They can’t really do that in America, there’s too much land and room and food. They could temporarily trap a population within a city by surrounding it with some barricades and stuff but that won’t last long. The population size of the US has a massive ratio of more citizens than law enforcement and military. They can’t take us all.
For someone like me, if the food supplies were all cut off I could just live off of the land by hunting, fishing, and farming.
They can’t really do that in America, there’s too much land and room and food.
50% of the produce we consume is grown in the California central valley. The rest is grown in a few areas of the Great plains and in Florida.
Most of the food you see growing anywhere else isn’t for people, it’s for livestock.
For someone like me, if the food supplies were all cut off I could just live off of the land by hunting, fishing, and farming.
I think you are overestimating just how much food “the land” can provide. You need around an acre a person for subsistence farming, and that is assuming you live in a region that has a decent climate, that you have irrigation, and have access to modern fertilizer and pesticides.
As far as hunting and fishing goes… If a large sector of the population had to live off the land, the wildlife likely wouldn’t last a single season. The only reason we still have the wild animal populations we currently have is because there are strict regulations monitoring the amount of people who hunt and fish.
Early Americans were able to devastate a larger healthier ecology with a tiny fraction of our current population. Most of our country’s natural Forrest and woodland were already destroyed and artificially rehabilitated over a hundred years ago. We have very few old growth Forrest for us to actually live off of.
If it weren’t for petrochemical fertilizer the natural nitrogen cycle wouldn’t be enough to sustain our current population. Since the invention of the haber process in the 1930s we are all just a bad year away from food insecurity.
There are areas and kinds of people who can live off the land, in one way or another. They do exist.
They can live off the land when the vast majority of the population isn’t trying to do the same. Hungry human populations are worse than locust, we can absolutely destroy entire ecologies in weeks.
the military really is in the same boat as the rest of us.
In the scenario they proposed the military would be controlling the means of food production. This isn’t something we have to guess about, there’s plenty of examples of intentional famines like what the Brits did to Bengal, and the Irish, or the Soviets in Ukraine, and unintentional like during China’s cultural revolution. During those famines the military didn’t starve, the common people did.
If those populations who were already subsistence farmers and hunters couldn’t “live off the land” then what makes you think anyone on lemy is going to do any better?
I’d be careful with that last point - when a modern people is suddenly forced to turn to the land for sustenance instead of the industrial supply chain, overfishing and overhunting become problems quickly…you won’t be the only person out looking for a meal.
They could temporarily trap a population within a city by surrounding it with some barricades and stuff but that won’t last long.
Why wouldn’t it last long? Is there some sort of organized fighting force of the people we’re not aware of? Didn’t think so.
The population size of the US has a massive ratio of more citizens than law enforcement and military. They can’t take us all.
Yet they already are.
For someone like me, if the food supplies were all cut off I could just live off of the land by hunting, fishing, and farming.
Ah yes, the government has famously left people like you alone and totally won’t turn your land into gravel, drain your water table, and dump the pollution into your river.
They can’t really do that in America, there’s too much land and room and food. They could temporarily trap a population within a city by surrounding it with some barricades and stuff but that won’t last long. The population size of the US has a massive ratio of more citizens than law enforcement and military. They can’t take us all.
For someone like me, if the food supplies were all cut off I could just live off of the land by hunting, fishing, and farming.
50% of the produce we consume is grown in the California central valley. The rest is grown in a few areas of the Great plains and in Florida.
Most of the food you see growing anywhere else isn’t for people, it’s for livestock.
I think you are overestimating just how much food “the land” can provide. You need around an acre a person for subsistence farming, and that is assuming you live in a region that has a decent climate, that you have irrigation, and have access to modern fertilizer and pesticides.
As far as hunting and fishing goes… If a large sector of the population had to live off the land, the wildlife likely wouldn’t last a single season. The only reason we still have the wild animal populations we currently have is because there are strict regulations monitoring the amount of people who hunt and fish.
Early Americans were able to devastate a larger healthier ecology with a tiny fraction of our current population. Most of our country’s natural Forrest and woodland were already destroyed and artificially rehabilitated over a hundred years ago. We have very few old growth Forrest for us to actually live off of.
If it weren’t for petrochemical fertilizer the natural nitrogen cycle wouldn’t be enough to sustain our current population. Since the invention of the haber process in the 1930s we are all just a bad year away from food insecurity.
There are areas and kinds of people who can live off the land, in one way or another. They do exist.
They aren’t the majority or the targets here, but they’re around.
The rest is accurate, but the military really is in the same boat as the rest of us.
Sure… And have you ever entered a major US city? What, are people going to “live off the land” in the middle of Central Park? Millions of New Yorkers?
They can live off the land when the vast majority of the population isn’t trying to do the same. Hungry human populations are worse than locust, we can absolutely destroy entire ecologies in weeks.
In the scenario they proposed the military would be controlling the means of food production. This isn’t something we have to guess about, there’s plenty of examples of intentional famines like what the Brits did to Bengal, and the Irish, or the Soviets in Ukraine, and unintentional like during China’s cultural revolution. During those famines the military didn’t starve, the common people did.
If those populations who were already subsistence farmers and hunters couldn’t “live off the land” then what makes you think anyone on lemy is going to do any better?
alabama tried this in the past, they lost billions from doing this. florida is currently going through this, as well.
I’d be careful with that last point - when a modern people is suddenly forced to turn to the land for sustenance instead of the industrial supply chain, overfishing and overhunting become problems quickly…you won’t be the only person out looking for a meal.
Well at least our animal ecosystems are currently robust and thriving, right??
Wild hogs certainly are.
Get a couple of analog meat thermometers, you don’t want the worms in them bad boys.
I think more human lives will be lost than wild lives, but I can be wrong.
Why wouldn’t it last long? Is there some sort of organized fighting force of the people we’re not aware of? Didn’t think so.
Yet they already are.
Ah yes, the government has famously left people like you alone and totally won’t turn your land into gravel, drain your water table, and dump the pollution into your river.
Yeah, looks like someone has never heard of the Siege of Serajevo. Really was not that long ago…
Garbage doomer take. Have the courage to find some optimism in life.