Below is a list of the skills one should have to survive after the Apocalypse. My goal for 2011 is to learn as much as I can in one year (2012 it all ends, right?) while holding down my day job. I don’t expect to learn every skill below. However, I thought I should first brainstorm all the skills I should learn and from there pick the most important and most likely ones I would be able to acquire in one year.
Two notes about the list below:
- First, the lists is loosely organized around Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, starting with the most fundamental. Within each sub-category skills needed for the short-term (or immediate survival) are listed before skills needed for more long-term survival.
- Second, while I wrote the original version of this list on Dec, 16, 2010 the list is being constantly added to and edited. I add items as I think of them, and also build links into particular subjects as I find links that I particularly like for specific subjects.
Physiological Needs
Water
Get water out of a cactus
How to gather rain
How to dig a well
Food
How to start a fire without a match
How to pick a survival knife
How to skin an animal
How to hunt an animal
How to shoot an arrow
How to use a gun
How to pick a gun
How to clean and maintain a gun
How to make a bullet
How to track an animal
How to make beef jerky
How to gather food
How to raise an animal
How to grow corn, beans, squash and other southwestern foods
How to dry beans
How to read the weather
Shelter
How to build a shelter
How to use a leatherman
Basic construction knowledge
Basic electrical knowledge
How to raid a home depot store
Clothing
How to sew a button
How to repair shirt/pants
Safety Needs
Personal Security
How to use a gas mask
How to swing a golf club as a weapon
Same weapon skills needed for hunting listed above
How to build/repair a fence
How to build a perimeter
How to make a cannon
Basic chemistry
Financial Security
Bargaining skills
How to siphon gas
How to start an abandoned car
How to build a solar power system
How to build a wind system
Health and well-being
How to fix a wound
Basic medical care for the short and long term
Basic psychology or counseling skills
How to swamp cool the natural way
Love and belonging needs
How to build a commune
How to make a plan
How to communicate long distance without power
How to play the harmonica
How to navigate using the stars
First off the vastr majority of city folk, i predict, will never make it out of the prisons those acres of cages will become once the arteries to leave become impassable. Using Katrina as a model, we can see that in the case of a truly castastrophic disaster, infrastructure will actually imprison the citydwellers rather than free them.
How to get out quickly, should then be added?
I can get you in contact with a pro at harmonica playin’. Let me know when you have time. He taught me in 3 mins a basic song.
I would say definitely learning the immediate geography of your city an surrounding area, especially for metropolitans woul be essential and then how to survey and evaluate land based on its resources an defensibility is a must. While a straight up zombie-apocalypse is unlikely Cormac McCarthy’s vision of post-disaster barbarity is probably in a reasonably expectable range. Pacifists like me will either have to be prepared to sacrifice ourselves as meat or accept the real meaning behind the phrase survival by any means necessary.
[...] Maybe I should add ”Learn Spanish” to my list of tasks for the apocalypse. [...]