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judochop's avatar

What do you think are the three most important skills to surviving the Apocalypse are?

Asked by judochop (16119points) December 20th, 2011

If you were only allowed three skills to take with you to enter the final days of earths survival what would they be and why? What skills would keep you alive the longest in hopes of holding out to help rebuild humanity? please don’t do the whole, I would just die because humanity caused such tragic blah, blah, blah. Where would you go? What would you do with your three skills?

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34 Answers

erichw1504's avatar

Expertise in weapons.
Expertise in cooking.
The ability to run faster than the guy next to me.

ragingloli's avatar

Levitation, shooting energy beams out of your hand and transforming into a Super Saiyajin.

judochop's avatar

I guess the term ‘skills’ is a little open. I should have asked, specialized skills…Anyway, since I didn’t I will take with me;

Cold weather farming skills.
Mountaineering.
Natural medicine.

I would head towards the mountains in Wyoming and build shelter on the West side of a mountain near a high altitude water source and a geothermal water source. I would start farming as soon as I could and start developing medicines as soon as I could. I would build escape shelters off the edge of a cliff for safety if attacked and I would rig landslides to prevent attacks. I would hope to partner with Angelina Jolie as Salt and begin to make babies for the future of Earths sake.

Judi's avatar

Hunting, farming, construction. I’m not telling where my secret lair is.

bob_'s avatar

Shooting, construction, sandwich making.

incendiary_dan's avatar

In broad categories, I start with making shelter, foraging for food, and purifying water. I’d add next trapping and fire making given the chance (hunting for subsistence is too much time and energy expenditure). This is what I teach as core skill sets in my survival skill classes.

The mental tool I teach to remember what order to meet needs is the rule of 3’s: you can live 3 hours (roughly) in inclement conditions (fire and shelter, including clothing), 3 days without water, three weeks without food. Adding to either end of that, 3 seconds without safety and three months without companionship.

6rant6's avatar

The ability to eat anything that is food-like.
The ability to make horrible decisions quickly.
The ability to convince yourself that your survival is somehow worthwhile in the face of new rules.

CaptainHarley's avatar

Ability to plan and create.
Ability to mobilize people to a common cause.
Ability to train in a multitude of disciplines, including arms and associated disciplines.

I would utilize those three skills to gather, train and motivate a group of people to cooperate for survival of the group.

ragingloli's avatar

Ability to execute swift highway robberies.
Lock picking ability.
Stalking ability.

cazzie's avatar

Be somewhere that they don’t sell weapons to morons.

ucme's avatar

Dancing, singing & moisturising.

Blueroses's avatar

Medical knowledge: Ability to treat wounds, infections and illness
An adaptive mind: Ability to engineer found objects into useful items
A good working knowledge of food storage and preservation.

I would make an effort to band together cooperatively with people who had different skillsets so I could have a house and sandwiches.

YARNLADY's avatar

the ability to change other people’s minds, as in; “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for” from Star Wars.

TexasDude's avatar

1. Acquiring consumables (food and water)
2. Securing a defensible and sustainable shelter (I include campcraft in this)
3. Defense (shooting, melee, etc)

DaphneT's avatar

I want to go with @judochop. You’re going to need more than Angelina to repopulate, genetic diversity and all…

6rant6's avatar

Knowing where to shop could be really important.

Berserker's avatar

Extreme fighting skills. If there are other fuckers out there, they’re probbaly gonna want to kill or rape me, just because they can.

Medical proficiency. People are bound to get hurt. Myself included. Gotta know how to handle it.

Supreme Comprehension of the Universe and Everything Beyond. I would probably want this skill in order to understand what really happened, why it did happen, and what to do to find conclusion. Running around like a vulture is all good, but I’d want to find the answer out of this.

If there isn’t an answer to it though…knowing how to siphon gasoline, or at least swim, is probbaly some skill I’d need for many random situations.

judochop's avatar

I was asking this because I’ve always thought the most important taught skills to have while growing up in the city are,
swimming, driving a stick-shift and fire starting.
My daughter and I were talking about it and she started in on the Zombies…I started talking about those of us left over from WW3. This question evolved from there.

MilkyWay's avatar

3 most important skills:
1.Getting along with @Symbeline
2. Being able to do whatever it is that @Symbeline told you to do
3. Not annoying @Symbeline
I’m hangin out with you Symbo, that alright?

Blueroses's avatar

@6rant6 It’s not my idea of a good apocalypse if I still have to go shopping.

cazzie's avatar

a more serious answer from me, because I was flunking (drunk fluthering) when I wrote the last one.

1. Defense.
2. Food acquisition.
3. Medical/Science knowledge.

(I feel I have all but the first one down…...) Being on @Symbeline ‘s team would be a bonus.

incendiary_dan's avatar

It’s not necessary, but food preservation should be high on everyone’s list.

CaptainHarley's avatar

@incendiary_dan

I bought a year’s supply of dehydrated foods, which pretty much takes care of the “preservation” angle I think.

incendiary_dan's avatar

@CaptainHarley After that year, if you hunt or trap, forage or garden, or whatever else, won’t you want to keep the surplus good, too? I was mostly thinking of it because I’m preparing to can a bunch of the heirloom pumpkin I grew.

CaptainHarley's avatar

@incendiary_dan

Kewl! We have some books on canning, plus my wife has done some canning before, so we should be all right. In fact, we plan on interspercing canned food with dehydrated food.

incendiary_dan's avatar

Dehydrating is a better idea nutritionally, but some things just don’t taste the same, right? Canning destroys a lot of nutrition, so I haven’t gotten into it until recently. Dehydrating and fermenting are my favorites, personally.

Something everyone should know for long term survival skills is that fermented foods like sauerkraut and kimchi, when properly stored and fermented, last for years, maybe forever. The process also makes it probiotic and creates a lot of lactic acid, which can be good for your digestion. The biggest thing is making the container sterile before you fill it with the vegetables. And luckily, it’s easy to tell if the fermentation goes bad; a bad ferment smells like death!

Dutchess_III's avatar

Knowing the medicinal properties of plants.
Wisdom
Willingness to work my a** off.

@Blueroses I agree. It’d be a really crappy apocalypse if we still had to shop. I hate shopping.

cazzie's avatar

(At the end of WW2, my father in law’s village had to live on cans of sauerkraut that the Germans had stored. Because of the scorched earth policy, the Nazis burned everything in Northern Norway as they retreated, but the tins of sauerkraut were stacked in a warehouse and the ones in the middle were fine. It was all they had until the Russians came and helped them. True story.)

CaptainHarley's avatar

@incendiary_dan

OMG! Kimchi smells bad enough as it is! ICK! LOL!

Berserker's avatar

Kimchi fuckin rocks. ;)

CaptainHarley's avatar

Hahahahaha! You can have my share then, @Symbeline

Berserker's avatar

Sweet. That actually happened before. Someone didn’t want to finish their kimchi, and they gave it to me. I was pleased. :)

CaptainHarley's avatar

@Symbeline

All I can say is that it takes all kinds! : D

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