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[Cthulhu]

assuming a breeding population will survive doesn't mean it'll thrive.  Were not clustered in one region anymore, there might not be enough in any one region for a sustainable population.  Even if one region survives almost all human genetic diversity is extinguished and the new population is especially vulnerable to the new hazards of a drast5ically altered climate.

Neo scavenger gets apocalypse the most right.  You will not set up a base and sustain yourself.  You won't use your prepper stockpile.  Someone will murder you for your shoes.  You will cut your arm reaching through a window and die unceremoniously of a blood infection.  If you survive it will be such an intolerable survival that wer'e better off extinct.

[4maskwolf]

Oregon is heavily forested and isolated. Could be a good spot.

This

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Neo scavenger gets apocalypse the most right.  You will not set up a base and sustain yourself.  You won't use your prepper stockpile.  Someone will murder you for your shoes.  You will cut your arm reaching through a window and die unceremoniously of a blood infection.

Maybe in cities and other such food deserts, but in farming communities, not so much.

[WillowLuman]

If humanity survives long enough, we'll find a way to improve our lot. Of course, every innovation brings about unforeseen consequences, and unfortunately rediscovered ones probably would as well, but I for one am glad our ancestors hung on through times that seemed like end times in the past.

[pisskop]

How exactly will the apocalypse be different than being a vagabond, cthulhu?

I cant imagine that with thousands of shoes yours will be on the list.  If you get murdered its for psychopathic or social breaks.

Now, provided anarchy lasts for more than a few months (assuming 90% casualty off the top) we can start to see shortages.  but by then nee communities will be forming.  Career skills wont likely cover all basises, but we have libaries full of books.  Plently of practical ones.  Its a lifestyle change after  you face the luck of the draw of surviving.  The death rate will drop massively over sequential months.

I wonder if its the loss of comfort or social ideal that scares peoole more . . .

[Culise]

Indeed.  The bigger threat isn't a Mad Max world of anarchy outside of the opening days; it's what kind of social structures will grow out of a soil as tainted as that which will result from the destruction of so much of humanity.  In times of calamity, extremism and rule of strength tend to gain far greater focus.  Drastic measures taken in order to be seen as "doing something," religious or philosophical concepts twisted in order to perceive some sort of order and reason (especially the latter; altogether too many people like believing that there is some act, even malevolent, behind any disaster, some consciousness that can be placated or blamed) behind the apocalypse.  Insularity may become the norm, and with it, xenophobia. 

That said, don't count out the danger of cities to their hinterland in the near term.  Billions of people live in individual cities (according to the UN ever since 2007, over 50% of the world's total population, in fact), and if a disaster strikes, there will be a mass exodus that will overwhelm the cities' hinterlands as well.  Modern agriculture is utterly dependent on industrial infrastructure - synthetic nitrates for fertilizers, mechanization for labor multiplication, complex water systems for irrigation whether it's from aquifers or rivers (especially in places like the Great American Desert, AKA the western Midwest, AKA half of the American breadbasket and the Canadian Palliser's Triangle), and perhaps worst of all, tailored GM crops that don't produce viable seeds to permit next year's harvest.  The collapse of social order in the wake of any apocalyptic event will greatly disrupt this infrastructure.  Even in some rural location commonly perceived as "podunk" or "flyover country" such as, say, Kansas, cities could turn into a potential time bomb: the population of Kansas is 2.8 million; compared to this, the adjacent Kansas City metropolitan area shared with Missouri is 2.4 million, and not all of that will flee into Missouri just because they're on the east side of the border.  Farming isn't just a matter of picking up a hoe and tilling the soil; even if you put the entire population to work farming, it would be...painful, to say the least, and people are unlikely to lie down and simply die, to watch their own loved ones die, just because they happened to live in the wrong place. 

[Bohandas]

Indeed.  The bigger threat isn't a Mad Max world of anarchy outside of the opening days; it's what kind of social structures will grow out of a soil as tainted as that which will result from the destruction of so much of humanity.  In times of calamity, extremism and rule of strength tend to gain far greater focus.  Drastic measures taken in order to be seen as "doing something," religious or philosophical concepts twisted in order to perceive some sort of order and reason (especially the latter; altogether too many people like believing that there is some act, even malevolent, behind any disaster, some consciousness that can be placated or blamed) behind the apocalypse.  Insularity may become the norm, and with it, xenophobia. 

In that case, imstead of thinking about plans for rebuilding we should be thinking about plans before delivering the coup de grace to humanity.

[Orange Wizard]

* Orange puts down his vial of weaponised Ebola.

Oh, uh, yeah. Definitely.
I mean, who would have planned to do that already, right guys?

*nervous laugh*

[Bohandas]

...and perhaps worst of all, tailored GM crops that don't produce viable seeds to permit next year's harvest...

Well, at least the breakdown of civilization in the wake of an apocalyptic event would give us the opportunity to slaughter any surviving Monsanto executives.

[Loud Whispers]

Unlikely, they'd just form their own republic with their private army and copious amount of resources.

[Bohandas]

Unlikely, they'd just form their own republic with their private army and copious amount of resources.

What resources? The worthless paper or the useless metal?

[andrea]

The very precious GM seeds, I suspect.

[pisskop]

wait, how long do people thik the anarchy will last before gold has value again?  The promise of value later (and of course thousands of years of ingraining and that its actually pleasant to behold) will make it worth a lot to anyone with their basic needs already met.
  The apocapyse is functionally a temporary anarchy event, which also destroys industry, randomly kills a majority of the populace.

There isnt going to be disorder forever, and as soon as specialition  is reestablished we get back to the trappings of civilizations.  With the added bonus of moar war.  Itll be lands for the grabbing unless your local or national gov has a great plan set up . . .

[Baffler]

Terminator technology isn't actually in use. The reason farmers don't replant the seeds from the crops they harvest is the agreement they have to sign when they buy them that says they won't. If they do, they get screwed over in court for violating the contract or in some cases for violating Monsanto's patent on the seeds when they hybridize with wild plants. But Monsanto isn't gonna send some mooks out to break the knees of every farmer in the world when they stop honoring their stupid contract, they'll be shot just as quick as any other coyote.

That's also a good point. We'll probably see a huge land rush as people spread out to fill the space, as it were. Probably mostly people from cities where food and other supplies can't really be effectively provided anymore.

[Caz]

wait, how long do people thik the anarchy will last before gold has value again?  The promise of value later (and of course thousands of years of ingraining and that its actually pleasant to behold) will make it worth a lot to anyone with their basic needs already met.
  The apocapyse is functionally a temporary anarchy event, which also destroys industry, randomly kills a majority of the populace.

There isnt going to be disorder forever, and as soon as specialition  is reestablished we get back to the trappings of civilizations.  With the added bonus of moar war.  Itll be lands for the grabbing unless your local or national gov has a great plan set up . . .

Your mutated apocalypse grandchildren will be very wealthy.