Have you been watching HBO’s new show, The Last of Us?
Based on the 2013 video game of the same name, the show depicts a post-apocalyptic 2023 in a world that has been overtaken with a mass fungal virus that turns those who are infected into zombie-like creatures.
The plot follows the adventures of a survivor named Joel, who is tasked with protecting the life of a fourteen-year old girl who is immune to the virus.
Stories set in post-apocalyptic landscapes are nothing new to Hollywood. Shows and movies like The Book of Eli, I Am Legend, the Mad Max series The Road, The Stand, and The Walking Dead series all come to mind.
While each of these shows and films and others like them are well made and entertaining, here’s a big question you may not have asked yourself: how accurate are these movies and shows at depicting how to actually survive in the apocalyptic wastelands they depict?
Do the characters make wise moves, or do they make bad mistakes that would get you grievously injured or killed in reality?
Survival Mistakes In The Last of Us
Let’s answer that question for the Last of Us. Yes, this show is a fantasy and about a ‘zombie apocalypse’ much like the Walking Dead, but it does attempt to take on a more realistic approach to what a zombie apocalyptic scenario would look like.
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In that spirit, there aren’t many glaring mistakes that are evident in The Last of Us, but there are a few that are worth mentioning. There’s a few important lessons we can learn from the show that are worth mentioning as well.
How Did Bill Power The Entire Town?
One of the characters in The Last of Us is a hardcore survivalist named Bill, who essentially turns his neighborhood into a fortress after he’s the only one left.
Bill displays numerous good survival skills and instincts that we can all learn from, and we’ll get into those below.
However, there are a few moments where the show really pushes the boundaries of believability.
Bill is literally the only one left in the town, and he keeps the entire place up and running for over two decades along with his partner. What’s unbelievable about this is how he manages to ensure the electrical fence serving as the perimeter is up and running 24/7, as are his security cameras and power throughout the neighborhood.
While we see Bill using a generator to run all of the above, there’s no way in real life a generator could be used for all of it.
This leads one to believe that the town’s power is still being run by the local power plant and pressurized natural gas, but the sheer level of maintenance that both would require over twenty years would be far too much for one or two people to maintain themselves, let alone people who are not experienced in power plants.
The Shelf Life Of Certain Products
A glaring mistake in The Last of Us is the unrealistic shelf lives of certain products, such as gasoline. In reality, regular gasoline has a shelf life of between three and six months.
How the characters in The Last of Us manage to prolong it over the course of decades.
Using additives may seem like the obvious answer, but do they really have access to gasoline additives everywhere they go? This is never clearly explained or hinted at.
Regardless, believing that your gasoline, food, and other critical supplies can have a shelf life of 20+ years is a mistake that can put you in danger.
With anything that you stockpile, think ahead about how you can extend the shelf life of your products as much as possible.
Bill’s Defense Of The Compound
One sequence depicts Bill defending his compound against an attack by raiders.
But the way he defends it is very questionable, to say the least.
One mistake is Bill’s position. We see him standing out in the open firing his rifle at his opponents.
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And while the show does realistically show Bill getting shot, one would think that a survivalist with Bill’s instincts and skills would be more wisely shooting from behind a position of cover.
Furthermore, Bill’s weapon of choice to defend his compound against multiple opponents is also questionable. He uses a Remington bolt action hunting rifle, which has low capacity and slow reloading times in between each shot.
One would think that a survivalist like Bill would be defending his compound with a semi-automatic rifle (such as an AR-15 or a Mini-14) with a greater capacity and faster rate of fire.
Survival Lessons From The Last of Us
Besides the above mistakes, it’s also worth mentioning the lessons that can be learned from The Last of Us as well.
Rely On Your Instincts And Act Decisively
One such lesson is to rely on your intuition and to take action quickly and decisively.
This is a trait that we see repeatedly with the lead character, Joel, and it shows in his traits and actions repeatedly throughout the show.
Never do we see Joel freezing up or freaking out under duress or in the face of violent situations. Keep this in mind or yourself if you ever find yourself in a dangerous survival situation as well.
Scavenge As Much Abandoned Goods As You Can
As soon as the disaster strikes, we see Bill immediately heading out in his truck to scavenge as much abandoned goods and necessities as he can. He fills up tanks with gasoline and oil, loads up on basic goods and necessities that have been left neglected, and even heads over to a gas plant for extra energy supplies.
Related: 12 Essential Things You Can Scavenge from Cars when SHTF
If the grid ever goes down, it won’t take for society to break down and for looters and marauders to take to the streets. That’s why you should head out in the early minutes or hours of a grid down to take as many resources as you can early on.
Fill up your sinks and bathtubs with water before the water shuts off, head down to the grocery store to buy as much supplies as you can before they become overrun with people, and pick up and take with you any abandoned supplies you can find lying around on the ground.
