You are the last person on Earth. What is your daily routine after the initial shock wears off?

[Commerford]

Personally, I'd do the usual, gather information, find ways to sustain myself, I think canned food lasts like an entire lifetime, I swear they found some tins on a polar expedition that were like 50 years old and they were still good to eat.

I'd get 2-3 dogs, any more and I'd fear i'd start to loose my humanity, also, big ones so they can protect me from other predators.

But finally, the most important thing, i'd tour the best golf courses in the world, unfortunately i'd have to do quite a bit of grounds keeping before I could play them, but it would pass the time.

I'd probably be incredibly bored 90% of the time as I'm quite a social person. Other than the basic survival thing I'd read a lot and just explore wherever I could. Find out what's behind all those no entry signs.
Although I'm sure I'd go onto the A1, spend a few days moving all the cars off it, steal a Bugatti Veyron and floor it and see what 200mph+ felt like (probably whilst screaming like a child).

This also, but there's so many roundabouts on the A1!! So i'd probably try and set a world record lap time on the M25.

 

[Lightknight]

Considering how long the internet may still be up after civilization is gone, i can imagine a significant amount of downloading happening. Up until the local internet gives up or all the important sites go down. Screenshotting and printing vital wikipedia pages and how-to's would be great. As well as hosting server locations (if the need ever transpired, I could visit one such hosting or archiving server and potentially get it up and running.

Why? Got nothing better to do.

This would be drastically different with even a handful of people. Then I could get to work on rebuidling an inbred society.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

Travel, probably. Drive around, collecting food until I find somewhere really nice to live- Obviously I'll have to cross the English Channel which could be tricky, but I'll find somewhere nice. Italy, I think. I can find myself a nice castle and spend my time stocking up food and attempting to farm shit. There's no way I'm living the next 60~ years without ever eating another steak.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

After finding place with continued electrical power without human intervention (such as near Hoover Dam or a solar plant) that has a well on the property, looted as many long term foods as I can, plus books on farming and other food gathering activities, set up a TV and start to watch as many movies as I can, play as many games as I can, find things to do to fight off the boredom and depression that will follow.

 

[Beautiful Tragedy]

Make sure i have food first and foremost (and water)
Write or draw most of the day (keeps me calm)
eat... probably 2 or 3 really small meals
Makes sure to find a vehicle and go to the most moderate temperature wise area
survive as long as i can

OR


Off myself on day 2 when i realize everyone is gone for good

 

[Zakarath]

Hmm... Stop by at SETI, see if there's any indication that aliens took everyone. Then head to area 51, see if anything interesting there. Do a couple of things for the hell of it, such as try and launch a nuke into the desert, and probably crash and die trying to fly an F-22.

 

[IllumInaTIma]

Well, I'd probably do everything to maintain my sanity. Find some puppy and train it. Get some food, generators, and gear. And then, I would put some goal ahead of me. Considering that right now I'm in Canada I would want to get back home, to Kazakhstan, for no reason really. So I'd look for a decent boat, read a bunch of books about sailing and then... hope for luck and calm waters! Ahoy!

 

[Nokturos]

Break into all government buildings i find and discover the locations of every important building in the country, then head to the most advanced cloning lab available. Then I would start learning how to eventually make an army of my own clones which I would rule over as it seizes control of the world.

 

[MammothBlade]

Shit shit shit where'd my family go? No, that's too cruel...

A few weeks of depression and a struggle to find meaning, getting by on tinned food as everything else goes off. Then, I'd get over it and build my own civilisation. I'd read books on genetics and especially reproductive science day and night, and raid a fertility clinic for human eggs, making the closest thing I can to test-tube babies through months of hard work and toil inside a medical lab. I'd probably subsist on tinned food for the first few years, but eventually become more self-sufficient with crops, livestock, and renewable energy. If my test tube babies plan works, then I'll have a small family on my hands. I will become the Patriarch of Post-Apocalyptic man. So, I'd have to devise a culture and a code of law, perhaps an entire civilisation from scraps. Well, I'd just make it up as I went along, knowing that following in the footsteps of the old civilisation would lead to ruin.

Also, incest.

 

[Samantha Burt]

Wonder about the odds off being the only survivor of whatever cataclysm caused said extinction, and also what contributing factors actually resulted in my survival.

 

[Moderated]

I would probably find a generator and use fuel from all the cars parked around me to keep having electricity. I would probably take everything from a nearby house then set it on fire. I then would get more fuel from cars and fill up mine and press the petal to the metal. I would go steal a bunch of shit and try to live.

 

[The Funslinger]

Well if everyone disappeared and I was still here, I'd probably hold out the hope that there was at least one other person.

So I'd probably set out looking for people, but if I had a little home base, likely a house, I'd make sure that was secure from the inevitable reclamation of human civilization by wildlife (after tracking down an independent generator for the house, and as much petrol as possible) I'd probably start doing expeditions to hunt animals, find seeds for vegetables, and look for people.

