aem wrote:
>
> On Aug 27, 2:46 pm, Omelet > wrote:
> > ....
> > In the event of a nuclear holocaust, what is the estimated percentage of
> > humans that could even begin to survive? How many can consider
> > harvesting a wild plant for food? How many people can dress out a fresh
> > animal for food? [snip all the repetitions of the thought]
>
> It's true that contemporary urban dwellers are further from and less
> knowledgeable about food sources than used to be the case before the
> industrial revolution. So what? I don't see this as a big deal at
> all. Human beings are adaptable. That's how they learned the skills
> you seem to be bemoaning the loss of, and that's how they learned how
> to efficiently provide food in usable form to millions of city
> dwellers. In the event of some humongous but survivable disaster
> they'll learn how to adapt to whatever the new conditions are.
> Probably. Or die.

The most recent examples of survivable disasters didn't show much
progress on that relearning survival thing. I suppose it wasn't long
enough before outside help arrived in each case to really see if those
skills would return to most people.

I expect a true global disaster scenario would see a significant
thinning of the herd, which would probably be a good thing since that
might leave enough resources to sustain the remaining population.