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Inspired a bit by the "rewilding" thread below, plus That Will Smith film, plus that BBC prog about how quickly Earth would revert to nature if we wiped out our species, i was thinking....
If I or my family were the only one or ones left, I think my first weeks jobs list might look like this.....
take over a farm with wood fired room and water heating, some space for just a few animals and a walled garden for growing veg, natural spring water and a large septic tank.
Get some rugged transport to last until the roads returned to nature
Go to police armoury and get tooled up for wild animal defence / hunting purposes
Go to hospital and stock up on medical supplies and manuals
Get a collection of generators and a fuel tanker full of diesel
Loads of tinned / dried foods.
Veg seeds.
But then I got thinking some more..would the earth actually remain habitable, or have we even booby-trapped it against a future without us? Im thinking along the lines of nuclear reactors / waste ponds that would melt down without human maintenance of cooling water supplies (a la Japanese sunami), stockpiles of CFCs, PCBs, Nerve gas, Biological agents...
Would the Earth "carry on regardless"?
I'd go shopping in a Stealth Bomber.
Which Will Smith film? I am Legend or After Earth?
I am Legend.
How do you know?
[quote=jimjam said]How do you know?
I just do.
Guns, shit loads of guns!
allthepiesI just do.
No you don't. Bet you haven't even seen After Earth. Lucky you.
There is a series on Amazon that is probably more like it. Get very lonely, go mad, use swimming pool as huge latrine...
It's called Last Man on Earth
Would anyone have sex with a fresh corpse?
How fresh?
Well that escalated.
Fussy bastards.
Yes, some bits may get a bit "hotter" but it'll be geographically localised to the reactor sites and the downwind plumes. PCB's and other persistent chemicals will eventually drop out of the food chain/top predators will adapt/die out.
Mankind and all its efforts will just become a thin seam in the geological record.
The only ones that I can see being a problem are an all consuming nanotech plague or a Satan Bug from biowarfare research.
I am Leg End...that's the one i meant. The list above was week 1. If I'm going to be slowly poisoned by humankind's legacy then i might spend the second week going sideways in V8 things. Maybe borrow a Eurofighter or two. Might as well have a go on some diamorphine too!
I am the only person on earth who saw After Earth.
[quote=plumslikerocks said]I am Leg End...that's the one i meant.
See 🙂
Bollocks.
olddog - Member
There is a series on Amazon that is probably more like it. Get very lonely, go mad, use swimming pool as huge latrine...It's called Last Man on Earth
See my earlier post....
I'd save that boring shite for week 23 or something. There may be no other people left but there will be still be plenty drugs, fast cars, explosives and other cool stuff to occupy weeks 1 through 22. Oh and sex robots. Don't forget to go save some sex robots.The list above was week 1.
Wood stoves indeed. Get a grip.
the trails centres would be much less busy.
Go to police armoury and get tooled up for wild animal defence / hunting purposes
How will you get in?
Find the keys on the zombified corpse of a police man. Or acquire some cutting torches / c4!
CaptainFlashheart - Member
I'd go shopping in a Stealth Bomber.
Trip to the National Motorcycle Museum with a very large truck.
Trackday roadtrip.
Perform my one man interpretative dance version of The Evil Dead live on stage at the Old Vic.
Score a goal at Wembley, a try at Twickenham, have a drink in the Pavilion at Lords wearing shorts.
Borrow a few paintings, some decent clothes, a large collection of jazz mags and embark on a tour of the distilleries.
CaptainFlashheart - Member
I'd go shopping in a Stealth Bomber.
who are you hiding from?
If I or my family were the only one or ones left...
Two very different scenarios.
If it was just me there would be no point in trying to be sensible, apart from the fact that I suspect my well developed sense of self preservation (i.e. cowardice) would stop me going out in a blaze of glory. Like to think I would set myself a challenge to see out my days, along the lines of See-how-far-I-can-get-round-the-world with what's been left behind (and my very meagre skills set). Not sure I'd get across the channel, tbh - would probably try to kayak, but how to get my kayak to the SE?
If my family were spared too I'd have to be Mr Sensible-Head. Might struggle.
I heard a very good interview on (I think) R4 ages ago along similar lines. The interviewee was all "I'd probably cope, reckon I could make a shelter and basic furniture", etc, etc. Was then asked, ok, but could you make a saw? That's the problem, there's 20,000 years of human development / specialisation to rewind!
ETA - would there still be broadband? And Audis?
If like me you remember The day of the triffids as a TV series as a kid in the early 80's about some wobbly nasty plants it's worth a read as an adult. Really good take on being part of a vastly reduced population and what you would do. The triffids were essential to the story, but not actually what it was about if that makes sense.
but could you make a saw?
