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It never said it was nuclear war that caused it. There was no mention of radiation (which would kill most within 1 year), so I think it was more likely a meteor. A meteor that hit in the ocean would spray massive amounts of water vapor into the atmosphere, where it would remain for years. The forest fires may have been caused by meteor fragments that continued to hit the Earth after the impact event. But honestly, this book was not meant to be scientifically analyzed - it never mentioned the reason for the apocalypse because it's irrelevant to the story.

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I agree with Hanson's argument. If the apocalypse really did wipe out the ecosystem, and it was severe enough to make the ecosystem stay wiped out for 7+ years, then it seems very unlikely that you would still see people, and certainly not children. This should be a thorough extinction event for any humans not living in a bunker with many years of rancid-proof food already stored.

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The cannibals wouldn't just be eating the muscle, they should also eat the bone marrow and organs including the brain which is the most calorically rich organ in the body. Of course they'd be risking contracting a prion disease such as Kuru but in an extreme and catastrophic survival situation such as this, that is a secondary concern.

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There is a lot of wood lying around. There could be enclaves eating mushrooms and termites raised on wood. Also, if there are technological enclaves they could use nuclear, fossil fuel, hydro, or wind power to enable greenhouse agriculture or cyanobacteria bioreactors.

http://reflectivedisequilib... 

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I dispute the cannibalism claims you make.

Human beings are very, very stubborn.

We've had over 600 years of people proving the Church completely wrong about, well, everything, including the existence of any kind of deity, and people still believe in that crap.

So, for it to take only a year to convince people that cannibalism isn't "wrong" and it won't actually harm them seems far too short, even with human beings being extremely hungry with no other source of food about.

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I made a similar calculation about Soylent Green, with a similar order of magnitude in days of human sustenance per human victim (~100 days). http://fare.livejournal.com...

Even doubling or quadrupling the yield, we're far from anything sustainable.

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I don't think the book says what the world population was following the disaster. If the disaster wiped out enough of the population, the remainder could have survived on the stored/canned foodstuffs for a considerable time. Heck, the population could have dwindled even further due to desperate consumption of rancid foodstuffs. The time that the Man and the Boy are in could be the tail end of humanity's epoch for all we know.

For his book to be "impossible" requires more data than he presents. We could spend all day figuring out how it "could have happened."

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Remember that where will be many dead and freased animals on the cattle farms. 2 billion cows live on Earth.

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who cares?? it was a good book. it hasn't happened, so we can't completely know what would happen. why knock cormac mccarthy?

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This is a horrible thought, but, wouldn't the strongest coalitions enforce property rights as to the weaker humans as food stores? Wouldn't this greatly increase the 5 years of survival? Maybe even leading to sustainability?

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I admit to being no biochemist Tomasz. The vitamin C issue didn't even occur to me at first. If what you say is true (which I do not doubt), scurvy will kill off the cannibal population long before starvation became even slightly an issue.

Once the food (and vitamin) stores were gone, almost everyone would be dead in a month or so in a world with no vegetation.

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"What would a far-real western or cop movie look like?"

Like Barney Miller.

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Both novels and film are narrative. Narrative is *un*reality. People suspend disbelief willingly and are rewarded with a shot of endorphins when the suspension is resolved.

Even S.M. Stirling's "Dies The Fire" suites (which are still being written) gives you a wink-wink, nudge-nudge about the premise. It's kinda like the answer to the question "How do the Heisenberg Compensators work?" of a Star Trek insider - answer: "Very well, thank you."

What's more interesting to me is how it is that we have such a taste for apocalypse as narrative in general. SFAIK, the origins of apocalypse were with the Zoroastrians of the Persian Empire, but we still see it carried forward.

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There have been all too many "post-apocalyptic" cases in human history -- war, drought, and other disasters --which we can take a model:

Cannibalism was not a major source of nutrition in these cases, because by the time people get that desperate, no one has much meat left on their bones.

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Yes, a good point.

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Oldest Human Species Found: May Have Been Cannibal?

http://news.nationalgeograp...

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