The Last Person Alive

[miss fortune]

I'd probably get bored and off myself if I were the last person alive!

 

[FallsPioneer]

I would kill myself immediately; too miserable an existence for me.

 

[Wolf]

It also matters on the way they all died - are we talking an ELE, disease, or something else?

Sounds fun, BUT, since I could never be sure there are no humans left (it is highly improbable that if I survived due to, say, immunity, that others didn't), I would probably spend much of the remainder of my life searching for them.

Therefore, provided I couldn't find a single living person in the area (searching and using radios), I would do the following: Collect up supplies that would make it easier to locate people and assorted items for protection. One of the most dangerous things would be feral dog packs, so I would carry and maintain a collection of assorted firearms, ammunition, and edged weapons. For entertainment, I would locate plenty of books, computers, video games, etc.

If I couldn't find signs of human life in the San Diego area, I would leave something obvious on Coronado, Point Loma, and/or in downtown San Diego that would attract the attention and activity of other humans. From there, I would collect above-mentioned supplies and outfit the nicest and most-sea-worthy yacht I could obtain, then sail north for Los Angeles where I would do a similar search for life. If there is still no sign, I would leave something else obvious in Long Beach and/or Palos Verdes and continue north with more supplies and possibly a better sail boat obtained in the area. I would do the same thing all the way to Vancouver, hitting all major cities along the coast, then make my way back down the coast, checking each point I left signs of my existence for signs of human activity, and investigate those.

After returning to my point of origin, if no signs are seen, I would head south to Panama and cross at the Panama Canal to the Gulf. From there I would continue the search up/down the east coast. Still lacking any human activity, I would check South America, and if there is still no sign, I would return to the west coast and check there some more. After a couple years of this, I might consider an expedition to Europe to do the same thing there, in Africa, SE Asia, and Australia. The last thing I would do is prepare for a serious long-distance trip across the ocean to review the islands which might have been isolated from whatever killed off the rest of humanity. This might be the first thing I put effort into if the event was a disease, but only after ensuring I do not carry said disease myself.

If after this it appears there is truly nobody in the world, I would basically keep sailing north/south along the west coast, camping out in the northwest and southwest for much of the rest of my life, and identifying the best place to settle when I get too old to continue wandering.

I could go into more depth on these...

 

[substitute]

If it only seemed like I was the last person alive on earth but I didn't know for certain and had no way of finding out, I'd probably roam around the earth discovering stuff whilst looking for other people.

If I did know for a fact that I was the last person on earth, I'd probably find a hospital fertility unit and read up on how to like, grow test tube babies from frozen sperm/eggs or whatever. Or clone myself maybe, and play with the genes so that there were both male and female versions, and we could repopulate the globe with ENTPs!

Hang on, why am I alone? Is there a disease that only I was immune to that wiped out all the people but left the buildings etc the same? That'd make a difference.

Or I might just devote my life to teaching animals to speak... heheh... maybe I'd go and live with some animal species that was debatably sentient like gorillas or something.

 

[ptgatsby]

After making sure I'd have the essentials (food and water), I'd seek natural gas (propane-ish), transport (natural gas), heat generator, power/generator, refrigeration, medical supplies. Most of those are interchangable, like using propane stoves for heat, and using propane for fuel. I'd prefer that approach since I wouldn't lose time searching for many of these items, other than transportation... but I'd have time with that since most cars would have several months of lifespan before I'd be stranded.

I'd likely settle in a hardware store somewhere (maintenance would become a big issue unless you can secure central heating and supplies and are handy enough to deal with large scale projects like re-roofing - this allows allows the most interchangable parts for your critical survival items, not to mention building supplies and pest control). Most places like that are engineered for a longer life than your usual wood houses too. Given that I'd likely be unable to replace many of the items I listed above, I'd probably have no more than 10 years of "easy" living. After that point, I'd have to be self sufficient. I would have no need for farmland - most farmland being too barren and meant for high-yield single crops. I'd simply seek out a fairly decent size garden shop - they are often fairly close to hardware stores here, or even be a combination of them. I could set up planters and greenhouses where I had room, thus control the stuff I grew better. I'd probably plant quite a few trees, namely for berries and oranges... and get a chicken coop going. Eggs and chicken meat would be essential for balancing my diet since I am unlikely to be able to raise much red meat or grow sufficient beans.


All of that assuming that I didn't know I was the last person on earth. If I knew, I'd probably eat a whole lot of chocolate, take up drinking and be dead within a few months. I'm too lazy to do all that work just to survive.