I've got a saw.
See?I've got a saw.
If it was just you there would be more than enough stuff to last the rest of your life including tinned food and bottled water as well has fuel, hardware etc. If you could work out how to run a diesel generator and had somewhere properly dry to store stuff you'd be fine.
Still go bonkers with loneliness pretty quickly. And what's the point of driving a supercar around Silverstone with no one to enjoy it with
Yes, some bits may get a bit "hotter" but it'll be geographically localised to the reactor sites and the downwind plumes.
What, like Chernobyl was? "Downwind" is a fairly relative term, it should also be remembered that the liquidators pretty much buried all the contaminated topsoil to stop it spreading every time it rained for about a year afterwards.
Yes, I realise not every reactor could/would pop like that but I'd imagine if left unattended a fair few would be a problem. I'd be keeping well away from Suffolk for example (not that that's indicative of anything really).
Drac - seriously? A gas axe would probably be enough, the main reason for not getting into armouries is the human factor, remove that and it's just another metal box.
Personally I'd not be giving a crap, nothing would return to nature so much that it would impede me in my lifetime so I'd just pop into town when ever I needed supplies.
I'd have guns, lots of guns. Probably till I got bored. Or blew myself up. Or did something monumentally stupid like try to drive a tank through Cumbernauld (as in, straight through), get trapped and suffocate or starve to death.
Yes, some bits may get a bit "hotter" but it'll be geographically localised to the reactor sites and the downwind plumes.
What, like Chernobyl was? "Downwind" is a fairly relative term, it should also be remembered that the liquidators pretty much buried all the contaminated topsoil to stop it spreading every time it rained for about a year afterwards.
Yes, I realise not every reactor could/would pop like that but I'd imagine if left unattended a fair few would be a problem. I'd be keeping well away from Suffolk for example (not that that's indicative of anything really).
Drac - seriously? A gas axe would probably be enough, the main reason for not getting into armouries is the human factor, remove that and it's just another metal box.
Personally I'd not be giving a crap, nothing would return to nature so much that it would impede me in my lifetime so I'd just pop into town when ever I needed supplies.
I'd have guns, lots of guns. Probably till I got bored. Or blew myself up. Or did something monumentally stupid like try to drive a tank through Cumbernauld (as in, straight through), get trapped and suffocate or starve to death.
If it was just you there would be more than enough stuff to last the rest of your life including tinned food and bottled water as well has fuel, hardware etc
Unfortunately everyone else had died due to a chronic shortage of can openers and dry matches.
If I was the last person on earth I'd probably have a lot of explaining to do. I'm just not sure who to.
Perhaps I should just apologise in advance.
Soz.
Anyway - hey everybody - WATCH THIS!
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Go slowly mad.
who are you hiding from?
Carol Pilbasian
Poo on Wimbledon centre court.
I think most transport issues could be solved with one of these;
[img] 
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And one of these;
[img] 
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davidtaylforth - Member
Would anyone have sex with a fresh corpse?
Meh! been married 27 yrs so it's nothing new
Louise
who are you hiding from?
If I or my family were the only one or ones left...
The interesting thing about that question in this day and age is you'd know - you'd know you were the only ones left.
Thinking about the decline and extinction of Neanderthal man - theres evidence that a small population persisted in isolation around Gibraltar a long time after the rest of the species had vanished - up to 2000 years after the rest of the species was extinct. But those people didn't know they were the last of their kind, they also probably didn't know that there were ever any others either
thestabiliser - Member
Poo on Wimbledon centre court.
I've pissed in the Blue Peter garden already, so why not!
I'd have a poo on the Queen's throne.
Her porcelain one, not the state one, that's going in the Hi-Fi room.
Mankind and all its efforts will just become a thin seam in the geological record.
Good sentence, stored for future use
.
I'd just be pleased that my current bike would no longer be threatened with obsolescence due to new industry standards.
And what's the point of driving a supercar around Silverstone with no one to enjoy it with
I'd say that's very much a game for the single player.
Drac - seriously? A gas axe would probably be enough, the main reason for not getting into armouries is the human factor, remove that and it's just another metal box.
Yes seriously. That's a lot of effort and wasted energy to get into an armoury. Just pop along to a few farms you'd soon be kitted out easy enough.
Or as pointed out there'd be plenty of tinned supplies to get you through added with growing your own not much need to kill anything.
Find the last woman on earth just to use the line.
Then road trip to the mountains and hope the chair lifts run on hydro
I'd just mess about doing stupid stuff until I accidently killed myself.
Rustyspanner not your explorer by any chance?
I am the only person on earth who saw After Earth.
I've actually seen it twice (I didn't have much going on the weekend I watched it again...).
