Quote:
Originally Posted by Lurken
You forget the loss of lives, the loss of knowhow, the loss of production capabilities, the loss of spare parts. That is in the nuclear exchange only. Then add starvation, sickness, desperation, exposure to elements. As a final kicker, add a war that drags on for another 2-3 years, grinding even more spares and materiel.
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For starters, the US is absolutely lousy with technology and has been for decades. It's got layers of technology in scrap yards, junk yards, and back yards. It's also lousy with cars, books, airplanes, boats, lawnmowers, guns, and schools. In addition it's got mandatory childhood education and a high literacy rate. This was just as true in the 90s as it is today.
That means even if you reduce the population by half (as per Howling Wilderness) you've still got a huge population of people and tons of technological knickknacks lying around. With half the population you've actually got more knickknacks per person and a smaller support load in terms of food, water, and shelter. Loss of production and spares doesn't mean as much because everyone is surrounded by spares.
With spares readily available the average community college would have the books needed to get a lot of small scale infrastructure up and running. Even if all the knowhow didn't already exist in that population. I also don't think it's right to assume that the US and other countries pre-TDM wouldn't start Civil Defense programs back up in earnest, even just free classes on stuff like first aid and survival skills.
The people still kicking in July 2000 are going to have gotten together to survive the three years after TDM. I don't see them
not trying to rebuild some force multipliers using salvaged/scavenged technology and equipment. Anything that makes people's lives easier to helps more survive it going to be useful and a desirable use of resources.