Your Post Apocalyptic Shopping List

[GreyLord]

Besides the obvious guns, medical supplies, food. What are the things you think you'll need to survive. I think toilet paper would be a good thing to hoard. A few extra pairs of shoes. A couple in my current size, and a couple in a narrower size as my feet may shrink a little. I have super wide feet. A dictionary and math text books. Coffee could be a useful trading item.

Solar panels and an adapter for normal electrical power.

Seeds so if I DO survive the intial apocalypse and have enough food to survive for a year, I can keep going with more food.

Have a well (need that electricity for the pump though).

If it's a nuclear apocalypse, won't matter. Nothing can help you live through that if predictions are correct.

 

[Mad_Jack]

Have a well (need that electricity for the pump though).

If you have an already-established reliable well, you don't really need a pump for it unless you've got a large settlement that can't be serviced by merely dropping buckets into the well. (If you're preparing ahead of time rather than getting caught in a sudden apocalypse, though, it's not that expensive to pick up a hand-cranked pump that attaches to your already-existing piping...)
For a community that's trying to do any sort of substantial farming, however, you'd really need a constantly replenishing water source like a spring or river... A well just wouldn't cut it in the long term.

 

[Bohandas]

A library of physical books on topics like food preservation, gardening, carpentry/construction, first aid/medicine, foraging/plant identification, etc.. You may not have a skill, but you can look it up... without the internet.

This is the most important thing in the long term

 

[Gradine]

One thing that's critical to survival that is often overlooked? Entertainment.

It's not enough to just survive if the surviving is difficult and unpleasant. There has to be something to live for, to keep you from giving up hope. Print media (novels, comics, nonfiction, magazines) is probably your best bet. Cards and/or board games, especially if you've got other survivors. Staving off boredom is crucial; not just to keep up the will to live but to keep your mind sharp. Boredom leads to mistakes.

 

[Ryujin]

This is the most important thing in the long term

In "Lucifer's Hammer" one of the characters buried copies of "The Way Things Work" in a septic tank, for future need.

 

[RareBreed]

One thing that's critical to survival that is often overlooked? Entertainment.

It's not enough to just survive if the surviving is difficult and unpleasant. There has to be something to live for, to keep you from giving up hope. Print media (novels, comics, nonfiction, magazines) is probably your best bet. Cards and/or board games, especially if you've got other survivors. Staving off boredom is crucial; not just to keep up the will to live but to keep your mind sharp. Boredom leads to mistakes.

I actually think this is less important than we (meaning our modern generation) make it out to be.

For tens of thousands of years, mankind got along just fine without books, plays, music (minus singing), fine cooking, or even art...or at least very primitive art. Would we get bored out of our minds? Maybe our generation would be, since we became accustomed to it, but succeeding generations after an apocalypse would probably be fine. Since they never knew what it was like before our modern escapist entertainment, succeeding generations would learn to derive joy out of other things just as our ancestors did.

I think we also forgot how little time our ancestors had to spend on entertainment. Surviving was a 16hr a day job, 7 days a week, no vacation days unless you got sick.

 

[Ryujin]

I actually think this is less important than we (meaning our modern generation) make it out to be.

For tens of thousands of years, mankind got along just fine without books, plays, music (minus singing), fine cooking, or even art...or at least very primitive art. Would we get bored out of our minds? Maybe our generation would be, since we became accustomed to it, but succeeding generations after an apocalypse would probably be fine. Since they never knew what it was like before our modern escapist entertainment, succeeding generations would learn to derive joy out of other things just as our ancestors did.

I think we also forgot how little time our ancestors had to spend on entertainment. Surviving was a 16hr a day job, 7 days a week, no vacation days unless you got sick.

I believe that recent wisdom, regarding leisure time in the past, has swung the other way to their being an abundance of it. This, of course, is because of extensive agrarian infrastructure, which would presumably not exist in an apocalyptic scenario.

 

[RareBreed]

I believe that recent wisdom, regarding leisure time in the past, has swung the other way to their being an abundance of it. This, of course, is because of extensive agrarian infrastructure, which would presumably not exist in an apocalyptic scenario.

Yes, I was thinking pre-agrarian society before people had a surplus of food and could therefore start specializing in skills...including entertainment. I would suspect even some pre 1900s nomadic societies had far less entertainment as we would think of it. I think entertainment would be more in the form of sports, play, storytelling, and the simple enjoyment of what you do (many modern people today find enjoyment in quilting, basket weaving, pottery, hunting, fishing gardening, etc).

It's actually an interesting question, because I think we don't consider all that much how greatly our modern society does value entertainment. I'd actually be curious to know how much of their budget the average middle class and above people pay in their respective countries.

 

[niklinna]

Besides the obvious guns, medical supplies, food. What are the things you think you'll need to survive. I think toilet paper would be a good thing to hoard. A few extra pairs of shoes. A couple in my current size, and a couple in a narrower size as my feet may shrink a little. I have super wide feet. A dictionary and math text books. Coffee could be a useful trading item.

My first thought was, after an apocalypse there will be no shops!

Folks definitely hoarded toilet paper when Covid broke.

I think to your list I would add a posse. But they better be tight and not prone to bickering, backstabbing (figurative or literal), or general dickery, like in most post-apocalyptic fiction. Hm. So yeah maybe no posse.

How 'bout a dog?

 

[MNblockhead]

I actually think this is less important than we (meaning our modern generation) make it out to be.

For tens of thousands of years, mankind got along just fine without books, plays, music (minus singing), fine cooking, or even art...or at least very primitive art. Would we get bored out of our minds? Maybe our generation would be, since we became accustomed to it, but succeeding generations after an apocalypse would probably be fine. Since they never knew what it was like before our modern escapist entertainment, succeeding generations would learn to derive joy out of other things just as our ancestors did.

I think we also forgot how little time our ancestors had to spend on entertainment. Surviving was a 16hr a day job, 7 days a week, no vacation days unless you got sick.

I've been fortunate enough to work out in the wilderness for months at a time, living out of what I could carry on my back or in a camp that rangers would make weekly visits with llamas to bring supplies. No space was wasted on books and games. But we managed to keep ourselves entertained. First, the work itself keeps you busy. But conversation, sharing stories, and making up games that only needed your imagination or things you find around you are enough.

But for longer term community survival, there is great value in preserving literature and promoting literacy. Ultimately, we want to do more than merely survive. If anything, I think the survival advantage of passing on books is less about the need for entertainment and more about the need for optimism--hope for the future.