As for being the last man on Earth, I'd probably get a big list of cool stuff to do, fall down the stairs on the way out of house and then slowly die in agony and helplessness.
I love the way in apocalyptical films they run around in cars and have unlimited ammunition for their guns.
I suspect the real survivors will be those who have a bicycle, and axe, and have sufficient wood skills to build their own shelters near food sources and make tools including a bow and arrows.
If you stored hoards of industrial made parts and tools, then there's quite a few lifetimes of supplies left, but eventually you would have to rediscover stone age skills, learn how to find ores and smelt them etc etc. There's a lot of basic technology that is no longer common knowledge.
Probably the first thing to do after attending to the basics would be to scoop up all the technical and scientific books you could find, because once that knowledge is lost it takes millennia to recover them.
BTW if you want a real apocalypse watch an Australian movie "The Final Hours" (warning NSFW).
There are plenty of survivalists who are already prepared for the end of the world; I met some who live in a bunker in a place called Keelham Heights, above Todmorden. They have dug underground and used the spoil to build a huge berm around their farmhouse. They are very weird.
By this time Amazon will fully automated with drones.
Probably stock up on axes and Lego.
I'd be swanning about in all the rapha
Get an Audi
Take a bike way out of my skill set.
Complaining here about how trailcentres have become too wild
Day 1 - catch self on rusty barbed wire.
Day 10 (if lucky) die horribly of infected cut as 999 didn't work, the GP wasn't answering and a job in IT doesn't really help when you have a raging infection and the internet is down 🙁
How many farmers carry H&K G36s?
If I wanted a shotgun I'd just go up the club.
I might steal a ship. I imagine the biggest stumbling block would be navigating the bugger as I can technically operate one but not drive it. Oh and bugger being stranded at sea with a blown exhaust or buggered rudder. So perhaps not.
Channel is easy, over or under.
Why would you need survival skills per se? The world is there for you, one B&Q would have enough tools to last you.
I'd purloin a nice yacht and live on that. Moored a little offshore for when the zombies make an appearance.
If it all became too much do a Crowhurst.
I love the way in apocalyptical films they run around in cars and have unlimited ammunition for their guns.I suspect the real survivors will be those who have a bicycle, and axe, and have sufficient wood skills to build their own shelters near food sources and make tools including a bow and arrows.
It's basically the Bear Grylls vs. Ray Mears schools of survival.
Ah yes, I've heard about those up at Keelham Heights, don't let their kids out in case their minds are twisted by the outsiders.
There'd actually be quite a lot of supplies around, at least to begin with. Tinned foods are going to last a good while, probably long enough that by the time it ran out/was truly inedible you'd be capable of growing your own produce. Go into your local supermarket and consider how long it would take you to get through that lot, then realise how many more supermarkets there are nearby. There's at least a dozen within a 10Km radius of where I live. There'll be lots of petrol and diesel in the tanks at the filling stations - the petrol will deteriorate over time as the lighter volatiles evaporate so use that first. Find a property with oil fired central heating and you can grab some kerosene for that - just fill a tanker at the nearest depot and head home with several tens of thousands of litres! Install a generator that also runs off diesel/kerosene which will let you run fridge & freezer (probably the most important domestic appliance).
Getting up to speed with the knowledge and skills that you'd need would be one of the biggest hurdles. There's so much in modern life that gets done by others for us - our skill sets are too specialised. You don't have to go the full prepper path just yet though. Another worry would be health and making sure that you stay fit and healthy.
I'm not sure how long our infrastructure would survive, probably more than a single human's lifetime but some of it would decay quite quickly since there'd be no maintenance.
As others have mentioned, psychologically you might struggle, we are a social species and generally not suited to being on our own. You probably wouldn't even realise that you were becoming more and more eccentric or mad.
It's basically the Bear Grylls vs. Ray Mears schools of survival.
Bear Grylls drinks elephant poo juice.
Ray eats anything meaty that he's killed. Plus he's fatter. Always trust the fat survivalist.
Always trust the fat survivalist.
Never trust a survivalist with a camera crew.....you never see Bear or Ray dishing out a handful of grubs to the sound man.
What are those guys eating? Where are they charging the batteries for their equipment?
I think some of it might be faked. 😉
Always trust the fat survivalist.
In a dystopian post apocalyptic future a physique like Ray Mears' is a sure sign someone is a cannibal. Run away!
When you take it down to the minimum you only need 2 things,
A gun, and the address of a prepper/survivalist.
At the apocalypse take your gun and go round and "reason" with the survivalist. Bang, and you've got everything you need...
At the apocalypse take your gun and go round and "reason" with the survivalist. Bang, and you've got everything you need...
