Electric Vehicles AFTER WWIII?

[lemmiwinks]

So it's possible that millions of people will survive while millions will not. If you live in a city... forget it... you're toast anyway so no need to worry about it. But if you are a "survivor type" (even a "Road Warrior" type) you need to live out in the middle of nowhere and find ways to get around and keep yourself alive for the first few years afterwards.

That will be the tricky part though, wont it? There'll be no food production, no supermarkets, no sanitation, no Dr's, no Hospitals, no medicine, no running water (if any water). Get a scratch working in the garden, you could die. Get a cold, you could die.

We aren't talking about growing a vegetable garden here, if your crop fails, you wont eat. You wont be shooting too many animals either, once your ammo runs out, so lets hope you're a good fisherman. The hunter-gatherer lifestyle will likely predominate for the survivors of the survivors.

Long distance transportation will be completely irrelevant because you wont go further than your tribe can walk in a day anyway. When your principal concern is where your next meal is coming from you wont really care about much else.

If (and this is a very, very, very, very big "if" in my opinion) it happens, it won't be like "Jericho", not even a little bit :wink: Think more along the lines of "Lord of the flies".

As for Nostradamus, you can pretty much say he predicted anything with the benefit of sufficient hindsight and determination. Once you've got a strong case for the past, his broad generalisations about the future start looking pretty good too.

 

[safe]

It's "safe" to say that "Medium" is not one of your favorite shows!

"Jericho" is still "evolving" as a show. I'm expecting to watch civilization continue to break down as the situation gets more bleak. However, if you look at that "blast map" and radiation paths the "mythical" Jericho is out in Western Kansas which doesn't have much in the way of a target nearby. If you are south enough (away from Denver) you might be okay.

One fact...

Airline workers get exposed to more radiation (because of altitude) than just about anyone else. If they can withstand two or three times the normal sea level dose and not get cancer then others will too. They DO have the highest cancer rates, but not all of them get cancer. The particle type of radiation (fallout) is gone after two weeks for the most part. Food tends to concentrate things so you have to be careful with that.

It's like real estate.. it's location, location, location...

We could get back to the technical discussion or simply "give up" on this idea because it's too depressing for many people...

 

[lemmiwinks]

It's "safe" to say that "Medium" is not one of your favorite shows!

Correct 8)

We could get back to the technical discussion or simply "give up" on this idea because it's too depressing for many people...

Sorry, didn't mean to rain on your parade there, still disgusted after watching the abject mysery, preventable death and senseless destruction last night, and knowing that if the money had been spent instead of stolen things would be much better. Then when I read this, well, I kinda figured it was a bit of an academic discussion because I've always maintained there wont be anyone left to care about electric or any other forms of transportation after WWIII.

If WWIII is a nuclear holocaust the survivors will be plunged into a new dark age and the hunter-gatherer lifestyle will predominate. Considering your average small town USA/Australia Joe Citizen, I'd say they'll be wishing they had 1/2 the bush skills of a Kalahari tribesman 'cause all of a sudden they're going to seem pretty well educated and sophisitcated.

When I was a kid, Mad Max II was my favourite movie, we read Z for Zacariah at school and I liked that too, but neither one is likely very close to what the reality of a post apocalyptic world will be like. Anyway, we return you to your regularly sheduled discussion. Move along, nothing to see here 8)

 

[xyster]

It's "safe" to say that "Medium" is not one of your favorite shows!

Ditto.

 

[lemmiwinks]

It's "safe" to say that "Medium" is not one of your favorite shows!

Ditto.

Actually, I've never watched it. The ads were more than enough to put me off.

 

[xyster]

Actually, I've never watched it. The ads were more than enough to put me off.

Double Ditto.

 

[Mathurin]

picklejuice resumed some stuff regarding TV on another forum:

I can vouch for this; TV is a brainwashing machine
for those too lazy/busy to check the link, here's the gist of it.

Cortical functioning actually slows down while kids watch TV as the cortical cortex moves from an active beta state into an alpha brain wave state. Little or no active mental construction of meaning takes place

(this means that TV is a mental vacuum)

Numerous studies indicate an inverse relationship between television viewing and reading/language achievement

(tv makes you dumb)

Children spend more time watching TV than any other single activity during the height of the most critical period for language and cognitive development

I realize you told us not to bitch Niles, so I'll refrain from making a long-winded post. This is all I have to say on the subject.

