Suggestion forum suggestion - Whence cometh one's knowledge?

[Gaffa Tape Warrior]

I've read a lot of times on this forum people suggest a feature, like making a certain thing, and have people respond by saying that people do not in general know how to do that certain thing. It can be something rather basic (in my opinion) like making a hole in some wood, or brick-laying, or putting a hole at the bottom of a charcoal-holder, or making a wooden fence, or making armour, or wearing sports protection, but there will be at least one person who says that he's not got a clue how to do that thing, or would never be able to think of it himself. Who is representative of people in Muldraugh and West Point? People who know, or people who know not?

 

My suggestion is that when somebody says something about whether or not they themselves know how to do something, they say where they are from. A city, a town, a village, a hamlet, or somewhere else? It is likely that people from heavily urban areas know a lot less about practical things than people from rural areas. I think that this should be taken into account when discussing how knowledgeable people from rural Kentucky probably are. If someone born and bred in a city doesn't know how to make a fence, but someone from a suburban town like the ones in PZ does, then the second person's opinion should be used and not the first.

[Zombadger]

Hi. I'm from Rural Oregon and I personally can do everything my longest lived Survivor can do better then they could ever hope to achieve. Zambo apocalypse wouldn't be anything to me other than keeping looters away from the farm. If they wanted cheese a year after WalMart opened its doors for the last time they should have raised goats in relative obscurity as well.

 

Unless they have soda. I'd give a good amount of dried meats and fruits for even a single 2liter of caffeinated fizzywater after a year of being without.

[Rathlord]

Hi. I'm from Rural Oregon and I personally can do everything my longest lived Survivor can do better then they could ever hope to achieve. Zambo apocalypse wouldn't be anything to me other than keeping looters away from the farm. If they wanted cheese a year after WalMart opened its doors for the last time they should have raised goats in relative obscurity as well.

 

Unless they have soda. I'd give a good amount of dried meats and fruits for even a single 2liter of caffeinated fizzywater after a year of being without.

 

On the other hand, you can sustainably make soda without too terribly much trouble. It won't be quite as carbonated, but still a close thing. It's all a matter of knowing how

 

For what it's worth, I'm a weird hybrid. I worked on a farm, lived in a suburb, and was a short drive from the city. I've sold farm equipment, done tech support (), and sold lumber and building materials.

[CaptKaspar]

 

Hi. I'm from Rural Oregon and I personally can do everything my longest lived Survivor can do better then they could ever hope to achieve. Zambo apocalypse wouldn't be anything to me other than keeping looters away from the farm. If they wanted cheese a year after WalMart opened its doors for the last time they should have raised goats in relative obscurity as well.

 

Unless they have soda. I'd give a good amount of dried meats and fruits for even a single 2liter of caffeinated fizzywater after a year of being without.

 

On the other hand, you can sustainably make soda without too terribly much trouble. It won't be quite as carbonated, but still a close thing. It's all a matter of knowing how

 

For what it's worth, I'm a weird hybrid. I worked on a farm, lived in a suburb, and was a short drive from the city. I've sold farm equipment, done tech support ( ), and sold lumber and building materials.

 

 

weren't you a chef of sorts too?

[CaptKaspar]

Hi. I'm from Rural Oregon and I personally can do everything my longest lived Survivor can do better then they could ever hope to achieve. Zambo apocalypse wouldn't be anything to me other than keeping looters away from the farm. If they wanted cheese a year after WalMart opened its doors for the last time they should have raised goats in relative obscurity as well.

 

Unless they have soda. I'd give a good amount of dried meats and fruits for even a single 2liter of caffeinated fizzywater after a year of being without.

 

I could do you one better and make you some beer instead of fizzywater I live on the other coast. Meet somewhere in the middle?

[Rathlord]

 

 

Hi. I'm from Rural Oregon and I personally can do everything my longest lived Survivor can do better then they could ever hope to achieve. Zambo apocalypse wouldn't be anything to me other than keeping looters away from the farm. If they wanted cheese a year after WalMart opened its doors for the last time they should have raised goats in relative obscurity as well.

