[Closed] If you were the last person alive on earth....

Most office buildings have back up generators tied in with the UPS to keep them running. So it really wouldnt be that hard to live somewhere with electricity. I dont really see the point though, seems like a lot of effort to go to for something of limited use in that situation.

Probably go live in a London, seems like a logical place to hope any survivors would gravitate towards. With practically unlimited supplies of food, clothing, shelter etc.

The 9 million festering corpses would put me off London.

To be fair they put me off now.

Is this an everyone is dead scenario or you "missed the rapture because you were too busy debating it's existence on STW" scenario?

I can start a fire and my archery skills are excellent.

🙂

i'd drive round spray painting "Alive in Tuscon" then wait for people to turn up...then no doubt they'd kick me out of the group that formed cos they hated me.

Who needs electrickery anyway?

I'd just spend each and every day in the pub drinking beer and eating pork scratchings.

Drac - Moderator

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.

What you want all the different caliber guns and rifles for what you ask? Just because you can, because you can ... 😛

You wouldnt know you were the last person alive though so probably spend time searching for others .

Why bother, if they're looking for me, they'll find me. I'll be somewhere upwind of the smoking crater off my tits with a PA system, it shouldn't be too difficult.

The thing about drugs in such a world is unless you find an actual farm you'll never have enough to form a dependency (barring easily found prescription drugs). Drug dealers tend not to advertise their presence so any finds will be happy coincidences.

As for sub machine guns and such, I imagine wild dogs would become problematic after a while. Best be prepared. (again, section 5 firearms owners don't advertise themselves so unless you know a horse vet that armoury isn't going to empty itself)

I'd go around collecting up the dogs before they became wild. Just me and thousands of dogs roaming around acting daft.

I'd probably still shut the loo door whilst having a poo

Once you'd got over the initial shock then you'd just wander into each and every property looking for stuff that's going to be useful. You aren't stealing - who are you stealing from? As someone noted earlier, there isn't going to be a human presence so you can take your time breaking in to any gun cabinets, etc. Head to a breaker's yard and grab an oxy-acetylene torch for example.

There'll be stuff around to deal with most situations you are likely to encounter, the problem at first would be where to find it and how to install/run it. Take the wild dogs problem that squirrelking raises - an electric fence around your chosen residence could help with this but if you are from a town/city then finding one might be tricky.

The main practical problem I foresee is the lack of knowledge of how to do things. A wander around the local library or Waterstones to pick up practical manuals on installing and maintaining stuff would be one priority - see the response to my comment about installing a generator for power. I've no idea how to do that but I'm reasonably competent and can certainly read a manual so I should be able to do it - I'd learn how to test electrical circuits first though so I can check I've done it right!

whitestone - Member
...The main practical problem I foresee is the lack of knowledge of how to do things. A wander around the local library or Waterstones to pick up practical manuals on installing and maintaining stuff would be one priority - see the response to my comment about installing a generator for power. I've no idea how to do that but I'm reasonably competent and can certainly read a manual so I should be able to do it - I'd learn how to test electrical circuits first though so I can check I've done it right!

But why would you need mains electricity?

You'd spend a disproportionate amount of time keeping it going. Batteries aren't going to last long either.

Your energy would be better spent learning to provide food for yourself - growing it, foraging and hunting.

Having dogs around would help, and they need to be fed too, but would be useful for keeping wild dogs away. You really don't want to be hunted by a wild dog pack...

See my earlier post about a fridge and freezer.

You head out with your gun (which you've never fired before) and shoot an animal (not forgetting that it's unlikely you've ever slaughtered one and prepared it). Now you've had your first meal, what are you going to do with the rest of the meat?

How many houses do you know that have a cold slab? (Do you know what a cold slab is?) You need a means of keeping the rest of the meat from going off, hence the fridge/freezer, hence some form of electricity.

Fruit and veg? Tends to come in gluts so you need a way of preserving those as well. Pickles and chutneys just need air-tight jars but if you make soups then they'll need a freezer to keep them.

A lot of generators are designed to run for long periods without maintenance, you just need to keep them topped up with fuel. A daily five minute job.

Electricity isn't really essential per se but it's the difference between living comfortably and subsistence living.

As for food, how long do you think canned food would last? There will be enough to last a lifetime, several in fact, and you wouldn't even need to cut into the dog milk.

[img] [/img]

Try to dig out my old copy of this for starters...

Yes, do you just want to "survive" or "live"?

Grabbing all the long life foodstuffs from just one decent sized supermarket it going to last you a long time, like I mentioned, there's a dozen or so close to us and we are fairly rural in location. After that there's the distribution warehouses to go at.

One thing you are going to have a lot of (assuming no bad health or injury) is time, you aren't going to be commuting to work.