For myself, Jeopardy is the only show worth watching on TV. They shoot
back to back nonstop like a frocking Kalashnikov. Only pause is for
advertisements where you get to catch your breath. Now that's a show
that's worth watching, there's at least some challenge to it and you learn
stuff too. Nothing to do with 2 minutes per question in who wants to be a
millionaire type rubbish, WTF do ppl watch this? May as well show paint
drying...

When I turn on the TV, I usually find there's nothing worth spending my
time watching, though critter shows are a neat way to waste time. But
I've found that brainless TV shows, the ones where you don't get involved
as in jeopardy, they put me in a light trance state not unlike when I'm
meditating. Trouble is I become extremely succeptible to suggestions in
that state, for example if a guided meditation tape would tell me I'm
feeling very light, then indeed I would. The suggestions somehow fly right
past the BS detectors and go straight in the brain.

It's really scarey to think about it, cause once you recognise the patterns it
becomes very obvious that propaganda chans like CNN know what's up,
the way they keep repeating short affirmative sentences like "CNN, your
most trusted name in news.".

I've seen a bit of the show medium while channel flipping, there was some
psychic chick who was scared of getting an MRI. But the time spent
watching a show about fictional psychics could instead be better used to
use the Monroe Institute's Gateway Experience CD set, replacing a session
for a TV show. My goal isn't mediumship but to acheive an OBE and go
read a peice of paper on top of the ceiling fan in my room who's writing
I'm not aware of. so if I manage to pop my consciousness out of my body
and go read that, then I should be able to go confirm (or not) once I'm
back in waking state. It's just a personal experience in objective reality,
I want to determine if I'm really going out of body or if I'm just affecting
my perception of reality as what I'm going out of my body... But so far
I've found it interesting to delve into states of expanded awareness, do
silly tricks like setting my internal alarm clock for whatever time, and
having it work. Though that's something I learned through Silva
techniques, but once can essentially craft whatever tools one wants once
you reach that state. It's amazing just how well they work. I dunno if
Monroe teaches the alarm clock specificly though. But if you want to live
out the show mediums for yourself (ultimate interactive tv?) there's
nothing preventing you from actually living out the show fwiw... Your
library may have a set of monroe CD's or similar, or be able to get one
inter-library. You'll have to copy them though, it's a long ride.



Kinda like back when I wasted so much time watching that show about the
computer who can barely tie his shoes in a social setting, numb3rs it's
called? Now don't get me wrong, this fictional character guy's my second
hero right after Fechter. But WTF is up with theese
inconsistancies in his methods? One day he's like a retarded Von
Neumann machine, "I wonder if there's a link between theese painfully
obvious crimes" drilling holes in computer processors to use them as an
abacus... Then the other he suddenly becomes the absolute ultimate
master of concurrency, pulling shit out of his ass while running laps around
Deep Blue. No way, man. Of course I don't know what I'm talking about,
but if I would have kept watching that show I still wouldn't know any
better, would I? Besides, high level electronics are way sexyer then high
level math, at least in my view.

I mean what's the point in decyphering MD5 hashes using high level math
like that chineese woman who's name I forgot, when you can use a brute
force approch cracking multi-trillion MD5 hashes per second in a device
you can balance in one hand. Very sexy, in my view. Hell I've allready
forgotten the woman's name but I'd definitely have a crystal clear image
of that oh so sexy FPGA PLD. *drool*

I sincerely wish I had the set of 31337 skills to design something like
that, though http://www.xess.com/ has some nice shiite ready made that
comes with a good bit o sample code & apparently good support? So,
everyday, I take at least one baybystep closer to such a goal... Of course
by the time I reach that goal (if ever), MD5 will be old hat, it's beeing
phased out because of that chineese woman, as I understand it...


Ah well, at least if ww3 hits I'd no longer have to worry about the effects of tv 8)


I forgot why I was writing this, but that figures since it's 4:35am. Also the
practicality of EV's in post ww3 world seems to have been beaten to death
anyways so I figure no one'l mind that I went a good way off topic?

TV sucks because you essentially loose the time you spend in front of it.
So in conclusion, I love this forum.

 

[safe]

Most tv is mindless.

I will not watch "American Idol" even though it's America's favorite show because it's just too stupid. The History Channel is usually where I end up after channel surfing.

