People talk about the low information crowd, those on food stamps, welfare, and such. The way I look at it, most of those people are too lazy or inept to make it on their own and need - desperately - someone to take care of them.
Than there are those who do know how to survive when the shinola hits the fan. I firmly believe these types live more in the outer suburbs to the country.
Those who need someone to look after them will gravitate to those who they think will take care of them. In the urban areas of the cities, the thugs and gangsters will take charge and use these people as cannon fodder. In the outlying areas, those who have the knowledge and skills to survive can afford to pick and choose.
The survivors can pick those who can work - the able-bodied and so on. They will teach these people to survive, to hunt, fish, shoot, cook, fix things, mend, trap, track, ambush, kill, etc. They will discard the less able-bodied - send them back or kill them outright. If you can't work, you can't live here. Also, they will teach people what made the country worked in the first place - hard work, Christian beliefs, charity.
The gangsters will hold up in the cities and meagerly exist. They will at times make excursions into the country for supplies and people - slaves. But they will fail because they will not have the knowledge - or tactical knowledge - in how to fight and win.
Just thoughts off the top of my head.
Government speak for "we have no idea".
This alone would cause mass hysteria, imagine kids who couldn't text or update facebook every two minutes.
Power just went out in the DC area.
Not quite the 1800’s. In some ways I think we’d be better off, and in other ways we’d be worse.
Even without electricity, most people nowadays have a basic understanding of germs and how diseases spread. We know that cats are an asset, not a sign of witches. We know more about nutrition than we ever did then. We know what kind of advances are possible, and the more technically-minded will be able to rig up things that people in the 1800’s could only dream about.
On the other hand, few people these days know how to raise and prepare their own meats. Few people can start a fire without a book of matches. Too many people have no idea where food comes from. Too many people have become so dependent on a constant barage of inputs, that they literally go insane when that stream is cut off.
I think if the power went off, it would be a mixed bag. Some people would do well, some would give up and die, and some would die slowly after struggling to adapt but not knowing how.
We have one asset right now that people in the 1800’s never had. We have so much information right at our fingertips! Learn what you can, while you can. Even if you never need it, you’ll be glad you took the time.
I love when the EMP threads come up every year or so. Fascinating science fiction. It also got me into the show “Revolution” that’s on Netflix. Great show!