[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Incidentally, does anyone seriously believe that all it would take to wipe out ninety percent of the American population is to turn off the electricity?
[/quote]Not 90%, but a very significant percentage. There are a lot of variables that could affect the outcome. Time of year being the largest - if it happened during the colder months, a very large percentage would both starve AND freeze. Then there would be a secondary die off when things started to warm up and those who did survive would be out looting and killing people over a can of Campbell’s soup. Not to mention disease from the filth that they would be living in, after all, the pumps at most waste water treatment plants run on electricity (and take workers to run them)…
Not very many people would be able to grow their own food - I mean, aside from hard core preppers, how many folks have heirloom seeds stockpiled? How many people have ANY skill at animal husbandry? And with our over crowded cities, WHERE exactly would they be expected to grow food? And let’s say a rather industrious person found a scratch of cultivatable land, would he then have the resources to both farm it AND defend it? Cuz not everyone would suddenly say, “kumbaya” and start farming all at the same time…
No, with the entitled masses that currently occupy our cities, the first day after the EBT cards stopped working, there would be looting. The second day there would be riots and the beginning of a mass exodus (which would only serve to clog the highways, blocking the delivery of any other food), and by the third day, people would be robbing the “haves” of their food and resources. By the end of the week there would be the beginning of cannibalism. Make no mistake, the thin veneer of civilization would be torn to shreds after the majority of the population misses NINE MEALS. Assuming the average person has a few days of food in the cupboard, it will take more or less a week.
The cities will turn into hell holes and the die off will be immense. The countryside will turn into a group of small “city states” of common minded neighbors banding together to defend what is theirs. The government will no doubt try to enact emergency measures to try and TAKE the food from the people in the country (who will be pretty offended by said action) and will probably start shooting at the agents of the state deployed to take the food. This will ultimately lead to a civil war where not only are people dying from exposure and starvation, but from government sponsored violence and roving bands of looters and raiders who will travel across the land like a swarm of locusts, looting and raping everything in their way.
Good times!
[quote]
Granted, Americans today are not made of the same stuff as the folks who subdued THE ENTIRE NORTH AMERICAN CONTINENT without electricity, but ninety percent?
Really?
[/quote]Like I said, that’s probably the WORST CASE scenario, but even other scenarios are a pretty fucking high percentage once you game it out[quote]
Have we really become so insipid, weak and frail?[/quote]
Weak and frail is not the issue. Dependent on food stamps, living in an over crowded area with not enough resources, and lack of general skill/knowledge of BASIC food production is the issue. I don’t care HOW strong you are, if you are starving, you will quickly turn weak in mind, body and spirit. Once the competition for resources becomes too intense, you will simply die…