"Medium" deals with things that I have PERSONAL knowledge about. The percentage of people that have this "unusal" quality of being able to go to sleep and dream of things that are soon to happen is small, but it does exist. And it is after all the same "foundation" of religious thought... at least by the prophets who had a "clue" about it. Mankind in general lacks this skill (or genetics?) so it will likely always be misunderstood and ridiculed. That's my feeling on it anyway. I always expect to be a persecuted minority of sorts. Also, the show deals successfully with some of the "errors" that can happen in the process. EVERYTHING you dream isn't valid, but you can usually tell the difference between "one of THOSE dreams" verses a regular one.

Hillary Clinton will be the next US President... and WWIII will really get going about 3 - 4 years afterwards. (or even sooner, I expect a temporary lull in the middle) Iran takes over the middle east. Russia is no "friend" of America. These are all pretty "intuitively obvious" things about our world right now.

Getting back to WWIII and the life after...

It seems that the electric vehicle might survive the EMP despite peoples negative opinion about it. The EMP is a small but widely dispersed force that is more like a radio wave than a lightning bolt, so as long as your wires are shorter than 30" there will not be enough energy built up (length equals energy amount) to destroy the electronics.

However, it might be nice to see a test of this somehow just to prove that it's true. If in a post-nuclear war the cities are destroyed, but the country remains largely untouched then in a few years time the farms could begin to try to grow crops again. The electric vehicle really only needs to be able to survive for about five years so that it would be able to help save the lives of the survivors. Being able to get around just enough to find something to eat could be the difference between life and death. (it sure would beat walking if you are tired and hungry)

 

[xyster]

I find many shows on PBS, Discovery Channel, TLC, History Channel, and occasionally on network TV, educational, fun and worthwhile.

but you can usually tell the difference between "one of THOSE dreams" verses a regular one.

Safe, here's what "those" dreams are actually all about:
(this is hilarious!)


THEY'RE MADE OUT OF MEAT
by Terry Bisson
http://www.terrybisson.com/meat.html


"They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"Meat. They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"There's no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."

"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?"

"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."

"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."

"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."

"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."

"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in that sector and they're made out of meat."

"Maybe they're like the orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage."

"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take long. Do you have any idea what's the life span of meat?"

"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."

"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads, like the weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."

"No brain?"

"Oh, there's a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat! That's what I've been trying to tell you."

"So ... what does the thinking?"

"You're not understanding, are you? You're refusing to deal with what I'm telling you. The brain does the thinking. The meat."

"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"

"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal!  Are you beginning to get the picture or do I have to start all over?"

"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."

"Thank you. Finally. Yes. They are indeed made out of meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."

"Omigod. So what does this meat have in mind?"

"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the Universe, contact other sentiences, swap ideas and information. The usual."

"We're supposed to talk to meat."

"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello. Anyone out there. Anybody home.' That sort of thing."

"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"

"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."

"I thought you just told me they used radio."

"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."

"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"

"Officially or unofficially?"

"Both."

"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in this quadrant of the Universe, without prejudice, fear or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing."

"I was hoping you would say that."

"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?"

"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say? 'Hello, meat. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"

"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they can only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact."

"So we just pretend there's no one home in the Universe."

"That's it."

"Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you probed? You're sure they won't remember?"

"They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we're just a dream to them."

"A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat's dream."

"And we marked the entire sector unoccupied."

"Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?"

"Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotations ago, wants to be friendly again."

"They always come around."

"And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the Universe would be if one were all alone ..."

 

[safe]

Safe, here's what "those" dreams are actually all about:
(this is hilarious!)

Most dreams are just your own mind sort of talking to itself. But every once and a while you have a dream that has a psychic or spiritual element to it. Here's an example:

I had a dream that my mother (2000 miles away) who lives on top of a steep hill was having a water leak. This leak was undermining the house and the house was likely to slide down the hill. In the dream my mother was wandering around "confused" while this was all going on.

So I wake up and email my mother about the dream.

She responds that she had a nightmare the night before about a water leak and she had just gotten off the phone to the plumber about him coming out and fixing it.

"Rationalization" is the process where we take what ACTUALLY happened and attempt to "fit" it into what we "think" is the way reality is "supposed" to work. Most people will attribute this to coincidence... it's mankinds way of "rationalizing" (making tame) what is hard to explain.

