<font color=8fbc8f>After spending some time in a complete civilian environment for a few hours, it occured to me.

If the world as we know it... fell apart... who could survive? Think back to the "Great Depression".

1. Can you start a fire?
2. Do you have a real fireplace?
3. Could you cook from an open flame?
4. Can you swab, lube, load, pack, trim, and fire a black powder gun?
5. Do you own a black powder gun?
6. Could you dress, skin, quarter, salt and cure a hog? Cow? Deer?
7. Gulp, could you make it without the internet?
8. Can you use a map, protractor and compass?
9. Do you know at least what grid square you live in?
10.Can you run a trot line?
11.Could you drink pure water from the melting of the morning frost as opposed to 'bottled' water?
12.If the electricty stop flowing, you could not recharge your cell phone!

</font>

Not blackpowder, or even a real gun (thank you, firearms canada), but for the rest, all yes. Gotta love a father who was raised on reserve and hunted for food.

knowing all of those things isnt going to get you that far, if the world as we knew it were to end many of those things would likely be irrelevent.

For the first few years if most of the population were decimated the first question would be do you want to continue on in this bleak world? yes then youll need to learn how to raid the many supermarkets for canned goods. There would likely be plenty of other useful merchandise up for grabs like matches grills etc. For things you do not know how to do simply raid the bookstore or library for how to books. If the world in question were flung even further back for whatever reason you would definatly need to first know how to farm and catch small animals or fish. Cooking those animals or vegetables would be an entirely different matter and likely optional to the very hungry.

As for weaponry....dont think its terribly feasable to be firing a weapon that uses such a large amount of hard to find things like metal and black powder. Would need to learn how to craft a bow and arrow as well as how to shoot said items, or a blow dart gun with herbal knowledge of poisons. for close combat you would need to know how to sharpen a stick to use as a pike.

Granted, why not simply have a store of canned food enough for several months anyway?

After spending some time in a complete civilian environment for a few hours, it occured to me.

If the world as we know it... fell apart... who could survive? Think back to the "Great Depression".

1. Can you start a fire?
Ummm I think I could. I mean there still is matches right?
2. Do you have a real fireplace?
No but a fire pit outside.
3. Could you cook from an open flame?
Yes
4. Can you swab, lube, load, pack, trim, and fire a black powder gun?
Ummm no(Canada no guns ;)
5. Do you own a black powder gun?
LOL no
6. Could you dress, skin, quarter, salt and cure a hog? Cow? Deer?
No
7. Gulp, could you make it without the internet?
Yes No need to pay bills right?
8. Can you use a map, protractor and compass?
Yes Thanks to sailing. ;)
9. Do you know at least what grid square you live in?
If I have a map. Instead of grid do you mean LSD?
10.Can you run a trot line?
I think.
11.Could you drink pure water from the melting of the morning frost as opposed to 'bottled' water?
Yes of coarse.
12.If the electricty stop flowing, you could not recharge your cell phone!
Bah cell phones are gay. [img]smile.gif[/img]

1. Can you start a fire?
With matches [img]smile.gif[/img]

2. Do you have a real fireplace?
4, actually :D

3. Could you cook from an open flame?
Sure.

4. Can you swab, lube, load, pack, trim, and fire a black powder gun?
I can fire and load but, what's the fun of that when you can use Bow, Arrow and Blade

5. Do you own a black powder gun?
No, but a bow, some arrows and lots of axes, and different sized blades.

6. Could you dress, skin, quarter, salt and cure a hog? Cow? Deer?
I can kill it if that's what you mean :D

7. Gulp, could you make it without the internet?
Sure.

8. Can you use a map, protractor and compass?
Map and compass, yes. But what's a pro-trac-tor? :D

9. Do you know at least what grid square you live in?
A square one? :D

10. Can you run a trot line?
?!

11. Could you drink pure water from the melting of the morning frost as opposed to 'bottled' water?
We've got snow and ice so I'd probably drink the snow.

12. If the electricty stop flowing, you could not recharge your cell phone!
So, what's your point?! [img]smile.gif[/img]

Born a city boy, but raised a country boy. I can hunt, shoot, clean and cook just about any game, never shot a buffalo, but it can't be that different. However, it would depend a lot on just how the world goes, wouldn't it. If it's Mad Max style, then I'd survive, for a bit, I'm pretty sure. I own no guns, but do have plenty of sharp pointy things around me, and a history of life in the streets, so physical confrontations would not be a deterrent. No cell phones: Priceless.

Wow, Felix, you just described pretty much all of rural Southwest Alaska. Of course we'd replace trot lines with fish catchers and guns with spears and bows if we ran out of bullets.

But ya, I think me and mine could make it without too much trouble. I think the biggest crisis amongst my cousins and I would be deciding who is the desginated brewer of alcohol. We can all hunt and fish, and I'm sure that they'd be experimenting with what things they could smoke when they ran out of cigarettes.

1. Can you start a fire?
You mean without mathes? In summer, perhaps, when there's lots of bright sunlight. At winter I could borrow that telescope shcool has.

2. Do you have a real fireplace?
Yup. And lots of trees.

3. Could you cook from an open flame?
Certainly.

4. Can you swab, lube, load, pack, trim, and fire a black powder gun?
No. Can you make gunpowder?

5. Do you own a black powder gun?
No guns here! :D The others have no guns either! And random bears fear fire anyway, so one isn't really needed unless you're attacked by other people.

6. Could you dress, skin, quarter, salt and cure a hog? Cow? Deer?
No, but my grandfather probably could.

7. Gulp, could you make it without the internet?
Sure. I would have something else to do. Read all the books in the library, learn to use a bow or a spear or something, cut wood and so on.

8. Can you use a map, protractor and compass?
Map and compass, sure, but no protractor.

9. Do you know at least what grid square you live in?
No.

10.Can you run a trot line?
What's a trot line?

11.Could you drink pure water from the melting of the morning frost as opposed to 'bottled' water?
We have a well. And snow. And rain.

12.If the electricty stop flowing, you could not recharge your cell phone!
Yes I could! Gasoline will last a few weeks at least if people use it for nothing but reloading a car battery. And when you run out you reload the battery with you own muscles. The problem arises from the fact that you have no-one to call. You have no network. But At least I could play sokoban.

Ehm, I can do all of them except #4,5 & 6, although give me a shotgun and it'l replace that black powder gun anyday.

Thing is, if the world went into a "great depression" it really wouldn't be like that. Anyone read The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham? That classic book, which, although far fetched, is a lot more accurate than what you suggest Felix, and it was published some 50 years ago. Of course people would use all in their power, rather than immediately going back to the most primitive of ways.