Modern Man’s Survival Skills

Modern Man’s Survival Skills Jamie Rieger and Nick Schlueter

Stephen Hawking • “It is not clear that intelligence has any long-term survival value”

Goals • Explore self-perceptions about our survival skills • Practice writing about what a post-apocalyptic world looks like • Link to the texts • Discuss why we have these perceptions

Schedule • Activity • Readings • Jesika Hendricks • Zombie Survival Guide • The Road • Hurricane Katrina • Psychology • Society • Discussion

You and your companions have just survived the crash of a small plane. Both the pilot and co-pilot were killed in the crash. It is mid-January , and you are in Northern Canada. The daily temperature is 25 below zero, and the night time temperature is 40 below zero. There is snow on the ground, and the countryside is wooded with several creeks criss-crossing the area. The nearest town is 20 miles away. You are all dressed in city clothes appropriate for a business meeting. Your group of survivors managed to salvage the following items: A ball of steel wool A small ax A loaded .45-caliber pistol Can of Crisco shortening Newspapers (one per person) Cigarette lighter (without fluid) Extra shirt and pants for each survivor 20 x 20 ft. piece of heavy-duty canvas A sectional air map made of plastic One quart of 100-proof whiskey A compass Family-size chocolate bars (one per person) Your task as a group is to list the above 12 items in order of importance for your survival.

Answers • Cigarette Lighter • Ball of Steel Wool • Extra Shirt and Pants for each Survivor • Can of Crisco • 20x20 foot piece of canvas • Small ax • Family sized chocolate bars • Newspapers • Loaded .45 caliber pistol • Quart of 100 proof whiskey • Compass • Sectional air map made of plastic

Writing Activity • Read selection from The Road • Notice vivid imagery • Write for 10 minutes with vivid imagery how you imagine post-zombie-apocalyptic world

On the far side of the river valley the road passed through a stark black burn. Charred and limbless trunks of trees stretching away on every side. Ash moving over the road and the sagging hands of blind wire strung from the blackened lightpoles whining thinly in the wind. A burned house in a clearing and beyond that a reach of meadowlands start and gray and a raw red mudbank where a roadworks lay abandoned. Farther along were billboards advertising motels. Everything as it once had been save faded and weathered. At the top of the hill they stood in the cold and the wind, getting their breath. He looked at the boy. I’m all right, the boy said. The man put his hand on his shoulder and nodded toward the open country below them. He got the binoculars out of the cart and stood in the road and glassed the plain down there where the shape of a city stood in the grayness like a charcoal drawing sketched across the waste. Nothing to see. No smoke. Can I see? the boy said. Yes. Of course you can. The boy leaned on the cart and adjusted the wheel. What do you see? the man said. Nothing he lowered the glasses. It’s raining. Yes, the man said. I know.

Jesika Hendricks • Ignorance • Supplies – “This is what people brought with them: hair dryers, GameCubes, laptops by the dozen” (123). • Her parents thought they knew what they were doing • Lack of planning ahead • Reverted to cannibalism • Lost their humanity

That was when we still had trees, before the second and third waves starting showing up, when people were down to burning leaves and stumps, then finally whatever the could get their hands on. The smell of plastic and rubber got really bad, in your mouth, in your hair. By that time the fish were all gone, and anything left for the people to hunt. No one seemed to worry. Everyone was counting on winter freezing the dead. But once the dead were frozen, how were you going to survive the winter? Good question. I don’t think most people thought that far ahead. Maybe they figured that the “authorities” would come rescue us or that they could just pack up and head home. I’m sure a lot of people didn’t think about anything except the day in front of them, just grateful that they were finally safe and confident that things would work themselves out. “We’ll all be home before you know it,” people would say. “It’ll all be over by Christmas.” [She draws my attention to another object in the ice, a SpongeBob SquarePants sleeping bag. It is small, and stained brown.] What do you think this is rated to, a heated bedroom at a sleepover party? Okay, maybe they couldn’t get a proper bag – camping stores were always the first bought out or knocked off – but you can’t believe how ignorant some of these people were. A lot of them were from Sunbelt states, some as far away as southern Mexico. You’d see people getting into their sleeping bags with their boots on, not realizing that it was cutting off their circulation. You’d see them drinking to get warm, not realizing it was actually lowering their temperature by releasing more body heat. You’d see them wearing these big heavy coats with nothing but a T-shirt underneath. They’d do something physical, overheat, take off the coat. Their bodies’d be coated in sweat, a lot of cotton cloth holding in the moisture. The breeze’d come up…a lot of people got sick that first September. Cold and flu. They gave it to the rest of us.

Zombie Survival Guide • Many assumptions that will never happen • Planning is important • Start immediately! • It takes a special person to do this • Context makes it satire • Society will never be able to cope with the sacrifices • The detailed instructions for something unlikely to happen make it ridiculous • Irony • There is no way to truly be prepared for a zombie apocalypse

Zombie Survival Guide And when is the best time to start? Immediately! An all-out war might never happen. It might be years away. But what if it’s soon? What if a Class 1 outbreak has already begun and is going unchecked? What if a Class 2 or even 3 outbreak has begun in a totalitarian country where the press is highly censored? If so, an all-out war could be months away. In all probability, this is not the case. But is it any reason not to be prepared? Unlike stocking up for a siege, preparing to recreate a tiny corner of civilization takes a tremendous amount of time. The more you have, the better off you will be. Does this mean you should give up your entire life and do nothing but prepare for the end of the world? Of course not. This text was prepared to coincide with the average citizen’s conventional lifestyle. Minimun preparation, however, should take no less than 1,500 hours. Even if spread over the course of several years, this is a formidable amount of time. If you believe you can accomplish everything by “cramming” at the eleventh hour, by all means, don’t lift a finger now. But you may think twice about beginning to build your ark once it has already started raining.

The Road • Burned landscape • Cannibalism and looting • Father and son move south for winter • Father is dying on the journey, and eventually dies

Hurricane Katrina • The aftermath • Lootings • Chaos • Police shootings

Hurricane Katrina • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IblL_rXpdu8

Psychology • Why do we have the false ego of being able to survive? • Self-serving bias • Says that when good things happen to us, we are the cause of it. When bad things happen, it’s because of something else.

Society • Video Games • Call of Duty: Nazi Zombies • Fallout • Boy Scouts • Airsoft and paintball • Obesity

Discussion • Who do you know that would survive the zombie apocalypse? Or what type of person would survive? • Is it possible to prepare for it and survive? Or is it just luck?

Blog • Write a blog post on how you would prepare for survival in the post-apocalyptic world you created for the writing activity

Works Cited Brooks, Max. World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War. New York: Crown, 2006. Print. Brooks, Max. The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead. New York: Three Rivers, 2003. Print. McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. Print. "Self-Serving Bias | Encyclopedia of Psychology." Psych Central.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2014. "SURVIVAL A Simulation Game." N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2014. the TICKET. “Hurricane Katrina - YOU MUST WATCH THIS.” Online video clip. Youtube.Youtube, 6 Apr. 2008. Web. 29 Jan. 2014.

Modern Man’s Survival Skills