"Mediums" are simply people who are more closely in tune with the "bizarre" way our physical universe is put together. If you are a big science fan and are really into things like quantum mechanics and all you realize that at the level of the electron things behave very strangely. While at the "macro" level that we use electrons in something like an electric vehicle (it's predicted by Newtonian Physics) the behavior is different within the brain itself because consciousness is in part getting into the "micro" level of matter.

If you are still interested in learning more go here:

http://www.integralscience.org/sacredscience/SS_science.html

...or here:

http://www.quantumconsciousness.org

If this is all "way over your head" that's "okay" because most Americans live at about the level of "American Idol" and are clueless about anything beyond that. Some people here might be "exceptional" so we will see...

 

[safe]

The whole point of this "exercise" is to connect the dots between where we are at the moment and what the future might bring. So the logic goes:

1. Quantum Physics alters our view of reality over Newtonian views.

2. Consciousness exploits reality in all forms.

3. Exploiting reality to it's fullest is called being a "Medium".

4. "Mediums" can sometimes predict events in advance.

5. Nostradamus (and others) predicted a sequence of events to occur.

6. WWIII is in the sequence that was predicted.

7. How can we exploit the prediction for our benefit? (EMP protection)

...so that's the line of reasoning.

 

[fechter]

I think your chances of getting hit by lightning (or a near hit) are much greater than getting hit by an EMP. Unless, of course you're driving past my house with an obnoxiously loud stereo system.

http://www.amazing1.com/emp.htm
http://www.amazing1.com/gallery/slideshow.php?mode=high&set_albumName=EMP-Generator-Explodes-Suicide-Killer-Dummie
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/pages/ebomb.html

 

[safe]

I think your chances of getting hit by lightning (or a near hit) are much greater than getting hit by an EMP. Unless, of course you're driving past my house with an obnoxiously loud stereo system.

After reading some of those articles it's amazing how easy it is to make an EMP only weapon and how vulnerable our technology is to it. The only good thing to know is that the effect decays rapidly with distance. The coverage of such a weapon is normally limited. However a large nuclear blast at a high altitude could knock out a lot of stuff.

It does seem that the electric vehicle could be "hardened", but no one has bothered to try it. (that we know of) The batteries and the motor seem okay and the wires are fine... it's just the weakest link "the controller" that might disable the whole machine...

 

[lemmiwinks]

Most dreams are just your own mind sort of talking to itself. But every once and a while you have a dream that has a psychic or spiritual element to it. Here's an example:

I had a dream that my mother (2000 miles away) who lives on top of a steep hill was having a water leak. This leak was undermining the house and the house was likely to slide down the hill. In the dream my mother was wandering around "confused" while this was all going on.

So I wake up and email my mother about the dream.

She responds that she had a nightmare the night before about a water leak and she had just gotten off the phone to the plumber about him coming out and fixing it.

Yah, she called the plumber, but was there a leak for him to fix when he arrived? 8)

Many fundamentalist Christians in the USA currently believe we are in the "end of days" and if that's their thing so be it, everyone is entitled to their personal beliefs IMO. You want to go with Nostradamus, no problems here.

I once had a lengthy (and highly amusing, for me at least) argument with a chap who firmly believed that the nukes were going to start raining down based on what some nutbar in Texas had said, plus his own personal interpretation of a certain book. He so firmly believed it that he built a fallout shelter and stocked up on tinned food and iodine. It was all supposed to end around September last year, so I can only assume he's still eating tinned food (and will be for the next few months).

I don't believe the future is predetermined, if it was we're all just automatons and it really doesn't matter what we do or don't do or how we live our lives. So therefore you can't see into it, or make prophetical predictions. But you can take a look at what's happened in the past and what's happening now and make an educated guess.

So, back to personal transport post apocalypse. Using New Orleans as an example I think it's safe to say that ICE powered vehicles will continue to function as normal until the last stocks of fuel are consumed. Electric vehicles will be struggling to recharge as the grid will go down fast, if not immediately (tactical strikes on power stations) which will mean using generators until petrol runs out. Theoretically diesel vehicles and generators could be converted to run on any kind of cooking oil (peanut oil, canoloa oil etc) but in reality most people will be too busy keeping alive to spend time tinkering on such projects. Not to mention that the people who had the skills to do that sort of work are most likely dead or uncontactable.