Make Use Of All The Resources You Can
We also see Joel and Bill being exceptionally resourceful in the show as well. Joel siphons for gasoline using a straw and his mouth (yes, you can siphon for gasoline in this manner safely), while Bill hacks down trees for wood with an ax and chainsaw as well.
Even though its primary focus is delivering on entertainment value, The Last of Us still has something to teach us about surviving in a post-apocalyptic world. There are some mistakes or things that go unexplained in the show, but there are a few crucial lessons about survival it provides as well.
What are some other post-apocalyptic movies or shows that you’d like us to analyze? Let us know!
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It’s a woke tv show filled with some interesting views on things could look.
Joel dies in episode 4 leaving the girl to reproduce with the zombies.
The strangest thing was Joel putting a ar15 mag into a mini 14 .
It’s entertaining and the bill episode was cool until it had to be about gays
You don’t even know what “woke” means.
Lisa Blake, is trigged easily. Probably won’t live past the first phase.
“Go woke; go broke” ?
When I started watching the show and knowing how Hollywood has to interject their wokeness into everything they do, I thought the show was going to be about the last two fags on earth.
Shut up Lisa Blake
Torah, I must be seriously misremembering. I thought Joel was still alive at the end of the first season. He had been stabbed, but the girl (Ellie?)managed to get some penicillin from the leader of the town that was resorting to cannibalism. She used it to save Joel, unless I’m not thinking clearly.
I too, thought forcing the “gay” issue into it was overboard. On the Walking Dead series, it was at least kept to a MINOR sub plot point.
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The town leader letting the curtains of the building continue to flame up, while he taunted and chased the girl was totally B.S. In a real scenario, the building would have been higher on the importance list in almost anyone’s view.
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Why, oh why oh why, didn’t Joel wear a hat in the dead of winter? There was plenty to pick apart if we really try, but it was still entertaining to watch.
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I look forward to the next season, I understand it was renewed after just a couple of episodes aired.
what I had to laugh about with “survivalist” Bill – got all the preps including the sub- basement bunker and a honking huge diesel generator tarped in the backyard >>> but doesn’t have a trailer of his own – “scavaged” the neighbor’s boat – ripped out the seats and used that moving drums of fuel and other supplies …
I watched the Netflix series “100” – decades after the earth was nuclear destroyed. The 100 teens learn to survive and fight. I really was amused with the hand radios that talked back to the space station. ??
Bofang has a triband that works
The 100 was a great series. So was Falling Skies and Jericho.
“JERICHO” Yes,why was that not mentioned at the beginning of the article?
I loved that show, and was one of it’s first fans. We discussed so much about the premis of the story, and more importantly, about how the citizens went about surviving the apocalypse.
Now, I have only seen the pilot for “Last of Us”, so I can’t comment on the later episodes.From what I’ve seen,it seems like an OK show. But remember, its fiction,and most Hollywood writers don’t do research on such subjects.
I think the series is programming people to believe that Christians are horrible people. In the game sequence, the main character is not a preacher. In the TV series he is and he rapes a young woman. Just saying…
If you want to read a good “survival ” series read William Forstchen’s series starting with “One Second After” then “One Year After ” and I think the last one is “The Last Days” or something. It will open your eyes about what you will be up against should a true apocalypse happen. It’s set in his home town of Black Mountain NC just outside of Asheville NC and near Billy Graham’s place. I like the books so much I’m reading them for the 4th time right now with several years between each reading. Great books.
Absolutely amazing books. Lots of solid reality there!
Try the book “Triple Ought
So many television/movies demonstrate/present what NOT to do. If people are relying on them for much more [and I mean this in a very minimalist way] than the basics your are preparing to FAIL. Even some of the better ones provide erroneous information and examples. Mr. Oetken mentions some certain tactical errors and obviously some basic chemistry fallacies. I can find almost as many in “Shooter”.
Reading some of the responses and bantering back and forth is humorous. Me, I’ve lived this lifestyle for over 50 years and still going strong, and occasionally I see something [information] I can use or don’t know. That’s why I keep watching…but remain silent here for the most part.
Generally speaking, much of what I hear and see of people these days…well, to be frank, they’re posers and want-a-be’s. They will likely be dead in the first 10 days to 2 weeks after the water stops flowing, the electricity stops, food supplies become non-existent, or anarchy in the streets becomes the norm.
The other hard truth, and I learned this working for uncle sugar…back when I still believed in our government a little…and this was after having become proficient in multiple combat arms MOS’s; The absolute BEST trained, BEST outfitted can still be dead when the artillery round/mortar round/ICBM hits. Hooah!
Make sure we get the lost ways books and others before AI re-writes all the info into misinformation.
