In a post-apocalyptic future would you rather...

[noblegiraffe]

struggle for survival on the harsh and bleak surface with other survivors

or

live in a nice comfy large bunker with a few thousand people and all the mod cons except you can't go outside, or communicate with anyone outside?

See, I assumed everyone would choose the bunker but some friends said they'd rather chance death on the outside than live in a bunker, even if it was huge.

Polling wouldn't let me put only two options so you can also choose to die in the apocalypse and opt out of either scenario.

I'd lay down in the road and let the apocalypse take me. (i've no kids tho)

I’d live outside if it was just me and the others stayed in the bunker

Do you have survival skills? If I stayed outside I'd die of hunger or eating poisonous berries (I'm assuming that the Seek app wouldn't work anymore).

If it was a bunker like in Silo, I would live there but only if there was a plan for eventually going outside. Even if it was not in my lifetime, but let’s gather data and plan for when people can go back outside, that would be fine. None of the secrecy and suppression of Silo, but people working together for a purpose.

On the outside. I couldn't handle being underground. I can only do the tube if I try really hard to not think about what's on top.

I'm very good at identifying plants and berries and I can fish and butcher things.

Definitely the dying option. Trying to survive outside or living in a bunker wouldn't be for me

@noblegiraffesadly not, my DH says I’d be the first one to die in the Hunger Games because I’m too busy faffing about

Yes, that sort of thing.
though in that case there was no possibility of surviving on the outside. I guess it might depend exactly how harsh and who the other people outside were.

I think I’d do really well I’m on the outside until I smashed or lost my glasses then I’d be dead in minutes. I can’t imagine any scenario where a bunker survives past a generation without becoming a complete shit show of cultish extremism so I’d prefer to stay out and either survive or die fast.

If the Walking Dead is anything to go by, the bunker will be as dangerous as the outside very quickly. How will they keep order? Who else will they let in? Who decides what the rules are inside the bunker and how are they enforced?

As long as it’s slow moving zombies, I’ll take my chances outside to begin with (as per my username 🧟😆).

Oh, glasses are a good shout. Like that episode of the Twilight Zone where he finds a library and breaks his glasses.

Maybe we could say that the bleak survival includes access to derelict Specsavers.

Starting with the unlikely assumption that I didn’t die in the apocalypse, living in close quarters with that many people would break me, or get me bludgeoned to death so I’d have to take my chances outside.

So it’s not really a case of struggling for survival as much as choosing which way to die.

I'm thinking something more like an asteroid strike rather than zombies so the danger comes from the environment rather than people wanting to eat your brains!

Not sure how order would be kept in the bunker. I'm assuming that it would run like a democracy with elected leaders, police, prisons etc. Comfier than the one in Silo too, which looks pretty grimy.

Definitely not in a bunker, shit would go bad really quickly because people are arseholes.

I would opt for the bunker especially if it is bleak outside.

Surely the same applies to the outside! People nicking your berries (or even knocking you off and then roasting you over a campfire)

On the outside. I’ve got raging ADHD and was BORN for a crisis. Bring it on 💪🏻

But even zombies become just another environmental hazard after a while, which can be managed. At least they are predictable. People though… they can be really bad. And amazingly creative in finding ways to be so.

I'm assuming that it would run like a democracy with elected leaders, police, prisons etc. Really? You think that would spontaneously arise out of a natural disaster?

I would dig my own bunker within the bunker.

And a secret tunnel to the outside so I could go outside and back in again.

And thus have the best of both worlds.

I’ve played Fallout. I’m staying in the bunker so I don’t get killed by raiders and mutant mole rats

I’d rather die to be honest. What’s the point in anyone trying to survive it all ?

Yep, think I’ll die, happy to go in some spectacularly gruesome way as long as it’s quick.

I think one issue with the bunker is if you were in there for any length of time and people survived outside why should they welcome you back when you do emerge.

I'd live outside. I'm an introverted claustrophobic who would loathe to be trapped in a bunker with other people.

I'm also someone who grew up in the 70s and 80s under Reagan and Thatcher when we KNEW we would face a nuclear apocalypse. Everything we read at school, films, pop videos were focused on apocalyptic events - 'Z for Zachariah', 'Brother in the Land', When the Wind Blows, etc. My biggest fear as a teenager was that I would survive - along with just my father.

My DF is a highly intelligent, educated man (now almost 90) who was utterly, utterly useless at anything practical. I knew he would not be able to build a fallout shelter, get a generator going, identify safe berries to eat, trap an animal or know how to filter water. He could not wire a plug or hang a picture.

Now however I have DH who is the most practical man I know and who is capable of leading a small group of survivors against zombies and coming out on top. He's incredibly tough. I'm happy to survive on the surface with him.

Definitely fending for myself outside. I'm an outdoors person and would fancy my chances of avoiding the berry thieves and knocker-off-roasters better than my ability to put up with the sort of people who would think they deserved a bunker place.