The average home solar, wind etc rig will be insufficent to recharge anything much larger than an ebike (my EVT for example has 2.4Kwh of batteries). Plus if you have enough strikes you could be looking at nuclear winter which rules out solar. Once all the food is looted from stores (a couple of days, tops) the fight for survival will begin in earnest. Gangs (if not prexisting) will form quickly and it'll be a feudal/warlord type of rule. I'm not sure I'd like to be out and about on an ebike at this point.

Given the impracticalities in recharging, I think I would abandon my ebike for a sturdy mountain bike and get the hell out of Dodge. Possibly riding until the batteries are flat then discarding the batteries and continuing on may be an option too. A horse may also be a good choice, although you need to know how to take care of them, and to quote Seinfeld, I don't know if I want to be "6 feet in the air on a glassy-eyed dinosaur." If it bucks you off and you break a bone you're well and truly screwed.

So all up, if it all goes pear shaped, simple will be best by a long shot. Human power will be the dominant form of personal transport, and you can forget about inspirational speeches from atop piles of rubble about rebuilding society like at the end of "Independance Day", it ain't going to happen. There are people out there who eagerly anticipate an apocalypse, thinking that their faction, cult, sect, whatever will rise up and seize global domination, but I'm telling you we only get one chance at this. There will be no clean slate, no glorious dawn of a new age. Get this wrong and it will be the second dark age.

I wouldn't lose too much sleep though, the nutters are running the show for sure, but they're crazy like a fox. Power is a strong drug, and they know as well as we do that scuffles over oil are "acceptable" (except for the poor bastards caught in the middle), but they're not going to throw it all away in one fell swoop. No doubt the Ruskies are still pissed about the Kursk (and I would be too), but even then the silos remained closed (though there were probably a few subs parked off various coastlines at launch depth).

If I were you, I'd be more worried about the way we're raping the planet like there's no tomorrow. We're shitting in our nest, and we've got nowhere else to go when we finish wrecking this place.

 

[safe]

Many fundamentalist Christians in the USA currently believe we are in the "end of days" and if that's their thing so be it, everyone is entitled to their personal beliefs IMO. You want to go with Nostradamus, no problems here.

Most modern day christians have been influenced by "Dispensationalism". If you know about it already you know it's only about 100 years old as a theory goes. From that theory you get the (blind) support of Israel and the "rapture".

I'm not into any of that...

But I do think that the unsconscious mind has the ability to have "intuition" and "dreams" that are more than just simple emotion. I've had a few too many premonitions come true to ignore it. I "trust" my intuition... which most people don't anymore choosing to go with whatever the mainstream thinks instead.

The electric vehicle could be recharged by wind power as well as solar. Wind would be easier to keep going because the technology is simpler. The bicycle is probably the MOST practical post-nuclear transportation device... but an electric vehicle (if it could be "hardened") might allow someone to get around without exerting so much effort.

The cities would be destroyed, so the "gangs" aren't likely to be city centered "gangs" but more like country boys with shotguns:

America "should" become more "white" and less of other races because the cities are filled with mostly non-whites. So I would expect the "tribal" lines to go around the "country" folks wanting to kill off the "city" folks (those not already dead) who would naturally be out in unfamiliar territory seeking food. The "locals" would protect their "turf"... so the future is probably a little more "red neck". This also mirrors the current politics which has the "city" folks being the liberals and the "country" folks being the conservatives. So war "should" make the country "whiter" and more republican...

 

[xyster]

A horse may also be a good choice

I agree.

The horse will:

-find its own fuel

-go where wheeled vehicles can not (important for "getting out of dodge")

-provide warmth

-provide a stable, high platform for hunting or self-defense

-require less maintenance than a wheeled vehicle

-remain "EMP" proof

-act as a "canary in the coal mine" when necessary in re toxic food/water, etc.

-scare away many predators

-carry or tow hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds of gear

-help sow fields for planting

-be a "friend", a buddy when no one else is around (or will) in a way an unconscious machine can not. Important for long-term mental stability when otherwise lost with no friends or family.

-probably have many other advantages in a survival situation I can't think of

If the bombs began falling, forget a bike, a horse and a gun are some of the first items I'd try to secure.

 

[lemmiwinks]

Most modern day christians have been influenced by "Dispensationalism". If you know about it already you know it's only about 100 years old as a theory goes. From that theory you get the (blind) support of Israel and the "rapture".

I'm not into any of that...

Me neither!

