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Monday, August 29, 2022

Survivability Rule of Thumb



Will your area survive a technological collapse? I’ve a quick and dirty rule of thumb for figuring it out. How much population did your area support long ago before the electronic age? 


Here’s what I did for my area: Coos County New Hampshire. According to the 1910 census there was a population of about 30,000 people. Today there’s about 31,000. The land should be able to support the current population at at 1910 technology level. 


It’s a very rough estimate but like all rules of thumb is a good place to start. There have been changes in the land since 1910. For example, there’s a lot more forest than there was in 1910. However, there’s also less farmland. On the bright side wood from that forest could keep us from freezing during the winter. We are blessed with abundant fresh water and that counts for a lot. 


Some places you know are going to be in deep trouble. Take Los Vegas for example. How many people could the desert support back in the day? It’s a tiny fraction of the number of people who live there now. Some places the only sensible thing will be to bug out. 


Big cities are pretty much screwed. Just hope technology does not take too hard a hit. There are a lot of rural areas that are less populated than they were 100 years ago. With modern farming methods it takes just a few percent of the farm population to feed people. Everyone else moved to the cities. 


There are areas in the country that once supported sizable indigenous populations. If you live in one of those areas it wouldn’t hurt to study how they did it. 


Another thing to take into account is the fact that a big part of the country has been in serious drought. During those times populations tend to crash and societies fall apart. Only technology and the vast resources and size of the country have keep those areas viable today. 


Old census data is readily available on-line. It might be revealing to see how and how many people survived. 


At any rate, it’s a good thought experiment.


-Sixbears

14 comments:

  1. A century or more ago people still depended on hard goods made elsewhere. When TSHTF there likely won't be anyone making anything for a long long time. You'll have to run with what you brung. The vast majority of urban folk will die....pretty quickly. Those that don't WILL fan out and start preying on rural areas. You'd best have a well organized committee ready to meet them.

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    1. Every place is different. My population comparisons are just a starting point. If the basic resources of the land won't support the population it's already game over.

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  2. In my home state of Idaho , the first settlers that tried to winter over. All died ! From starvation primarily.
    Not until they learned from indigenous locals did they start surviving.
    As Dan stated , the early settlers were dependant on manufactured hard goods from the cities.

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    1. Pretty brutal for those settlers. One of the big losses will be people getting cut off from information. Even I find YouTube University saves me a lot of time and effort.

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  3. If it's important hard copy. I've plenty of files "saved" years ago that don't open on new OS and such. Let alone tech failures.

    A book needs but a sunny day. The next generation will need your knowledge to survive let alone thrive.

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    1. My kids don't appreciate my library. Besides plenty of fiction there's a lot of how-to books and manuals.

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  4. Learn how to hunt and gather, a good garden can come in handy to.

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    1. Everyone had gardens and chickens back in the day.

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  5. In old era, our location had periodic flooding from the Rio Grande River before it was dammed up. So much reduced flooding resulted. Should technology take hit, I don't know how long these dams would hold up. Everything eventually fails.

    So flooding was had. Sparse Native American population, though a bit more near the Gulf of Mexico shore. What land left alone goes to is thorny jungle, in clay like soils.

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    1. Sounds like it could be a dicey area, depending on how things go down.

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    2. I think you'll find the Indigenous Americans actually had a greater population than most of Europe of the time.

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    3. Disease traveled faster than settlers so they got a bad estimate of the population.

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  6. Passing through ...

    Call me a cynic but, we aren't realistically looking at 1900 levels (when there was an entire mature intact system, with everything from tools to housing perfected to that level nationally/internationally) or even medieval levels (again with a perfected system with tools, material, people and knowledge), but basically starting afresh.

    So? What population can your area support when no one has the tools, basic materials or even the knowledge of how to acquire/use them? We're talking about possibly regressing to basic subsistence farming if nothing more than the power or transportation infrastructure fails.

    Britain has a population circa 67 million. In 1900 it was 41 million. 1800 10 million. Middle ages 2.5 million. They'll be very lucky if they could manage to maintain even that number now.

    We're not facing even the levels maintained by the pioneers (reliant on outside support, minimal as it was) but ... what was the indigenous population of your area pre western-tech? That, I suspect, is the best we'll be able to manage.

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    1. As for my area there are enough folks that know the old ways to make it happen. Civil unrest and disorganization is big unknown. We could pull together, share resources and make it happen. Or we could fight for the last french fry. The thing is, with the population and resources at hand, it could be done. Like you pointed out, some areas don't stand a chance.

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