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Comment by throwhypothetic | Hacker News Reader

In the context of civilization collapse, I think the author is overestimating how likely it is that people will be able to figure out subsistence farming using only locally available materials before they starve. Does anyone on Earth still do that, i.e. with no reliance on materials shipped in from elsewhere?

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The Native Americans of the Olympic Peninsula produced a complex civilization without agriculture of any kind.

That was made possible mostly by the unique weather and ecology of the area; it can't be done in most places, but it can be done in enough places to keep humanity from going extinct.

There is a vast range of non-native eadible plants and animals that have now been introduced to every country.

That would make a huge difference compared with traditional indigenous societies. However farming does require steady state weather - which is unlikely after a nuclear war?

There still isn't enough to sustain people on subsistence farming. And subsistence farming, is well, subsistence-level - it precludes specialization which means it precludes most of the advantages technology brings us today.

If you're ever in a civilizational collapse scenario, literally the most important thing you can do is rapidly restart the farm supply chain by whatever means necessary - anyone imagining building a fortress for themselves is building a tomb.

Subsistance farming for a limited number of people can be done by burying potatoes in the ground and digging them back up in the autumn. Well, it's a bit more to get a good yield, but not that much more, you can (and some places do) teach that to literal kindergartners in a single day. We can't sustain 7 billion of people this way, but if some catastrophe kills 99% of humanity, the availability of better cultivars makes subsistence farming for the remainder much easier than five hundred years ago.

Subsistance farming based on potatoes is not without its risks:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)

There are about 100 uncontacted tribes thought to remain.

Does a surviving civilization need/want to rely on the same processes that (may) have led to their outcome?

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