But I do think that the unsconscious mind has the ability to have "intuition" and "dreams" that are more than just simple emotion. I've had a few too many premonitions come true to ignore it. I "trust" my intuition... which most people don't anymore choosing to go with whatever the mainstream thinks instead.

I don't really go in for intuition/foretelling the future as I said, but I have seen some documentaries (NOT "Psychic Investiagors", acutal documentaries) where people claiming psychic abilities appeared to reveal some interesting facts about crimes that were being investigated that could not easily be explained.

The electric vehicle could be recharged by wind power as well as solar. Wind would be easier to keep going because the technology is simpler. The bicycle is probably the MOST practical post-nuclear transportation device... but an electric vehicle (if it could be "hardened") might allow someone to get around without exerting so much effort. The cities would be destroyed, so the "gangs" aren't likely to be city centered "gangs" but more like country boys with shotguns...

Only a small electric vehicle. You'd need a lot of panels and strong sunshine to recharge my EVT and it's 2.4Kwh worth of batteries. That would mean riding in the hours preceding dawn or the early dawn hours themselves. Then a full day of good sunlight to recharge. We're talking post apocalypse so you really need to take good care of your batteries.

Wind won't cut it either, most generators are 200 - 400W @ 12V.

I agree with you about the bicycle, and if something could be done about recharging then an electric addition could provide a good utility vehicle. But, IMO you can forget about having a home base to return to, so you'd need a portable recharging solution which brings you back to the regular old human powered bicycle.

For the most part, I'd expect small groups of people might survive in isolation if they can sustain an agrarian lifestyle, but the hunter-gatherer is a more likely scenario. Even that will be on shaky ground. All the skills required for either lifestyle are completely redundant and have been for several centuries.

The cities would be destroyed, so the "gangs" aren't likely to be city centered "gangs" but more like country boys with shotguns...

I resemble that remark! :wink:

 

[lemmiwinks]

I agree.

The horse will:

-find its own fuel

-go where wheeled vehicles can not (important for "getting out of dodge")

-provide warmth

-provide a stable, high platform for hunting or self-defense

-require less maintenance than a wheeled vehicle

-remain "EMP" proof

-act as a "canary in the coal mine" when necessary in re toxic food/water, etc.

-scare away many predators

-carry or tow hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds of gear

Excellent points, also, if the worst comes to the worst, you could eat it. Dogs, cats and other domestic animals will be on the menu too. Not much room for sentimentailty when you're faced with starvation.

I know squat about horses, but I reckon a big, docile Clydesdale horse would be a good choice. If it came down to it, whatever you could get your hands on would be better than nothing (so long as you can stay on it of course).

 

[xyster]

And there's of course the other ungulates (hoofed mammals) that would require less food, like the donkey and the mule. Llama farming (pack animal, don't think it'd be happy if you tried to ride it) is big around here. Hmmmm... Don't think I could hide a stolen llama in my garage for long Oh well...if the bombs really did start falling, then I'd have no qualms about rustling me an ungulate or two.

I've only ridden a horse a few times, but grew up around farm animals. As a child, I tended to the sheep and cattle my family had on our ranch, but never learned that much about them.

 

[safe]

So rather than "hardening" my electric bike I should be looking to own a horse?

I'm just not sure that we would need to go that far back...

People who live more than 20 miles from a city would only notice that something even happened because of the two weeks of radiation fallout (assuming they are downwind). After that things would begin to get back to normal. The MAIN problem is the lack of supplies that would normally be distributed as part of a normal economy. The trucks would need gasoline, but all you would have is what's in the local gas station. Once that runs out the gasoline supply is largely gone. (in the rural areas that are likely to be free of other damage)

You can run a generator on coal if you want.... and I suppose people could even make their own steam powered cars and trucks to get around on, but it seems easier to get the local coal powered powerplant running again and then charge up your electric vehicle off of it. There would be a lot of repairs that would need to be made, but I've even got a map in my house of the locations of all the coal plants in the US and most of them are located in the middle of nowhere. (the previous owner of the house left it) They would not normally be a target. (unless the goal was to specifically take out the power plants alone... which seems like a wasteful use of a nuclear bomb)

Anyway... gasoline will be scarce because America doesn't have any more of it (very little) but electricity should be easy to get going again with coal which is plentiful in America...

 

[xyster]

So rather than "hardening" my electric bike I should be looking to own a horse?

If you're a serious about the survivalist thing, yes.

