scavenge and food they might need.

We humans have a different strong suit: our intelligence and ingenuity. This has allowed us to develop science and culture (these decadent luxuries you keep jabbering about) to overcome our physical shortcomings. Natural selection has molded us into the humanity you see all around you. Even if a large number of people managed to survive in a bleak post-apocalyptic world (which is admittedly likely due to our species' resilience), they would strive not to be nomadic, half-feral hunter-gatherers, but rather to rebuild everything we had before. There would, of course, be those splinter groups who would either seek to live off of others by theivery or foolishly try to survive alone, but the great bulk would form communities and thence civilizations. That's just how humanity works. We are not crazy loners who survive based on instinct and guts and whatnot. We form communties and build things.

Just read David Brin's The Postman. Maybe you'll grow a clue. Or are books another component of our filthy decadent modern society?

[Ernesto]

Neon Dingo, most of Western Society would have a hard time adjusting to such an environ. We are too dependant on electricity. Hell, look at the power outage. The change would be too fast for most people to respond effectively.

Personally, I would like to live in a "modern Dark Ages." The collaspe of gobal communications,(Or maybe the destruction of electronics. Like, a massive EMP blast.) cities and towns would form city states and their own provinces and the like. We would still have cars and computers, but what will power them? Most pockets of society would only trade for food and water.