This is a very good post. It shows great intelligence, but not great experience. Bums do have many of the attributes listed by the authorâ"great ability to size people up and know when to get out of Dodge. But society allows Bums in very low ratios to exist within it, then society takes action. It creates laws against âoevagrancyâ, and it enforces those laws by transporting Bums to the County Farm where the Bum is actually at an advantage, getting room and board for free for 30 days, or transported to the county line where the Bum has the opportunity to catch a lift from a passing car or to catch a freight train. (The county line is actually a pretty poor habitat in which a Bum can thrive. They do much better in modern cities where food can be had from charities or out of the dumpsters of places that distribute or serve food. In the modern world less than a dozen people might use one of these sources. In a post apocalyptic world there may be scores.) The modern city offers more building materials to build shelters and shorter distances between resources than the county line.
In a post-apocalyptic society Bums will be considered a threat to people with houses, esp. since the number of visible people living on the street will rise from less than 1% to well over 20%. Shooting people on the street will be so common that coronerâ(TM)s inquests will report people âoekilled by gunshot by persons unknown.â The police will not have time to investigate them all. In fact, the police will be overwhelmed with crime reports.
The America of today is far different from the America of the 1920â(TM)s. People still often had privies in their back yard. In towns a man came by once a week to clean them out. Out on the farm, they dug another hole every once in a while and moved the privy. People often had wells, and water-borne diseases were common. In a post apocalyptic world these features will rise again to being common. I expect a post apocalypse to have a time line: In the first week: Electrical power fails permanently. Community water supplies fail. Food disappears off of store shelves and price of food doubles. Gasoline disappears from gas station and the price of gas doubles. In the second week: Looting, destruction of property, rioting. In the third week: Men with guns sell food and gasoline from the back of semi trucks. Diseases from bad water and bad food begin to appear. Redneck farmers form militias to discourage or kill trespassers. Most phone service dies. Without electrical power to that cell tower and a charged battery in that cell phone, the system is dead. In the fourth week: Community leaders form emergency committees to handle various problems. The system that develops will look a lot like Russian communism. Starvation and allied problems will begin to whittle away at the population. More riots, raids, and other civil disturbances.
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This is a very good post. It shows great intelligence, but not great experience. Bums do have many of the attributes listed by the authorâ"great ability to size people up and know when to get out of Dodge.
But society allows Bums in very low ratios to exist within it, then society takes action. It creates laws against âoevagrancyâ, and it enforces those laws by transporting Bums to the County Farm where the Bum is actually at an advantage, getting room and board for free for 30 days, or transported to the county line where the Bum has the opportunity to catch a lift from a passing car or to catch a freight train. (The county line is actually a pretty poor habitat in which a Bum can thrive. They do much better in modern cities where food can be had from charities or out of the dumpsters of places that distribute or serve food. In the modern world less than a dozen people might use one of these sources. In a post apocalyptic world there may be scores.) The modern city offers more building materials to build shelters and shorter distances between resources than the county line.
In a post-apocalyptic society Bums will be considered a threat to people with houses, esp. since the number of visible people living on the street will rise from less than 1% to well over 20%. Shooting people on the street will be so common that coronerâ(TM)s inquests will report people âoekilled by gunshot by persons unknown.â The police will not have time to investigate them all. In fact, the police will be overwhelmed with crime reports.
The America of today is far different from the America of the 1920â(TM)s. People still often had privies in their back yard. In towns a man came by once a week to clean them out. Out on the farm, they dug another hole every once in a while and moved the privy. People often had wells, and water-borne diseases were common. In a post apocalyptic world these features will rise again to being common.
I expect a post apocalypse to have a time line:
In the first week:
Electrical power fails permanently. Community water supplies fail.
Food disappears off of store shelves and price of food doubles.
Gasoline disappears from gas station and the price of gas doubles.
In the second week:
Looting, destruction of property, rioting.
In the third week:
Men with guns sell food and gasoline from the back of semi trucks.
Diseases from bad water and bad food begin to appear.
Redneck farmers form militias to discourage or kill trespassers.
Most phone service dies. Without electrical power to that cell tower and a charged battery in that cell phone, the system is dead.
In the fourth week:
Community leaders form emergency committees to handle various problems. The system that develops will look a lot like Russian communism.
Starvation and allied problems will begin to whittle away at the population.
More riots, raids, and other civil disturbances.