Now you've had your first meal, what are you going to do with the rest of the meat?

Just thought!

Power stations will still run for a while so quite a bit of infrastructure will still work. Visit all the political forums and political threads on forums like this (you know the ones I mean) and have the last word 😆 Then when the aliens land at least they'll know that someone saw sense!

I'd learn how to test electrical circuits first though so I can check I've done it right!

17th Edition part p spec or you'll never get building regs sign off.

Some thoughts....
Lots of houses have solar panels on the roof nowadays, would their fridges keep running?

How long would the gas to my cooker keep going?

There's some allotments just over the road from me so I'm guessing there's some pretty good set ups over there for growing veg, don't know the first thing about gardening though!

Would a decent air rifle from the air rifle shop not suffice for a few rabbits, pheasants etc? A book on butchery would be handy!

If I've got electricity, how long would Netflix last? I've loads to catch up on.

Mankind and all its efforts will just become a thin seam in the geological record.

Sadly, this isn't true. We'll vanish, as will almost everything we've built, but there will be one thing we've done that'll be obvious and screw up things for any civilisation that comes after - we've used up most of the fossil fuels.

It was readily available fossil fuels that kickstarted the industrial revolution - without those, it'd be much harder for any future civilisation, they'll have charcoal but not much else as a concentrated energy source.

All this talk of generators etc. I'd just run one until it broke and then go find a house or business with another. There's all of England, Scotland, Wales and mainland Europe within easy reach. The only thing that will do you in is illness or injury. There's nothing else to worry about really.

...obvious and screw up things for any civilisation that comes after - we've used up most of the fossil fuels.

Power grid would automatically trip as demand fell to zero, power stations would be useless.

Likewise the data centres running Netflix and such would be dead. Plenty of Blurays though.

Gas would be fine, plenty of LPG kicking about.

Air rifle would be perfectly adequate, PCP with pump unless you find a bottle charger. Springer if you are a decent shot. A full power FAC gun would deal with a lot of critters.

squirrelking - Member
Power grid would automatically trip as demand fell to zero, power stations would be useless.

But would demand drop to zero, there'd be a hell of a lot of stuff left switched on or on standby?

A couple of years ago there was a programme (American) that started on the premise of what would happen if all mankind disappeared. To all intents and purposes that's the same as just one person since that person couldn't maintain all the infrastructure.

It was surprising just how quickly our systems would disappear but they reckoned that some of the hydro-electric generators would run for a long time. The example was the Hoover dam which is near to Las Vegas, the street lights would create the "demand" so the system would keep running. That of course assumed that nothing went wrong and broke parts of the system causing it to shut down. You'd get storm damage on overhead lines, wooden poles rotting, metal pylons rusting, that sort of thing. It would take a decade or two but the grid would shut down.

Data centres have power backups but they aren't designed to run for more than a couple of days until the main power is restored or until the backup data centre is activated.

Depends on how long you wait.

Never say never, but it's not certain that fossil fuels would form again - the reason there was so much coal is that those plants were around before there were efficient bacteria to break them down, so they just carbonised and squished.

who [s]are you[/s] is Flashy hiding from?

Louise.

Obviously.

But would demand drop to zero, there'd be a hell of a lot of stuff left switched on or on standby?

As stuff shut down on its own it would cause irregularities in the grid that would result in it tripping out, the demand governs supply and as soon as stuff starts getting weird stuff starts shutting down.

Anyway, the simple answer is.....you wouldn't know you were the only person left on Earth, so would spend the rest of you life looking for other survivors. Your life would probably consist of lighting lots of fires to attract attention.

Unless of course you are a miserable hermit type character, in which case carry on!

Not sure how long I would last without female companionship.

PS4, pringles and Anne Sunmers toys?

chewkw - Member

Drac - Moderator

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.

What you want all the different caliber guns and rifles for what you ask? Just because you can, because you can ...

What you want is the different caliber of guns and rifles if you need to ask. Just because you can (no rules as last one alive), because you can.

whitestone - Member
See my earlier post about a fridge and freezer.

You head out with your gun (which you've never fired before) and shoot an animal (not forgetting that it's unlikely you've ever slaughtered one and prepared it). Now you've had your first meal, what are you going to do with the rest of the meat?...

Same way as we did when I was a kid in Africa in the '50s and no fridges. Biltong or smoke and dry.

If you get appendicitis, or anything similar, you're going to die.

I guess in theory you could operate on yourself to cut it out, but as a computer programmer, I'm not sure I would have the skills for that.

If you get appendicitis, or anything similar, you're going to die.

But if you did have something like appendicitis you could go out in a glorious way knowing no-one had to clear the mess up..........