 

Unless they have soda. I'd give a good amount of dried meats and fruits for even a single 2liter of caffeinated fizzywater after a year of being without.

 

On the other hand, you can sustainably make soda without too terribly much trouble. It won't be quite as carbonated, but still a close thing. It's all a matter of knowing how

 

For what it's worth, I'm a weird hybrid. I worked on a farm, lived in a suburb, and was a short drive from the city. I've sold farm equipment, done tech support ( ), and sold lumber and building materials.

 

 

weren't you a chef of sorts too?

 

 

Yah, I've worked in a few different parts of the food industry. Been a server, a dish boy, cook, delivery guy, manager.

[Johnny Fisher]

Hi. I'm from Rural Oregon and I personally can do everything my longest lived Survivor can do better then they could ever hope to achieve. Zambo apocalypse wouldn't be anything to me other than keeping looters away from the farm. If they wanted cheese a year after WalMart opened its doors for the last time they should have raised goats in relative obscurity as well.

 

Unless they have soda. I'd give a good amount of dried meats and fruits for even a single 2liter of caffeinated fizzywater after a year of being without.

 

Note: Contains Strong Language.

[Zombadger]

 

Hi. I'm from Rural Oregon and I personally can do everything my longest lived Survivor can do better then they could ever hope to achieve. Zambo apocalypse wouldn't be anything to me other than keeping looters away from the farm. If they wanted cheese a year after WalMart opened its doors for the last time they should have raised goats in relative obscurity as well.

 

Unless they have soda. I'd give a good amount of dried meats and fruits for even a single 2liter of caffeinated fizzywater after a year of being without.

 

Note: Contains Strong Language.

 

He made me, omg!

[Zombadger]

 

Hi. I'm from Rural Oregon and I personally can do everything my longest lived Survivor can do better then they could ever hope to achieve. Zambo apocalypse wouldn't be anything to me other than keeping looters away from the farm. If they wanted cheese a year after WalMart opened its doors for the last time they should have raised goats in relative obscurity as well.

 

Unless they have soda. I'd give a good amount of dried meats and fruits for even a single 2liter of caffeinated fizzywater after a year of being without.

 

I could do you one better and make you some beer instead of fizzywater I live on the other coast. Meet somewhere in the middle?

 

 

Sounds good to me. See you somewhere in Texas, yee haw!

 

 

 

Hi. I'm from Rural Oregon and I personally can do everything my longest lived Survivor can do better then they could ever hope to achieve. Zambo apocalypse wouldn't be anything to me other than keeping looters away from the farm. If they wanted cheese a year after WalMart opened its doors for the last time they should have raised goats in relative obscurity as well.

 

Unless they have soda. I'd give a good amount of dried meats and fruits for even a single 2liter of caffeinated fizzywater after a year of being without.

 

On the other hand, you can sustainably make soda without too terribly much trouble. It won't be quite as carbonated, but still a close thing. It's all a matter of knowing how

 

For what it's worth, I'm a weird hybrid. I worked on a farm, lived in a suburb, and was a short drive from the city. I've sold farm equipment, done tech support ( ), and sold lumber and building materials.

 

 

 

A solid education in practical matters, sounds like. Why are 2x4's actually 1.75x3.75s? That's always bugged me, lumberman. :]

[Asrayl]

I'm afraid I disagree fundamentally with you on this. A person is more than their origin, more than where they live. I tend to find that people who say "you wouldn't know how to do..." generally don't have a leg to stand on. 

 

What we don't know, we can learn. Even in rural America, libraries were a big thing in the 90s. Educational television, the rise of home improvement stores, the dawning of the information age... 

 

It is naive to think that just because a person lives in a small town they know, or don't know a given thing. Humans are a diverse bunch.

 

That said, while I freely admit I just tend to not put a lot of stock into the opinions of naysayers [Who build an entire argument on what I do or do not know how to do.],I believe all opinions should be weighted equally on the content of the words, the thought behind it, not the origin of a person's personal history. 

[EnigmaGrey]

Effectively, it's the dimension of the material prior to being cured and milled. Why this became the set measure for purchasing completed goods, I'll never know . . . that 1.75 x 3.75 value is also only approximate, depending on the grade.

