Thread: What would you do as the last person in the world?

Originally Posted by Denziloe

Like you said, it's a hypothetical situation. People aren't failing to consider the practical aspects; they're recognising what the original question is actually about. It's not about surviving in a post-apocalyptic world. If you want to make a thread about that, feel free. But this thread is a thought experiment in which you have unlimited leisure but no companions, as a means to explore our personal values and motives and how they relate to society. Unless I'm severely misunderstanding the original poster.

I feel like that should have been outlined in the original post. Call me an idiot (probably am) but I take things rather literally. Besides, it's kind of hard not to on the internet anyway.

Originally Posted by snoop

I feel like that should have been outlined in the original post. Call me an idiot (probably am) but I take things rather literally. Besides, it's kind of hard not to on the internet anyway.

That's true. But out of interest, how does a hardcore pragmatist such as yourself answer the question when posed in this different light?

Originally Posted by Denziloe

That's true. But out of interest, how does a hardcore pragmatist such as yourself answer the question when posed in this different light?

Since everything I do concerns other humans in some way, even if I am capable of being isolated for days and don't need to hang out or whatever, I would still think that even in this new light I would have very little to actually do. I would probably just try finding giant stockpiles of drugs (preferably hallucinogens/dissociatives in particular) and just try and learn stuff as much as possible and maybe reading some actually interesting literature or whatever before I die from drug related complications. Otherwise, my hobbies include gaming both on singleplayer and multiplayer games, discussing things on forums, hanging out with my two best and almost only friends (people I would consider friends anyway, not including friendly acquaintances), listening to and playing music, and learning stuff. Whether I'm in direct human contact or not, I'm usually still interacting with humans on some level.

Originally Posted by sivason

Portable generators are everywhere (gas could last the first 10 years or so if you get it from a proper storage tank). You would not need to have a power grid, just one generator. A windmill powerplant only needs greased and solar panals are going to last a very long time, Also a water wheel generator would work fine. . Canned food will still be good for about 100 years or more (just looked it up). Dried survival food would also last you life time. You would have unlimited guns and bullets and no laws to regulate hunting (you could even use a land mine to hunt if you wanted.) Fruit trees and many crops will grow and produce for decades if not centuries.

I can care for myself unless I get cancer or something. I imagine I would try to not do really dangerous things, but anti-biotics, skin stapling guns and everything else would be free for the taking. You can also learn almost any skill from a book.

So, survival would be very easy, unless you are not intelligant. Then it may be a problem.

As far as it being easy to survive, how is finding gas and unlimited guns and bullets and everything going to be possible after a few years? Who is going to be servicing the fuel pumps and delivering them to gas stations? How will the gas not naturally degrade (iirc octane levels drop fairly quickly). Animals would begin scavenging a lot of the food left behind. Things would begin falling apart without regular upkeep fairly quickly, even if you managed to travel far enough to get to a location where almost entirely newly built structures are all that's there. Suppose a natural disaster occurs like tornadoes, high winds, terrible storms, hurricanes, volcano eruptions, landslides, or earthquakes occur in your area and destroy what you are depending on for power. What if there is a drought where you are, or a flood? What if lakes we were pumping to prevent a lot of natural disasters from occurring stop being pumped and you aren't aware it was keeping you safe?

If you play things really smart, and you go out on a regular basis and setup encampments with trucks filled with all kinds of food and survival supplies you scavenged in multiple locations so you aren't screwed if something major happens, you may have an easier time, but what is prudent to do may not be exactly clear until it is too late. All I'm saying is, there is a lot more to this than simply thinking "well I'll just steal a lot of stuff and I'll be good, if I'm not a retard (which I'm not) I should be fine". It wouldn't be that easy. The amount of work seems to be underestimated as well. There still wouldn't be any time to be doing anything than making sure you have a continual supply of things vital for survival, moving all that food and supplies and moving them to encampments would require a lot of physical effort and time. If you opted not to do it, then good look facing any threat nature throws at you, you won't get by moving from walmart to walmart once vehicles get tire rot or rusted out from not moving and the vehicle you are using breaks down and you don't know how to keep fixing it unless you're some mechanic. Mechanical things require all kinds of lubrication and things like that in order to keep running. They also need to be cleaned and maintained. I mean the more ways I think of how something might go wrong, the more ways I have to come up with a lot to keep my original strategy for keeping alive actually working.


Also, the arguments for some people being fine without human interaction. Alright, so there are some that would be fine. Why do you think prisons have solitary confinement as a harsh punishment? It's because it's been proven that isolation from human contact actually makes emotional pain centers in the brain light up. Isolation is pain. Maybe you could get over it, but it would still suck ass and eventually all the negatives would pile up and you would probably stop seeing a point in living.