Yes and no. Zombie apocalypse messes with the figures because the number of consumes goes down, as do the number of facilities and individuals using goods. For instance, if 50% of people turn to zombies, and 20% of survivors die in the immediate confusion after outbreak, many of the above figures would be greatly extended. Post zombie apocalypse you are no longer using things at what is now a “standard” interval. So 40% as many people would be using things at “ration rates” so many supply levels would last 2-10x as long. Then factor in that decentralization would mean these supplies would all be readily available as need and would need scavenged. So of that 40% some percent would not be able to receive a “standard” and regular ration. I would reccomend taking the basic requirements of human nutrition and survival from a medical text, comparing those the accounts of survivalism and what were the most valued and scarcest supplies, and then analyzing the consumer habits and distribution..
... of goods to retail and service locations. By cross comparing you can get not only an essential supply list (which is widely available and the simple move,) but more importantly a priority list. Not the priority of which a human needs what, but the priority of which things are most likely to become scarce fastest. On first thought we might assume they are the same. They are not necessarily though. Consider- different areas (rural, suburban, urban, etc..) and different climates etc. have different make ups and distributions of population and resources. For instance- a large urban city will have far fewer and much smaller larger stores of resources like “Walmart” versus a town in Texas which may have a Walmart the size of an airport. That means that in an urban center, there may be 1,000 corner stores that sell bateries and lighters, but the number at that location vs the number of people likely to scavenge that location is disproportional. If you are surrounded by farm land...
... while food and water are of primary importance, you may decide to lower the “get” priority because of its abundance and sustainability compared to securing something like fuel or weapons/ammo or other key supplies. I find it best to have a small number of general “bug out” plans that cover places and situations you may commonly be in when/if cataclysm occurs, but are more broad in scope, but to have very detailed and circumstance based plans for several scenarios occurring in the area I spend most of my time in. Not too detailed of course. Swiss clocks and Ferrari’s don’t do too well in the mud, precise plans don’t weather the unexpected well, and a big out situation is one which you can’t foresee in detail, but certain things are fairly constant so can be relied on for planning and adapted as needed.
I had a conversation with someone yesterday about this. Humans have always been dependent on one thing or another. Transport and communication being some of the biggest.
I watched a cool video series by Extra Credits talking about possible precursors of the collapse of the Bronze Age dynasties (like Egypt and Assyria). One of their points was the hierarchical societal structure, with Pharaohs and kings at the top of the pyramid, then scribes and construction workers, with farmers at the bottom. If one of the core components is whittled away, their reliance on it dooms the civilization's old way of life.
That’s the key distinction though- it is the way of life, not civilization or humanity which is lost. How many jobs and industries have completely or all but died but were once vital? Telegrapher? Stage coaches? Telephone operator? TV/small appliance repair? Cobblers? It’s a long list. So to be accurate it isn’t so much that it’s a fragile system as to say it is a system that relies on trucks. Maybe someday there will be no trucks and many things will be 3D printed at home or to order locally and a network of drones will bring items and materials place to place? Who knows, but we had trucks and they weren’t scarce or endangered, so we built a system on trucks. If trucks dosapeaeed tomorrow there would be unrest, and we would come up with a new system to replace them or adapt other systems not to rely on them. Humans are incredibly flexible and adaptable as a species, and in 10,000+ years when a system fails we just replace it with another one eventually.
I understand most of it, but I don't get why there won't be clean water without trucks.
Especially as it says the nations clean water supply. Don't tell me all of the clean water in the US is delivered by trucks. Or am I misunderstanding?
It's not the water itself, it's the fact that you have to bring chemicals and treat the water so it is safe for consumption. No chemicals = no clean water except for running streams... that aren't already contaminated. You have to look at the whole chain.
That is a clear exaggeration then. Water coming from a spring in the mountains may need some filtering, but for sure you can simply drink it without chemical treatment. Same for industry-free lakes or ponds.
But that isn’t a “national” water supply. We have many cities and places which are build away from mountains or fresh water sources, or near fresh water sources which can’t supply the entire local population. We were able to build these places because of engineering and transportation of water. So while you may have a fresh water spring nearby, some one else may not. Then there is well water, but again- not every person has access to a site that would make a good well, and without a way to transport equipment to dig that well, they’d need to have an alternate way to go get and transport manual tools and dig their own well. So in a way it’s an exaggeration- without trucks there are still trains, cars, etc which can transport things. But a great portion of people rely on water sources that aren’t local is the point. We used to settle places because they were near sources of food/water/etc. as technology and infrastructure improved we were able to build places that can’t survive alone.
It’s possible- but our current infrastructure is designed around trucks. So many rely on trucks for water. Pipes tend to be costly to lay, secure, maintain- and have challenges with distances and certain climate/terrain/etc. Where existing road routes are in place, trucks often prove cheaper and easier for many things. And these very large pipes require large equipment to maintain and to move for installation and replacement. Which is- most often, a truck. If there were no trucks, we would adapt though. We use the “best” tools we have, so if we didn’t have trucks we would likely just rely on pipes almost exclusively and deal with the draw backs and challenges. From the treatment plant to your home water goes via pipe almost always for municipal water, but those plants rely on trucks to transport in and out items to keep running.
I want Trump to shut down the southern border ports of entry just because of the backlash he'd receive.
It'd be somewhat like this (goods would still come through via other ports of entry), but that $1 billion in goods a day being redirected in a stupid path instead? Dude has no CLUE the backlash that'd receive. It would be less than a week before impeachment proceedings began... and maybe three before a war across NA.
