It is a frightening realization that our world hinges on a very thin tether of human cooperation that allows us to create a civilization where food is delivered daily to everyone everywhere all the time.

As soon as that system is disrupted, or destroyed ... people automatically start starving.

If something terrible happens right now and transportation stops ... there is only enough fresh food in any town for 24 hours ... 72 hours to empty them all of everything else that is edible. What most people don't realize is that modern grocery stores are stocked just for a day or two with the expectation that deliveries will happen on a daily basis. So grocery stores don't have any extra once supplies are gone. They don't have surplus in the back to restock everything. Even as it all starts, we will probably start fighting, murdering one another for food supplies once we realize no more is coming.

It's really hard to build a civilization from nothing ... but it's far too easy to take a civilization down.

“From barbarism to civilization requires a century; from civilization to barbarism needs but a day.” - Will Durant

[–] Barbarian@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

It's actually worse than that. Starvation takes a long time to happen (~3 weeks). Lack of access to water causes death and desperation in a much shorter period of time. If water pipelines and/or pumping facilities get screwed up in any way, cities will become mad max much faster and in a much more intense fashion. In a water-starved population, people are mostly composed of water...

[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 weeks ago

Correct .... I'm Indigenous and my parents were born in the 1930s and 1940s and they lived through famine up here in northern Ontario before the province became fully developed in our part of the country. Dad had several stories where he remembered being a kid in the 1950s and watched people boil moccasins in order to get some kind of food to eat.

It takes a long, long time to die from starvation ... but it also doesn't mean that you are healthy and running around the whole time either. You go through several days or even weeks of no food and you can survive and just exist miserably. After that you can linger just sitting still or lying still for days or weeks before you actually expire. There are plenty of stories from the second world war about this in places like Auschwitz or Buchenwald concentration camps ... or besieged cities like Leningrad or Stalingrad where thousands of people starved for weeks and months, yet survived.

Even as you are starving and on your feet, you'll probably go insane first and do things like actually wanting to kill people just to eat them ... this is actually the basis of many of our stories and legends of Windigo and monsters, it was creatures that were once people that turned to hunting and eating people.

Water is plentiful here in northern Ontario so we'll probably be safe from that shortage ... it might not be safe or convenient but we'll have access to enough. Starvation from food might not take hold for several days, weeks or even months ... but people will sure be miserable and very dangerous and unpredictable almost immediately once they know there will be a food shortage.

I don't bother prepping for these reasons .... the ones who survive won't be the ones who prepared or are the strongest or the smartest ... the ones who survive will be the lucky ones who just happen to survive the longest without getting killed or murdered by other people.

[–] PunnyName@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

This is why the Flint water crisis was such a big deal: it doesn't take long to die when water runs out.

[–] peopleproblems@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

No, but you do lose quite a bit of weight while you turn into human jerky

[–] sundray@lemmus.org 4 points 2 weeks ago

When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” To this day, especially in times of “disaster,” I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.

Fred Rogers