survival math 2 of 2

SURVIVAL MATH 2

Two long cherished survivalist fantasies that do NOT add up correctly are charity and adding members to a group.  To make the math work, they must assume something really stupid like a zombie apocalypse which takes everyone away while leaving their canned goods ( Earth Abides is thought to be a classic Post-Apocalypse novel.  To my way of thinking, it was the original fuzzy thinking illogical logistics plot whence all zombie books sprung ).  Or, if they think themselves clever, the authors ignore such things as denuded soil, decimated livestock or polluted and paved over woods and instead create a fantasy novel where magic provides an enchanted kingdom next door to a suburban prepper fortress, full of wild game and super deluxe calorie filled and fat dense wild plants, where no other humans dare to share in the bounty.  Let’s take an atypical survivalist who is somehow smart enough to stock the crap out of food, but who then turns into a typical schmuck and wants to give some of it to charity or wants to increase the size of his group for whatever reason ( all morally upright reasons such as providing for the community and helping his fellow man, or more nefarious ones such as a power grab ).  Let’s do the math.  Simple, and everyone can relate ( unlike big numbers which lose their significance ).

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Stockpiled is twenty man years of food.  Four hundred pounds a year per person of wheat, providing a bare bones 1500 calories a day.  Five years per person, for a four member family.  Eight thousand pounds of wheat at $2k ( we will assume that the storage containers were free ).  A lot of survivalists spend more than that on one firearm with its magazines.  Most Yuppie families spend that much on their cell phone plans for the year.  If not more.  Plainly very do-able.  Eight thousand pounds sounds like a lot.  As does five years of food storage.  But let’s start adding people.  Just adding one parents parental unit is going to cut everyone’s rations to three and a third years each.  The parents are too old, of course, to be part of the protection force and so the fathers brother is included.  Now everyone is down to barely over two and three quarters years worth of food.  And that is just family.  The fathers best friend is an avid gun collector and combat veteran and has a reasonable amount of ammunition ( whereas the food owners didn‘t get enough ).  He adds to your military force so you believe it is advantageous to feed him and his wife and their one child.  Now everyone has just two years of food. 

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Unfortunately, the collapse comes at the onset of winter and everyone has just enough to eat to keep fornicating and both breeders see the Spring quite pregnant ( the condoms ran out the first month ).  And with enough food and barely enough medication left, the grandparents don’t die.  There is six thousand pounds of food left come summer and now eleven  eaters ( combination of increased eating during pregnancy and for nursing equals one extra person ).  Five hundred days of food remain.  If one were to plant any wheat, not the worst idea, a significant portion would need to be gambled.  In half a year, everyone would have gone from four more years plus, to only another year.  And all they did was invite family plus a guy and his minimal family to help protect everyone.  Simple math.

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