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How useful would your profession or skills be in a post-apocalyptic world?

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Two Words

Member
Med student with one year left. I would bury you - literally, most likely. 95% of what I and even experienced doctors know would be useless in any scenario worthy of being called an apocalypse so say hello to medieval-standards of care.

That said, are any of you people drug dealers? In that case you have a bright future! Cocaine or even hasch would make decent makeshift anaesthetics that could allow for some minor surgery. It's that or getting you pass-out drunk while I saw that infected leg off.

Umm, why do you think doctors would be useless?
 

Moppet13

Member
If I some how I had to end up gambling for food or something I could see myself being a little better off in the long run, but that doesn't really matter too much when every interaction matters.
 
Graphic designer, so I'd probably thrive more than I would in this economy. Bandits would band together, form hives and ghost towns, try and get their settlements looking all Mad Max-y by scribbling spray paint on flags and walls, writing things in blood, put skulls on pikes and it'd look like total shit. Then they realize "well fuck, I guess crushing skulls doesn't really translate to decorating our frontier that well. I mean sure, it's gruesome, but I feel like the whole look of the place isn't really lining up. It's missing some kind of thought to it, y'know?"

That's where I come in.
 

braves01

Banned
Bigger than most people, but poor vision and no skills that would be important. I would have to either become the muscle for an optometrist/ophthalmologist, or live in a cave and try to lure prey in close enough so I can see it.
 

pants

Member
Well my hobby is survivalist stuff and martial arts so somewhat. As for my profession? Yeah I dont think we're going to need too many android apps.
 

Downhome

Member
I am a Job Coach for the Intellectually Delayed/Disabled (the former mentally retarded term). I certainly hope it would still be benificial in a post-apocalyptic world.
 

Bacon

Member
How many people do you think they would need to stare at a computer for 8 hours of the day? If they needed one of those, I'd be the guy for it.
 

Nabbis

Member
Umm, why do you think doctors would be useless?

Cause modern doctors can't do shit without modern medicine and facilities. Most of the time the job description will probably be cautarizing wounds and telling people to take it easy if they have a fever.

Edit: Assuming that they can grow their own botanical gardens and read up on what chemicals certain plants hold in themselves it might be a different story.
 

inner-G

Banned
Graphic Designer skills: Nil

But, I grew up in the country. I can use bows/guns/knives, hunt, fish, make fires, cook food, etc. outdoors so I might be ok.
 
My father's father was a hunter/trapper/fisherman on the Cree reserve on Amisk Lake in North Saskatchewan where I spent my summers growing up. My mother's father was a fisherman/farmer cum green grocer in the Maritimes. I can grow, hunt, fish, clean and cook my own food, am comfortable with rifles and shotguns, can mend fishing nets, build my own canoe and train dogs to the harness to pull a sleigh... If I could get far enough north to be out of the fallout, I'd be fine...

...I'm convinced that none of my children would last a week, however...


edit: I'm a child of the '60s... the only Apocalypse is a nuclear Apocalypse...
 

Drek

Member
I'm a geologist, basically the core academic discipline for doomsday prepping. I grew up in a place remote enough to consider most "doomsday" scenarios (no running water, electricity, forage/hunt your own food, etc.) summer camp.

My wife was (by education) an archaeologist. She studied contact period archeology, so the resource prioritization and foodways of pre-industrial cultures in the U.S. are smack dab in her wheel house. She is now an active community garden leader, has an successful square foot gardening system in our back yard, etc..

We were both members of a flint knapping club in undergrad. I have drilled literally hundreds of water wells. I have yet to find a mechanical system I can't figure out and fix. I'm a good plumber with a ton of experience deconstructing and rebuilding a wide variety of pumps, electrical, gas, pneumatic, and manual power. I'm a solid electrician, and built my first transformer when I was 10.

I was a junior archery champion multiple years running until my dad blew out his rotator cuff and stopped shooting. I shot with a bow I made myself for the last few years and my dad made me fletch all his arrows for him.

I grew up fishing every day from basically thaw (around April/May) to first freeze (around October) and then ice fishing after that (northern Maine).

I've eaten just about every animal you can eat that won't make you sick. I've foraged for mushrooms many, many times with no improper identifications yet.

My entire family has an extensive history of making our own furniture. I furnished my bedroom in high school out of what I made in shop class and my grandfather's wood shop.