“Rely On Your Instincts And Act Decisively” is important, but added to that should no doubt be “Carefully Examine the Situation, Analyze Risks and Opportunities, Then…”. Clear thinking is a good precedent to following instincts.
Years ago, my Dad told me that in the book Robinson Crusoe, that the gun powder his had in his barrel wouldn’t have lasted the 20 years on the island. Maybe yes, today(?), but not back then.
I shoot a lot of blackpowder, flint and caplock. Black powder has a very long storage life as long as it is kept from wet/dry cycles. I have been using old tins of 2FF (Hodgdon labels) that I got after an old friend passed. The wooden barrels or kegs used to store powder in the 17th, 18th and 19th century were water tight as well as the cans that were coming into use. Lewis and Clark expedition use lead containers for their powder, when empty the lead containers became the bullets for the next can of powder. Twenty years and more is very doable for real blackpowder. Modern smokeless powder breaks down much easier with age.
One show I enjoyed years ago was The Colony, I think. It was based in Los Angeles and was most entertaining due to the challenges faced and social interactions among the diverse characters.
two different “The Colony” shows – one was a reality Survivor type show with a mixed group surviving a SHTF situation – the other was a sci-fy series with a resistance group fighting alien invader lead GOV troops …..
Useta watch The walking Dead almost religiously. But, as all multi-year series do, it starts to run out of material and then stupid stuff like gay agendas and constantly portraying anyone of any faith, especially Christian faith, as ignorant, manipulative, etc, etc. Gets old and obvious. Haven’t watched it for almost 2 years now. A snippet or two in the last 16 months or so. While there are some good practices used in the show, they’re few and far between. Lots and lots of times they throw out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak. Do one dumbshit thing after the other. The first 3 seasons are pretty good, after that things go largely downhill. And what happened to Rick? Just disappeared. That was it for me. After any calamity that kills electrical power for more than 2 weeks, a massive obstacle appears on most peoples horizon. Food and water. While some people may have preps that can stretch them out to the 6 month mark, i’m betting there’s not many that can get to the 2 year mark easily. EMP Commision studies say that a simply staggering percentage of the US population dies in the year to 18 month range after an EMP attack. Insane numbers, 84-93%. Crazy. I couldn’t believe them myself until i dug deeper into the facts. Now i realize those numbers are likely pretty close to the mark. Hollywood aside, one of the very worst things you can do is wander around digging into this or that house an your way to somewhere ON FOOT. In an ever expanding radius of your home base, yes. And not too far either. One or two people, that are pretty resilient, can live in an out of the way rural area with a garden and chickens and some sort of water supply for a long time, keeping a Very low profile, observing light and noise discipline and having just a lil bit of good luck. Listening to radio for developments and having Silenced firearms handy. That last is gonna be tough for most to acquire, but well worth it. If ur hungry and a huge buck wals through the backyard you do not want to announce to the listening world your location, the fact u have firearms and finally just your existence.
They are ways to silence hunting rifles using a gallon jug for one it will help keep the noise level down, another is using a 22 it has a lot less noise, and another is using an old oil filter. The oil filter I have tried on my ar15 using high velocity shells (I have a adapter for a silencer/flash suppressor that oil filter will screw on) it was like shooting a 357 rifle made more sound than a 22 but less than a 30-30. The clap is heard from the sound barrier being broke on a high velocity but not the actual explosion so, using low velocity would mostly silent. Now using low velocity shells was a lot less than a 22. So, there are ways that you can use that does not require all the waiting and permits.
But I will not be silencing because when I shoot say a deer, I will not go directly to it and start cleaning. I will wait half an hr. watching from a hidden position, then drag it to a new location before field dressing it.
It is not how much noise you make it is how you go about things after making the noise.
It is not possible to live life without making some noise, so best develop ways to use to protect yourself when noise happens.
Lol.shut up fed you didn’t do anything like that
Use of a good crossbow would keep the noise down for hunting.
Silent, but deadly, on 4 legged animals or the 2-legged kind!
I would like to better understand how the characters maintained separate components for a vehicle battery, electrolyte and such.
Distilled water and acid ?
via @EmailGateBot
RR The Wire – 014529Z – March 29, 2023
PRECEDENCE: ROUTINE RR
DTG: 014529Z MAR 23
ICOD: 010029Z MAR 23
CONTROLS: Public Release
QQQQ
BLUF: Critical infrastructure vulnerabilities present persistent concerns. Domestic US atmospherics remain tense.
