Even in the case of a truly sci-fi disaster like the nitrogen-eating blight in "Interstellar" there's still going to be trade and economics happening after the initial shock.
It makes absolutely zero sense to barter bulk commodities when there's a pretty universally agreed on "valuable metal" that can serve as a fairly secure proxy.
Even just from an energy standpoint gold makes sense. Why bring 4 cases of ammo for 2 pallets for food, at your fuel cost to move it, when you can bring a jeans pocket worth of gold.
You have to survive the 2-3 years of devastating famine to get to the point where barter is even an option. Like I said, you're not exactly wrong, but your timetable is way too optimistic.
At a certain level of disaster I don't even really think in terms of any of this mattering, and what you're describing is like "we got hit by an asteroid and it was dinosaur killer tier". It's so far out of anything even plannable I don't even consider it. If you or yours survive it you might be a dominant gene line in the future - but you're probably not gonna survive it.
So like "prep to live in a hole for 2-3 years until the zombies/ash/salted bomb fallout subsides" is to me kinda laughable, it's the stretchiest of stretch goals.
On the other hand, a month of supplies to ride thru a weather disaster, trucker strike, civil unrest, etc is just smart thinking.
No, I just outlined what's going to cause the food shortages: crops dying due to being genetically engineered and farm equipment being impossible to repair by design. All it would take is an EMP, and there'd be 2-3 months where people hunker down, and then it'll be all out war for resources.
We've gone entire generations without a real famine. In the past, our ancestors regularly dealt with them. This isn't an 'if' it's a 'when.' It's been engineered to happen. Unless you have at least a year's worth of food stocked up, or the rare knowledge on how to properly hunt and forage for it, someone in the future is going to find your desiccated husk of a corpse clutching at your gold.
The magical devices that magically render anything technological entirely useless, burned up, and inert. Truly some high level wizardry.
In truth, "an EMP" is a nuke, not even a special one. We experimented with chemically driven EMP for a while, and it works, but just the inherent physics of it makes it pretty weak. If you want an EMP, you're deploying a nuke. With deploying a nuke (even "just an emprank bro"), you've probably started a large scale nuclear exchange.
From there you're getting into "mass extinction event" territory again. Nuclear war might be more survivable than dino killer asteroid, but it's still gonna be a crapshoot.
there'd be 2-3 months where people hunker down, and then it'll be all out war for resources.
Indeed there would be, and most wars are ultimately economic. If you don't think people with gold aren't going to be able to buy the services of anyone they need with it, you're ignoring history. People aren't going to forget gold has value, they aren't going to forget roughly what an ounce of gold "was worth". People are still gonna want it, and you can get a lot of dumbshits to join your war party by handing out some of that bling bling.
An ounce of gold was enough to get you a "decent business suit" in ancient Greece, ancient Rome, the medieval period, and today. If there's anything that's been a long term stable currency in terms of general commodity buying power, it's gold. Yes, in sophisticated markets it gets manipulated, but the closer the market is to ancient Rome, or Silk Road traders, the better it works.
Even in the case of a truly sci-fi disaster like the nitrogen-eating blight in "Interstellar" there's still going to be trade and economics happening after the initial shock.
It makes absolutely zero sense to barter bulk commodities when there's a pretty universally agreed on "valuable metal" that can serve as a fairly secure proxy.
Even just from an energy standpoint gold makes sense. Why bring 4 cases of ammo for 2 pallets for food, at your fuel cost to move it, when you can bring a jeans pocket worth of gold.
You have to survive the 2-3 years of devastating famine to get to the point where barter is even an option. Like I said, you're not exactly wrong, but your timetable is way too optimistic.
At a certain level of disaster I don't even really think in terms of any of this mattering, and what you're describing is like "we got hit by an asteroid and it was dinosaur killer tier". It's so far out of anything even plannable I don't even consider it. If you or yours survive it you might be a dominant gene line in the future - but you're probably not gonna survive it.
So like "prep to live in a hole for 2-3 years until the zombies/ash/salted bomb fallout subsides" is to me kinda laughable, it's the stretchiest of stretch goals.
On the other hand, a month of supplies to ride thru a weather disaster, trucker strike, civil unrest, etc is just smart thinking.
No, I just outlined what's going to cause the food shortages: crops dying due to being genetically engineered and farm equipment being impossible to repair by design. All it would take is an EMP, and there'd be 2-3 months where people hunker down, and then it'll be all out war for resources.
We've gone entire generations without a real famine. In the past, our ancestors regularly dealt with them. This isn't an 'if' it's a 'when.' It's been engineered to happen. Unless you have at least a year's worth of food stocked up, or the rare knowledge on how to properly hunt and forage for it, someone in the future is going to find your desiccated husk of a corpse clutching at your gold.
The magical devices that magically render anything technological entirely useless, burned up, and inert. Truly some high level wizardry.
In truth, "an EMP" is a nuke, not even a special one. We experimented with chemically driven EMP for a while, and it works, but just the inherent physics of it makes it pretty weak. If you want an EMP, you're deploying a nuke. With deploying a nuke (even "just an emprank bro"), you've probably started a large scale nuclear exchange.
From there you're getting into "mass extinction event" territory again. Nuclear war might be more survivable than dino killer asteroid, but it's still gonna be a crapshoot.
Indeed there would be, and most wars are ultimately economic. If you don't think people with gold aren't going to be able to buy the services of anyone they need with it, you're ignoring history. People aren't going to forget gold has value, they aren't going to forget roughly what an ounce of gold "was worth". People are still gonna want it, and you can get a lot of dumbshits to join your war party by handing out some of that bling bling.
An ounce of gold was enough to get you a "decent business suit" in ancient Greece, ancient Rome, the medieval period, and today. If there's anything that's been a long term stable currency in terms of general commodity buying power, it's gold. Yes, in sophisticated markets it gets manipulated, but the closer the market is to ancient Rome, or Silk Road traders, the better it works.