If you get appendicitis, or anything similar, you're going to die.

[img] [/img]

Because all the [url= ]tube stations[/url] are shut?

Better stock up Fiesta and Playboy cos it looks like the internet won't survive for long.

Your life would probably consist of lighting lots of fires to attract attention.

I'd be a bit cagier about attracting attention than that, in all my years of experience watching doomsday films and TV shows it's always the other people that cause all the problems.

I'd go for moving into a castle, Windsor castle would work, nice high walls, probably got a back up generator, plenty of space within the walls for crops and livestock (have animals survived in this scenario?) and if it doesn't have an armoury the barracks are just down the road.

On the appendicitis thing, I was listening to a podcast a couple of weeks ago about a Russian posted on a remote research station who had to remove his own appendix. He was a surgeon and not an IT bod though. [url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-32481442 ]BBC write up of the same story here[/url]

Coke and (dead) hookers..

Once the hookers had decomposed to the point where no amount of lube is going to make them enjoyable, I'd probably start eying up my cattle stock..

What kind of civilization destroying event are we talking about?

If it's global warming then lots of these DIY stores everyone is counting on will be under tens or even hundreds of metres of polluted water.

And the high ground that remains (the islands of the lake district's highest hills perhaps) will be hot, humid and crawling with scary insects. Huge, in your face, poisonous insects from your worst nightmares.

"real doll" distributor has a warehouse in Gateshead.

Did this thread a long time ago, feral dogs would be the main worry...

Nah, zombies would've eaten all the dogs.

Like this, but with ther comedy element removed

[url= http://m.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Thousands-of-stray-Chihuahuas-roam-Bay-Area-5768179.php ]Rogue Chihuahuas[/url]

Clean water is number 1 requirement, so any base will need to be located with this in mind. I'd have a variety of weapons. If feral pack animals expected to be an issue, 30 round magazines will be an advantage and 9mm would be ample for dogs and the like. A shotgun for food, a sidearm for opportunity kills.
Source two generators, fuel transfer systems and switchgear, a tanker or two of fuel. A landy for reliability and plenty of widely available spares. And a haynes manual - I'm shit at car mechanics!

Plenty of cruise ships to perloin, fill it full of diesel/food/ents and head 10mins offshore, tow an Open60 behind it for quick evac, also fill the hold of the ship with motorbikes and quads/quad trailers. Plenty of supermarkets will have tinned food and bottled water/drink.

Depending on the state of the land after the demise, I'd be waiting at least 3mths before heading back to port, where would I moor my cruise ship? In the Med.

All this talk of spares, manuals etc. There will be literally thousands of cars, tinned goods, bottled water, houses etc. All just sat there with just you around. I'd basically just piss about 🙂

But for clean water, you'll likely be out in the sticks.

All this talk of spares, manuals etc. There will be literally thousands of cars, tinned goods, bottled water, houses etc. All just sat there with just you around. I'd basically just piss about

Well, unless what's happened is a GM bacteria has escaped from the lab which devours flesh and plastic with equal ferocity.

No bottled water for starters. Or carbon fibre bikes.

Or carbon fibre bikes.

Depending on the state of the land after the demise, I'd be waiting at least 3mths before heading back to port, where would I moor my cruise ship? In the Med

Rockdodger or engineer?

If neither, dream on. You'll probably hit something before you get it anywhere. I tried holding a container ship straight going through the Bay of Biscay once, that was hilarious.

Well, unless what's happened is a GM bacteria has escaped from the lab which devours flesh and plastic with equal ferocity.

No bottled water for starters. Or carbon fibre bikes.

How am I still alive if there is a flesh devouring virus on the loose? Yay, no more ugly carbon bikes. Steel hardtails everywhere 😀

 

I'll be fine, I can drive a car.. a cruise ships just the same.. use an AA map for directions...
Moor off the Canaries I've decided, plenty of waves for surfing and being a bit more remote there might be less contamination.
All engineers on ships do is walk around with WD40 and moan, it's all computers and remote drive Shirley. So long as the things got fuel it'll go. If that fails I'll get another, plenty in Sotty to choose from. Might tow an oil tanker with me, plenty at Calshot. I don't like flying or I'd nick an A380 and fill it with crisps and dime bars.

Ah, you're a manager then! 😉

You head out with your gun (which you've never fired before) and shoot an animal (not forgetting that it's unlikely you've ever slaughtered one and prepared it). Now you've had your first meal, what are you going to do with the rest of the meat?...

Speak for yourself.

So, let's say you've embraced the challenge, got a good set up and become self sufficient, would you still go mtb'ing, knowing that if you fall and bust your collar bone or something you're on your own!?

A landy for reliability...