Trucks are an important part of how our society functions, and most truckers are hard working professionals with a demanding job that I appreciate very much. However.... this is like saying “without hot air balloons, how would people in remote places get supplies and mail?...” or “ without telegraphs how would we send high speed distant communications?!” There was society before trucks. It was very different. There would be society after trucks, it will also likely be very different- but we have the technology that we could create a working infrastructure that didn’t require large trucks. Some of that means changing the way people live, yes. Things like more self sustaining and self contained communities versus urban and suburban sprawl, less bulk cheap junk being replaced by quality locally made goods that people care for and keep instead of throwing out and replacing. And it means regionality. If you travel the US much now, and traveled it much decades past- you’ll notice...
.... homogolation. The mall is a perfect example. Even in the same town or major areas there may have been several malls, each very distinct in style and shops. Now, from SoCal to soho, you look and there is very little difference in malls. They have the same stores, the same fixtures etc. just as an example- and not ALL malls are exactly alike, but most are very similar to others. That’s not a complaint. You can more or less get most things you want wherever you live in the country. Maine Lobster in Arizona? Sure. Vermont syrup in Oregon? That’s great. It’s nice to know that you can find many familiar and favorite things abroad. A target in Carolina is not so different from one in Montana in general. Trucks and mass consumerism allow that, and without trucks things we take for granted may become more of luxury items- but it also creates local economies where money stays within a community more. The concentration of wealth we see today is allowed in large part by the ability for...
... a guy in Cupertino to easily sell goods around the nation, as opposed to forcing innovation and diversity. It allows a person to easily corner a market nation wide because why would you buy a possibly substandard or sub hyped local product for possibly more when you can easily and cheaply buy from elsewhere? Because it’s a form of tariff. When you can’t transport mass goods cheaply, moving something like a tablet cross country becomes more expensive and there’s less to go around. That means there’s a huge untapped market for local innovators to supply, or remote businesses need to establish local factories and distribution. People like to focus on “cheap foreign labor” as “stealing American jobs...” but...
... the same trucks that once moved steel to Detroit factories from Pittsburg mills, and Detroit cars to Kansas dealers- now are what allow those 10,000 foreign made products that cost as much as 100 American made ones to travel to factories and stores. “The great American trucker” is somewhat of a myth. The trucks didn’t stop collecting pay checks or rolling out- they were just as happy to carry a full load of Chinese goods as American. People blame the “rich companies” for taking the money they make by going with cheaper foreign production and labor, but didn’t the trucking industry do the same? They are the pipeline, as this shows: without trucks there’s no way to move 100,000 units from the port to homes. If you can’t cheaply move the cheap goods from the port, they cost more. If they cost more, people are incintivezed to buy based on quality and not price. If people buy less it becomes uneconomical to ship cheap foreign goods because it cost the same to move a container with 4...
... shitty sets of patio furniture from Afghanistan as it does a container with 4,000, so the price goes up more. So to anyone who believes a wall will protect the American economy or jobs, you’re saying that the way to fix things is to go after the pipeline right? Well.... trucking is the pipeline for the foreign goods which have been undercutting American made goods for decades. So if you want to protect American jobs maybe build a wall around Best Overnight or the depot at the local port. Hell- without boats we’d be equally or more screwed. America doesn’t build things any more. We have a nation of management and retail clerks and sales people mostly making money off goods made by other people far away. We don’t build things because steel and manufacturing are dirty industries- or expensive to be clean, and we can get a discount AND keep enjoying the stuff while letting someone else soak up the pollution- and it all wouldn’t be possible without mass freight trucking. Trucking...
... closed the steel mills, trucking killed Detroit. Trucking is a major enabler of our national deficit. Ok- now- to an extent this is all true. But not exactly. But it’s biased right? I’m focusing on one aspect of things and making it sound like trucking single handed destroyed the American economy and “made in America” aren’t I? That’s my point. The above graphic is biased propaganda. It points out some of the many things we can thank truckers for, but is made to reinforce in our minds that we NEED an industry. Because there’s a lot of money in that industry. There was big money in telegraphs, railroads were bigger than cars at one point. Things change. We shouldn’t cling to institutions on such notions. We should allow infrastructure and society to eveolve. The world is a mess, and it often seems to change little in that regard- and that’s because there are people who make money off that mess and other who make money cleaning it or making sense of it. Follow the money....
... ask questions. That graphic isn’t about appreciating truckers. It was made by people as a commercial the way an abusive partner would remind their spouse “you’re nothing without me. You need me. Don’t you forget that if I weren’t here you’d be nothing.” It’s chest thumping. I worked along time in logistics/warehousing/transport and it’s a thankless job and people in the industry do a lot that goes unnoticed to make sure other people can survive or have simple joys in life. All that is true. But just because things as they are require a system doesn’t mean we can’t replace that system with something better, or learn to live without it. A drug addict needs their plug to function don’t they? High functioning amphetimine or Ritalin junkies off to their high power fancy jobs don’t do well if you cut them off.
But guess what? They may not be able to only sleep 2 hours a week or finish 6 things in the time others finish one, they may not be able to have sex for 10 hours straight anymore- but they can learn to survive and be just as happy without someone enabling them, and would likely be healthier for it. So I appreciate truckers and so should you, but creating a cult of trucking, or buying into shills for an industry looking out for their bottom dollar is not on the menu for me today.
Especially as it says the nations clean water supply. Don't tell me all of the clean water in the US is delivered by trucks. Or am I misunderstanding?
If it's possible to transport oil in pipelines... meh, anyway
It'd be somewhat like this (goods would still come through via other ports of entry), but that $1 billion in goods a day being redirected in a stupid path instead? Dude has no CLUE the backlash that'd receive. It would be less than a week before impeachment proceedings began... and maybe three before a war across NA.