I also keep a minimum of 3 months worth of canned/dry foods in my home at all times, approximately 20-30 gallons of clean, drinkable water, and will be building a gray water system to capture rainwater to irrigate our gardens with next spring.

So yeah, I'd do pretty well. Stay shut in for the first few months while you all kill each other or starve, then clean up the remainder. To that end I keep tabs on multiple places I can find solar and wind power equipment (about a 1.5 hr. drive from where I currently live, yes I can drive an 18 wheeler), multiple sources of drilling equipment to set groundwater wells (know of a half dozen different options for that within half an hour drive), etc. etc..
 

Nivash

Member
Cause modern doctors can't do shit without modern medicine and facilities. Most of the time the job description will probably be cautarizing wounds and telling people to take it easy if they have a fever.

Yeah, pretty much this. I mean don't get me wrong - we'd still be in high demand thanks to our knowledge of physiology and pathology, just don't have too high hopes about the results. Modern medicine is dependent on a functioning high-tech industry. Without even things like antibiotics and anaesthesia any kind of surgery had the potential of being a death sentence.

You got cancer and we don't have chemo or rads? You're fucked. Appendicitis? Probably fucked. Bleeding ulcer? Fucked. Pregnant? You'll probably be OK, but you should get more than one or two kids (not you that have a choice - goodbye profylactics!)
 
My day job, computer scientist, is utterly useless.

My side job, Japanese->English translator, is useful if I'm in Japan or encounter any Japanese survivors.

One of my hobbies, woodworking/making furniture, is sufficiently useful if we're talking civilized a post-apocalypse where things just went to hell because most of the population died. I figure I could scavenge enough tools and be useful enough to not starve.
 
As a janitor, I'd assume I'd still be needed a little bit, but every post-apocalypse I've ever seen looks pretty rubble-strewn. I fear people won't be so fussy that they'll need the floor mopped every week anymore.
 

Two Words

Member
Cause modern doctors can't do shit without modern medicine and facilities. Most of the time the job description will probably be cautarizing wounds and telling people to take it easy if they have a fever.

Edit: Assuming that they can grow their own botanical gardens and read up on what chemicals certain plants hold in themselves it might be a different story.
But isn't being a doctor helpful for less complicated medical issues? Sure, maybe you can't give somebody a heart transplant, but won't it be a vital skill to recognize symptoms and understand how to mitigate them?
 
I'm a lawyer with postgraduate education in Constitutional law. The most useful thing I can think of is to help elaborating a new Constitution or legal system more fitting to the world's new status.
 

Nivash

Member
But isn't being a doctor helpful for less complicated medical issues? Sure, maybe you can't give somebody a heart transplant, but won't it be a vital skill to recognize symptoms and understand how to mitigate them?

Sure, the problem is the mitigation part. Just about everything is medications these days with life style changes as supportive but not corrective interventions. The reason being, of course, that most illnesses can't be treated without medicine. There are some exceptions - diabetes can be treated through diet initially, for instance. But most of the time it would be more on the line on "Oh, you have Crohns disease! ... Uh, good luck with that."

To be honest, we would have a hard time competing with alternative "medicine" peddlers in the post-apocalypse. Hell, we've a hard time keeping them at bay as it is. Come to think of it that's a possible career path for those of you with less useful professions in the wastelands: healer or snake oil salesman. Re-education shouldn't take too long but charisma is recommended. That, or knowing when to bug out after you angered the locals.
 

Ecotic

Member
I'm skilled in business, finance, economics, politics, and international relations. At first glance that screams doomed, but I'd be very valuable in group strategic planning, or a leadership role. You must have sound decision making for your group in the post apocalypse.

I also used to attend weekly survivalist group meetings every Sunday night for about a year, for shits and giggles mostly. I learned an awful lot about freeze dried food, but almost everything else talked about there was worthless! Those paranoid 'go it alone' idiots there wouldn't last one month, in the post apocalypse you need to be part of a group or community to make it.
 

smurfx

get some go again
would there still be electricity? if so then i would be of some use. i also know how to do several things in construction.
 
I'm a Software Engineer and I say we don't give up soo easily. We just need to have the Hardware Engineers join us so we can work together and build KillBots.
 

goku1693

Member
Lol loan officer at a credit union. Plausible not probable id be one of the first to go haha. But I do have some limited wood working and a lot of leadership experience, so I give myself a solid eh.
 
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