[Jack Bower]

Also if you are pretty much forced by life threatening circumstances you may be more willing to learn and more receptive to information.

[King jjwpenguin]

Meh, I mean i live in the city and am still living with family but i can metal work, drive a car, woodwork, fight, shoot, cook, make stuff from glass and clay, work on electrical things, do plumbing work, farm, forage, and run. Only thing i lack is physical strength, and i have a low pain tolerance. I for one don't think it matters where you are from but rather what you know. I live in a big city in a desert yet i know how to hunt and farm. Locations is only a part of the story while skills make up more then you would think.

[Rathlord]

A solid education in practical matters, sounds like. Why are 2x4's actually 1.75x3.75s? That's always bugged me, lumberman. :]

 

 

In addition to what EG said, the reason they're still called 2x4's is just because it's easier than saying "I need a 1-1/2 inch by 3-1/2 inch board at 92-5/8 inch long (common 8' stud length), please."

[EnigmaGrey]

A solid education in practical matters, sounds like. Why are 2x4's actually 1.75x3.75s? That's always bugged me, lumberman. :]

 

In addition to what EG said, the reason they're still called 2x4's is just because it's easier than saying "I need a 1-1/2 inch by 3-1/2 inch board at 92-5/8 inch long (common 8' stud length), please."

Clever ploy, but we won't adapt the metric system just because you talk sense.

[uberevan]

I received survival training in Boy Scouts from this dude who's been doing it for 30 something years and just generally take an interest in it in general but I'm not an expert, I just have some general knowledge about the dos and don'ts. 

Also I live out in the middle of nowhere with like 30 acres so I don't know much about big city life, but we aren't farmers either...so I don't know what that qualifies me for

[Asrayl]

I received survival training in Boy Scouts from this dude who's been doing it for 30 something years and just generally take an interest in it in general but I'm not an expert, I just have some general knowledge about the dos and don'ts. 

Also I live out in the middle of nowhere with like 30 acres so I don't know much about big city life, but we aren't farmers either...so I don't know what that qualifies me for

Jury duty. 

 

[Glad to see you have a good sense of humor ] 

[DreadLordNaf]

I don't think suggestions should be anchored on what one person can do in real-life but on what random people who might survive such an event could do.  I came from a rural area and even in most rural areas most people don't have a lot of "hard skills".  If 1% of the population survived such an event as in PZ what would they look like?  Data from the American BLS suggests that roughly (with some rounding http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_201.htm):

 

-13.5% of the population is in goods-producing (mining, construction, manufacturing)

-1.5% of the population is in agriculture forestry and fishing

-85% of the population is in services (retail clerks, waitress, lawyers, teachers, bankers, IT, doctors, etc) 

 

Most people thus aren't going to know the first think about logging, building, farming, etc.  Even the people that do, many of them just operate a tractor full-time, or drive a dump truck, etc , they specialize and don't have the broad beginning-to- end knowledge of how to do much of that.  I did know someone who had a roommate who did old fashioned blacksmithing/armor making as a hobby.  But what would they do in a PZ world? I doubt they know how to mine for iron ore and smelt that into something usable...

 

But rather than argue about who is right, it would be more useful to think about what people's practical hobbies they learned BEFORE the event translate into practical skills that could then be represented in the game.  A good example is the scouting hobby which in-game translate quite well from what you would practically learn in real life from that.  I know a software guy who makes his own furniture as a hobby and its quite impressive.  I'm sure he is more of a carpenter than anyone in my small rural town.   Making pottery as a hobby is taking off again, and would provide the basics of understanding brick making from clay etc.  Same with people that knit, fish, do home improvements, play sports, etc. 

 

I think PZ could incorporate more specialized unique crafting like you mention, but it shouldn't be available to all.  You shouldn't be able to learn some extremely specialized skills after the event that caused the apocalypse.   The really interesting stuff should require costly character traits and then only be available to certain character with those traits.   But something like that translated to PZ should take a lot of char traits and only be avail to that char as it doesnt seem like something you could easily pick up and learn on the fly as a survivor.  This would also facilitate better trading and barter in MP games among the survivors for each others unique goods.