 

[prplchknz]

as long as I get food and shelter and access to all media and books. And DON"T have to have sex with a evil mucousey alien to repopulate the earth with human alien hybrids yea I'd just chill for a bit.

If I have to sleep with evil sinister aliens because it's their fault everyone is dead then I'll kill myself.

 

[Nonpareil]

What would you do if you were the last person on Earth? How would you react?

Well, whether I thought I was or if I actually knew I was the last person on Earth...I would probably just kill myself (assuming that I could actually get myself to kill myself).

Reason why I wouldn't want to keep living alone - well see my blog (basically it is an extreme fear of being alone).

Plus, if I was really the last person standing, for whatever odd reason that may be, what would be the point - I have no one to help me repopulate the world and the effort to even try would be too much for one person, let alone try to live and do everything.

 

[INTJMom]

...I'd probably eat a whole lot of chocolate, take up drinking and be dead within a few months. I'm too lazy to do all that work just to survive.

Now THERE'S an idea!

 

[Wolf]

Plus, if I was really the last person standing, for whatever odd reason that may be, what would be the point - I have no one to help me repopulate the world and the effort to even try would be too much for one person, let alone try to live and do everything.

See, if I was a female I would just repopulate sufficiently to produce a viable gene pool using frozen sperm from that successful/famous person sperm bank. Being male, I lack that option (and, realistically, it probably wouldn't work due to the fact you probably wouldn't be able to produce any males in this manner), and therefore I would do the best thing a male could do - seek out females, which are more robust and much more likely to survive most things that would kill a high percentage of humans.

 

[Nonpareil]

See, if I was a female I would just repopulate sufficiently to produce a viable gene pool using frozen sperm from that successful/famous person sperm bank.

Sperm bank....I don't even know where I would find one of those. I wouldn't know how to even extract my eggs to mix with the sperm and I wouldn't know the procedure to actually fully develop that into a baby - let alone a human. Plus, if I was the only person alive, what use is the sperm if the person who owned that sperm died too - obviously he wasn't strong enough to survive whatever killed all of man-kind. Yeah, sure, I would consist of part of the genes to the baby but what is the point of a half-strong baby?

I'm sorry, if I was the last person on earth or if I thought I was, I would lose all hope and motivation to live. All this is good and all but I would have to wait so long to see if I could find anyone or make anyone to repopulate the earth. That is too much effort for me (when I'm depressed and unmotivated) - I hate to have to cling on to hope when I'm depressed. Maybe that's why I get stuck in these downward spiraling circles when I get down...

Being male, I lack that option (and, realistically, it probably wouldn't work due to the fact you probably wouldn't be able to produce any males in this manner), and therefore I would do the best thing a male could do - seek out females, which are more robust and much more likely to survive most things that would kill a high percentage of humans.

Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but why wouldn't you be able to produce any males? It is the guy that determines whether we get a boy or not because only a male sperm carries the chomosome for determining if a baby is male or female. Females only carry the X chomosome....or that's what I thought.

 

[Wolf]

Sperm bank....I don't even know where I would find one of those. I wouldn't know how to even extract my eggs to mix with the sperm and I wouldn't know the procedure to actually fully develop that into a baby - let alone a human.

The beauty of being a female is that you don't need to do any extraction of your eggs since the fertilization can be done reliably inside your body. It's actually fairly simple...

Plus, if I was the only person alive, what use is the sperm if the person who owned that sperm died too - obviously he wasn't strong enough to survive whatever killed all of man-kind. Yeah, sure, I would consist of part of the genes to the baby but what is the point of a half-strong baby?

More likely you'd be "half-strong", too. We still don't know what killed off the rest of humanity, but if it was a disease that was human-specific and you weren't a carrier, it would die out. If you are and possess antibodies, you would pass these on and any offspring would inherit them.

Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but why wouldn't you be able to produce any males? It is the guy that determines whether we get a boy or not because only a male sperm carries the chomosome for determining if a baby is male or female. Females only carry the X chomosome....or that's what I thought.

The male does not determine whether the offspring is male or female. The female does, mostly, with some help from the male.

Y-carrying sperm are very fast but the female reproductive tract is hostile to them and they die rapidly. They are also smaller and less robust, therefore you're going to have a dramatically-lower chance of producing a male if the sperm has been frozen. Timing is crucial to gender selection under normal circumstances... Our high male ratio is due to cultures that expect monogamy and cultures with extreme promiscuity, which result in higher frequencies of males than would naturally occur without such cultural pressures. Wars are fought because females are selfish.