Of course, they won't be prepped to survive this inspired strategy....
am I the only one who would go to Kensington Palace to fine Princess Kates knickers drawer?
I'd binge watch Love Island based on Kryton57s recommendations, but there would be nobody left to judge me.
So many variables....
Your ability to do anything would depend on what wiped out everybody else. And if their corpses are still hanging about putting Cholera in all the water supplies.
All this doom, gloom and seriousness. You're literally the only person left. Some of you sound like you're on the verge of still rocking up for work each day.
I'd be spending a lot more time naked than I do now. Embrace the insanity and do as you please before illness takes you too
Thinking about the decline and extinction of Neanderthal man - theres evidence that a small population persisted in isolation around Gibraltar a long time after the rest of the species had vanished - up to 2000 years after the rest of the species was extinct. But those people didn't know they were the last of their kind, they also probably didn't know that there were ever any others either
This reminded me of going to Stornoway in the 80's
It's called Last Man on Earth
Any good?
Mankind and all its efforts will just become a thin seam in the geological record.
Our generation will disappear completely due to our habit of storing stuff on computers. Stone is the only solution for long term storage.
Anyway I think my first course of action would be to learn to sail a boat of some sort so I could sail across to the continent. The post-Brexit Apocalypse is going to leave the UK in a right mess.
Wine aisle of [s]Tesco[/s] [s]Sainsburys[/s] [s]Waitrose[/s] **** it I'd be clearing out the wine cellar of The Dorchester, should keep me going for a year or so.
Will electricity still work? Wind Power?
How many farmers carry H&K G36s?
WTF are you hunting?
If I wanted a shotgun I'd just go up the club.
I was also talking about rifles.
It'd be interesting to see how there being no-one else around would impact on your leisure pursuits. Some things would work - single track, hills, sunsets, views. But I'd imagine that as you admire the sunset and the wind in the trees, there might creep in a tinge of melancholy at the thought that everyone you every cared about was dead.
I'd still go surfing, that would be good way to spend time.
I really don't know how much of the enjoyment comes from the joy of shared experience. I'd like to think a lot of it comes from within, but as above, we're social animals. Goes the same for shredding the rad and living in general I reckon.
just fill a tanker at the nearest depot and head home with several tens of thousands of litres! Install a generator that also runs off diesel/kerosene which will let you run fridge & freezer (probably the most important domestic appliance).
Two points here - filling a tanker may not be that easy, you may need to follow a procedure that involves logging into a computer.
I don't think the average person would know how to 'install a generator' in a domestic environment. Pick up a small generator that you can plug appliances in to would be the easiest option, the noise would start to drive you nuts though.
I guess what you do right away would depend on whether you knew you were the last person on earth. If you knew you were then it would be all about setting up for future survival long term, if you didn't know then you would want to set off looking for 'the others'.
It's unlikely you are going to follow existing procedures now is it? Find yourself a hand pump and use that. Sure it's going to take all day but you've got all day (and week and month).
Quite a few remote properties still have generators, in fact the house I grew up in used one until the early 1960s when it was connected to the grid. But of course you aren't going to want to live in some remote property, somewhere close to things to scavenge is much more useful. You wouldn't just hook some wires and hope, there should be manuals around.
You might be the last person in your vicinity, there could be someone fifty or a hundred miles away but unless either you or they broadcast their presence (fire smoke, radio) you aren't likely to go looking for one another. Without knowing, where would you go? London is just as likely to be devoid of human life as Sutherland.
Anyway I think my first course of action would be to learn to sail a boat of some sort so I could sail across to the continent. The post-Brexit Apocalypse is going to leave the UK in a right mess.
No need for that, you could just cycle though the tunnel (I remember MBUK doing this before it opened, with more success than the time they tried to ride across the Channel wearing scuba gear)
It's unlikely you are going to follow existing procedures now is it?
I don't know and have no idea how fuel depots work - are the just like giant petrol stations with pumps. I also don't know how to hot wire a modern vehicle so I guess that would be a hurdle for starters.
I don't know either. Based on my current location I'd start by going round all the local farms and using their diesel stores. Are all the car/van/truck keys going to disappear as well? Make some assumptions! 😆
I'm going to be shacked up in a royal palace, i may be like the queen have Buckingham Palace when i fancy time in the apocalypse city and then Sandringham for a country spread, they have to have back up generators and maybe a nuclear bunker in them don't they, along with a decent stock of food?
Why do I need to be hunting anything to warrant a G36? Plenty of plinking to be had. **** I'd grab a low loader, a challenger and a truckful of shells just to whittle away an afternoon from a hillside.
Club has rifles as well I think, never walk that far back in the shop tbh.