 

[lemmiwinks]

So rather than "hardening" my electric bike I should be looking to own a horse?

Well, like the man said, it's a damn sight easier to recharge and it's already emp proof.

I'm just not sure that we would need to go that far back...

Sorry, but it's not like you'll have a choice. Forget "Jericho", look at some archival footage of New Orleans post Katrina, or even LA during the Rodney King riots, that's more what you can expect. That and people puking their guts out and generally dying from radiation sickness.

You can run a generator on coal if you want.... and I suppose people could even make their own steam powered cars and trucks to get around on, but it seems easier to get the local coal powered powerplant running again and then charge up your electric vehicle off of it. There would be a lot of repairs that would need to be made, but I've even got a map in my house of the locations of all the coal plants in the US and most of them are located in the middle of nowhere. (the previous owner of the house left it) They would not normally be a target. (unless the goal was to specifically take out the power plants alone... which seems like a wasteful use of a nuclear bomb)

Sorry, but it if happens, you'll be so busy working your arse off just staying alive that electricity will be the furthest thing from your mind. The Amish will have a massive leg up on the rest of us in this case (but they'll probably get their arses kicked by militia rednecks with guns). What you'd really need is a fortified compound with a self sufficient Amish style community inside. Even then, you'll need a strict planned parenting program, and a militarised Amish community is kind of mutually exclusive (not to mention security risks, health risks, conflicts of consience and moral dilemmas when roaming survivors drop by).

No, if it happens, protecting your PWM controller from EMP will be waaaay down your list of priorities. As will where next to recharge your ebike.

 

[safe]

Horses are safe from EMP, but not from radioactive fallout. So you would need first to own a horse and then be willing to take it indoors with you for the two weeks it takes to get past the radiation threat. (a barn might work if it's sealed up pretty tight) Anything outside and unprotected (like a horse) would die of radiation exposure. In medieval times they kept the barn animals indoors with them all the time, so it's possible, but you would have to be prepared.

Electric vehicles are mostly protected from EMP except for the controller. The controller is the only thing that's likely to break. So it seems to me that if you could resolve that (through testing now) then in the future the electric vehicle could be of value.

It's an extra "selling point"... not only is the electric vehicle:

1. Fun

2. Clean

3. Affordable

4. But it might help you survive after a nuclear war...

Note: The city people will all be dead. Katrina was not an example of how things would work. Look at pictures of Hiroshima... the city folks will die within days or weeks of the bomb blast. The only people that will live will be 20 miles away from the city or ideally 100 miles from a major city and not downwind from any silo's that will get "carpet bombed".

All the urban gangsters (like New Orleans) will be dead...

 

[lemmiwinks]

Horses are safe from EMP, but not from radioactive fallout. So you would need first to own a horse and then be willing to take it indoors with you for the two weeks it takes to get past the radiation threat. (a barn might work if it's sealed up pretty tight) Anything outside and unprotected (like a horse) would die of radiation exposure. In medieval times they kept the barn animals indoors with them all the time, so it's possible, but you would have to be prepared.

Dunno about you, but I'll be stealing someone's horse if/when it happens. Preparation is a waste of time IMO, mostly because of the lack of probability of a nuclear holocaust, but also because it's not going to mean squat if it all goes down. No-one (except a few Hiroshima and Nagasaki surviours) has lived through a nuke so no-one really knows what to expect and anyway, the modern ones make those bombs look like penny crackers.

Electric vehicles are mostly protected from EMP except for the controller. The controller is the only thing that's likely to break. So it seems to me that if you could resolve that (through testing now) then in the future the electric vehicle could be of value.

Sorry, I really don't think there's any point in EMP-proofing an EV. There'll be nowhere to recharge it anyway, and personally I'm going to be more concerned about where my next meal is coming from, how I'm going to cook it, if at all, and how much longer is water going to come out when I turn on the tap and will I get sick if I drink it.

 

[lemmiwinks]

Note: The city people will all be dead. Katrina was not an example of how things would work. Look at pictures of Hiroshima... the city folks will die within days or weeks of the bomb blast. The only people that will live will be 20 miles away from the city or ideally 100 miles from a major city and not downwind from any silo's that will get "carpet bombed".

All the urban gangsters (like New Orleans) will be dead...

That behaviour was by no means unique to a city, cities or New Orleans in particular. Small town USA will dissolve quicker than you can say ICBM.