—–BEGIN TEARLINE—–
-National Events-
OH/KY: Ten barges became navigational hazards on the Ohio River IVO Louisville, KY. The barges were being towed by a tugboat when, possibly due to their tow lines parting, the barges became uncontrolled. The barges traveled downriver until some of them became entrapped in the McAlpine Dam. Currently, the cargo onboard the barges is unknown, but at least one was carrying 1,400 tons of Methanol. This barge is currently caught in the dam, and is partially submerged. The HAZMAT concerns regarding this barge potentially leaking Methanol into drinking water supplies downstream are unknown, though officials stress the threat is minimal.
Washington D.C. – Following the recent mass shooting in TN, calls for violence among transgender groups remain constant threats. AC: Mainstream media reporting has even picked up these calls for violence, which are largely centered around the “Trans Day of Vengeance” event, scheduled for April 01 at the US Supreme Court building in D.C. This event was scheduled prior to the shooting, but event organizers are going ahead with the event. Firearms training will (allegedly) be provided in conjunction with this event, though it is unclear how many individuals are actually planning to attend. As this is a sensitive topic, the media coverage will likely result in this event becoming more substantial than it otherwise would have been.
-International Events-
DPRK: Limited, unconfirmed reporting indicates North Korea to deploy up to 500 soldiers to the Donbas region of occupied Ukraine. South Korean media outlets were the first to report these deployments, though there are few details surrounding this deployment. AC: For the DPRK, this is obviously a power-projection move, and a way of strengthening diplomatic ties with Russia.
-Analyst Comments-
It is unclear as to if the mass shooting in TN is linked to any organized group, however any discussion of this potential has been strictly forbidden by media giants; censorship and the subsequent media blackout is extremely substantial following these events, so more information is required before a solid assessment is possible. Despite the censorship concerns, social atmospherics indicate that Christian individuals, groups, and facilities will remain persecuted and targeted by malign actors, especially as Lent comes to a close. Easter (April 9) and Pascha (April 16) services will also be likely targets for malign actors, though we currently have no indications of any specific (potential) attacks. Increased vigilance and heightened situational awareness are strongly recommended during upcoming Christian holiday events.
—–END TEARLINE—–
Analyst: S2A
END REPORT
NNNN
Is that from The S2 Underground? Looks like their new reporting format that they put out vice the video brief. I like this way better. Like what I used to get over TAC-CHAT
Anyone have any comments about the series named: “Revolution”? I see that this is not mentioned.
My personal and humble opinion, about ANY survival/post-apocalyptic event/huge disaster/total power outage (country-wide)/possible war scenario, is that one will HAVE to be prepared as “good as possible” – and “knowledge is king” about nature/survival methods/getting hold of the few basics to sustain life, ie. water, shelter, heat, food, etc. – and then also be able to, “somehow” defend yourself, your family and any possible resources one have accumulated – “bugging in, rather than bugging out” – as “bugging out” require really good navigational skills, skills and experience in being able to “survive while moving”, knowledge of the roads/land where you want to go to, knowledge of water resources/food resources (natural and man provided) on your way to the “bug-out location” as well as in the direct vicinity of the bug-out location. “Bugging-in” allows for training and exercising possible worst-case-scenario’s on your own, as well as together with all/any direct family members. It also allows for securing your bug-in location to some extent (ie early warning alarm type systems, traps, barriers, etc.)…….
So – just to get back to the actual topic at hand, having said what I said above, very few TV series/movies/entertainment type video-material, cater for all, or sometimes even “any” of what I mentioned above.
The one thing that stood out to me in that show what when the group went to go get someone in a neighborhood. The entire neighborhood was set up to grow food, people had tasks to do. I remember even the circle in the cul-de-sac had a small garden on it.
I think all off these shows are very valuable. Regardless of how far fetched or wrong they are, they stimulate thought and conversation.
Maybe, but I prefer to focus my attention learning about true survival stories rather than Hollywood make believe!
Shows like this are one more reason I refuse to permit a TV in my home. You know, I miss all the important things, like Oprah, Rachel Maddow, and Disney. I don’t even know what a Signfelt is, though I hear a lot of people talking about it. But life is better without TV. Sometimes I go to the library, where I can check out books and read them at home without having to sit in the draq queen’s lap. He has a disgusting nose ring that I cannot stand to look at. It is good to reject TV.
You’er not alone. I cut the cord with Direct TV three years ago, and there’s no going back. Not only do I save $200/month, I no longer need to flip through 999 channels that do not interest me. Now I pick and choose what I want to watch, watch what I enjoy watching, and find programs that I can learn something from online. History, Christmas shows, concerts from world-renown halls, and travel to exciting places.
Except for Harrison Ford, no actor likes to wear a hat because it sometimes hides their face. And all you have to do is watch any show set in Alaska to see real people wearing fur hats to keep their heads warm. We here all know about heat loss, right?
Gas can be reactivated with air bubbles. Additives work short term, but one needs oxygen bubbling to keep fuel from solidifying. Shaking your fuel reserves also can work.