I know you're just joking around, but I think it's a really interesting conversation to have about exactly what strategies end up working in the long term for surviving.
Looting is an extremely short-term strategy. In the case of food, if everything gets looted then nothing new gets grown, and eventually everyone starves to death. In the case of hard assets like gardening tools, if those assets are then used to establish productive industries, then that might not be so bad but if they're just used up and made useless, then they end up getting used up and that's the end of that.
It seems like in terms of percentage, an individual facing a collapse would have a 1-20% chance of surviving after the collapse. Traders would have a good chance, as would tradesmen, farmers, and people with leadership skills who weren't part of the previous leadership hierarchy would find success.
Access to violence would potentially be useful, but only if paired with leadership and vision. Pure bandits would kill off their prey completely. Statecraft ends up being about taking enough to support yourself while leaving your subjects alive and perhaps even thriving.
Looting is an extremely short-term strategy. In the case of food, if everything gets looted then nothing new gets grown, and eventually everyone starves to death. In the case of hard assets like gardening tools, if those assets are then used to establish productive industries, then that might not be so bad but if they're just used up and made useless, then they end up getting used up and that's the end of that.
It seems like in terms of percentage, an individual facing a collapse would have a 1-20% chance of surviving after the collapse. Traders would have a good chance, as would tradesmen, farmers, and people with leadership skills who weren't part of the previous leadership hierarchy would find success.
Access to violence would potentially be useful, but only if paired with leadership and vision. Pure bandits would kill off their prey completely. Statecraft ends up being about taking enough to support yourself while leaving your subjects alive and perhaps even thriving.
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