 

[Kyrielle]

Not to mention the soul-crushing sadness of losing EVERYONE you EVER loved. I think my heart might explode instantly from sadness. I would probably die, as they say, from a broken heart.

That's exactly how I imagined it would go... And if I lived long enough, well I'd spend most of my time writing about the people I knew and loved in hopes of resolving the terrible, probable, black depression. Maybe I'd make it special and turn their lives into tales worthy of being called myths and legends. Once all the writing was done, I'd put the books on a table, on a hill, somewhere out in the middle on nowhere...somewhere that seemed a very unlikely place for a table and books to be placed. I'd find a way to protect the books from the elements and from animals and from time. Then, I'd go somewhere peaceful and give up. (I think, under certain circumstances, it's possible to make yourself stop living. Eventhough that hasn't really been proven. But I don't think that our sense of self-preservation is active at all times in all situations.)

 

[Grayscale]

Man you guys are a bunch of wet blankets...

If I were the last person (or thought I was) I'd want it so that if anyone ever came back, they'd be like... "what the HELL did you do here?!"

You know, like... entire cities demolished, vehicles of all shapes and sizes crashed into the ground and nearby buildings, large out of control forest fires, spent ammunition, things like that.

"What happened what? Oh this... yeah, it's a long story, but umm... I should probably tell you--stay out of Africa... the computer controlled mechs have taken over everything south of the Nile and the bio-enhanced rabid gorillas will not distinguish between you and the robots... can I get you something to drink?"

 

[Domino]

ROFL@ Grayscale!!! "Look what happens when I leave the room!! You people are ridiculous!!"

 

[INTJMom]

...
You know, like... entire cities demolished, vehicles of all shapes and sizes crashed into the ground and nearby buildings, large out of control forest fires, spent ammunition, things like that.
...

LOL! That sounds exactly like what my ISTP son would occupy himself with!!

 

[sassafrassquatch]

In case you're not the only person left alive.

Sassafrassquatch’s Guide to the Apocalypse

1) As soon as it becomes apparent that shit is going down secure as much canned food, water, guns and ammunition as you can carry.

2) Find a secure location where you can wait for the shit to blow over. If the shit happens to be nuclear war, fuck it, go bowling.

3) It’s ok to kill anyone who gets in your way. They’re all going to die soon anyway.

4) Don’t waste time playing around, stealing sports cars or whatever. Unless it’s a nuclear war, cause you’re fucked anyway. Although in that case you should be having hot end-of-the-world-sex with chicks who don’t want to die virgins.

5) Survivors: Find ISTPs, ESTPs, and ISTJs, they’ll be the best at coping with the situation and may have useful skills. Pinch an INTP or two to design your fortress/bunker/compound/castle. The NFs will be too busy crying and moping, it’s ok to leave them to die. Kill any ESTJs, ENTJs or anyone else who may try to seize power. You’ll also want dentists and surgeons. An abscessed tooth or appendicitis shouldn’t stop your drive to become the regional power.

6) Make time in your pillaging to raid a library for books on agriculture, chemistry, medicine and carpentry.

7) Food and clean water and fuel will be the only things of value. If you can become the supplier of these things you will rule your corner of the world.

8) You'll want to find a large building in which to set up shop. If you can find a Costco next to a Home Depot you're in good shape.

9) Once you’ve established power you’ll need a harem. And a cool hat. Cause people respect a man with a cool hat.

 

[runvardh]

Fuck you Sass, I'll be the one in my corner of the world running shit. I even know how to survive the aftermath of nuclear war. ^_^

 

[JivinJeffJones]

I'm wondering what the long-term plan is for all these sperm-seekers. Suppose they successfully unfreeze the sperm and then impregnate themselves. What then? Are they expecting the children to reproduce? If so, are they going to rear the children with an expectation that they will eventually hook up, or are they going to rear them the way they would normally rear children?

 

[Sandy]

The NFs will be too busy crying and moping, it’s ok to leave them to die.

"You cut me deep, sass..er...Shrek. You cut me read deep just now." (quoting donkey)

 

[INTJMom]

I'm wondering what the long-term plan is for all these sperm-seekers. Suppose they successfully unfreeze the sperm and then impregnate themselves. What then? Are they expecting the children to reproduce? If so, are they going to rear the children with an expectation that they will eventually hook up, or are they going to rear them the way they would normally rear children?

It would be Adam and Eve all over again.

It's never gonna happen, so not to worry.