In terms of the people, I'd range further afield each time, most likely. I've seen the effects of perpetual loneliness, and it's not good.

 

[EeveeElectro]

It'd be awesome for a while. I'd probably go into peoples houses and find a nice big one to live in. I'd nick a nice car and drive wherever I want. I can't actually drive but at least there's no one else on the roads. I'd just have lots of fun, going to wacky warehouses and stealing alcohol from pubs.
I'd probably be okay for a month at most, then the loneliness would drive me insane and I'd kill myself. I know I certainly couldn't live for much longer without my friends or boyfriend.

 

[The White Hunter]

I dunno, being human and on my own I'd probably get preyed upon by something. Humans on their own are pretty vulnerable shitty things.

 

[The Event]

Scrabble around doing whatever was necessary to survive until I finally lost hope that people would ever come back.

Then shoot myself.

 

[Aurora Firestorm]

Hmm. If I'm the only person left on Earth, ever, at all...I'd probably be boring. Just immediately kill myself.

People go insane in isolation. If I were to wander the world, I'd probably start talking to trees and cats and the wind pretty quickly. I could only keep myself away from total delusion for so long, as I desperately wanted something intelligent to interact with that could actually share real language with me.

So, in short, no routine at all. If I'm the only human alive, I may as well die.


Okay, okay, so if I didn't do the boring thing, no really, here's what might be an interesting idea: repopulate the human race with human/ape hybrids.

No joke. I'd probably get desperate enough to have another humanoid around that I might try it. I don't know how well a human and an ape could breed, nor do I know if said hybrids would be at all fertile (probably not), but hey, taking care of a baby creature that might just grow up to be somewhat language-capable and intelligent might be better than doing nothing at all. (If there were one other human and it were male, I'd have kids with him just to try to get the world going again.)

Funny. It would take the *apocalypse* to get me to have kids. Wow.


This is, of course, assuming that all technology breaks down. It's *possible* I could find my way to bio facilities where I could attempt to take donated sperm, thaw it, and produce my own kids that way. If I started right now, before I died, assuming all my children and I lived (and that's a really poor assumption given that I'd be giving birth on my own), I could produce about 12 or 13 kids before it becomes a Bad Idea to keep having children for fear of birth defects (and when you have to start incestuously reproducing, you want pristine genetics).

 

[lunam-kardas]

O_O... I could literally take every single game in existence for myself and play them all to my heart's content.

Of course this is all operating on the hypothetical notion that there would still be electricity and all the food I would ever need, which would probably mean canned goods for the rest of my life... I think I would take all the non perishables from the two local grocery stores nearby and haul everything up to the closest Costco so I could just live there because there's a gas station right on the property which would be perfect for PHASE 2.

Phase 2 is stockpiling all of the gasoline I can in several safe areas, so that if something happens to one location, my entire supply for Phase 3 isn't lost forever.

Phase 3 is for when I eventually run out of food and will only happen if there is no internet to teach me how to farm, but again since this is hypothetical I would like to think it would live on.

I am very glad I don't live in a city like New york because the rats would be a serious problem to deal with. After a decade or so I'd be fighting those little monsters for food. FORGET THAT.

 

[Lightknight]

Break into all government buildings i find and discover the locations of every important building in the country, then head to the most advanced cloning lab available. Then I would start learning how to eventually make an army of my own clones which I would rule over as it seizes control of the world.

Hmm, this is interesting. You could potentially store enough genetic material to restart the human race successfully. Cloning just yourself wouldn't work as you could never have multiple generations. But if you could clone enough humans with enough diversity then we'd have another go at it.

If I went that route, I'd have to find out exactly what conditions would be necessary. For example, can a cloned fetus grow in a non-human body? Like another primate. As I am not female we could already run into an issue. Additionally, what are the minimum requirements for cloning and are any of these things proceedures/things that I cannot replicate/harvest/manufacture?

Crap, you may have just drastically changed my mindset/goal in such an event. I guess it's time to learn about bioengineering now since I've already devoted free time to learning about power generation from steam, solar power generation, and how to manufacture all kinds of other things. It's fascinating to think about such events that will never happen.

 

[Lightknight]

O_O... I could literally take every single game in existence for myself and play them all to my heart's content.

Of course this is all operating on the hypothetical notion that there would still be electricity and all the food I would ever need, which would probably mean canned goods for the rest of my life...

Make sure to gather up solar panels and solar battery storage. That's your electricity solution unless you feel up to learning how to run a local power plants.

I think I would take all the non perishables from the two local grocery stores nearby and haul everything up to the closest Costco so I could just live there because there's a gas station right on the property which would be perfect for PHASE 2.

Phase 2 is stockpiling all of the gasoline I can in several safe areas, so that if something happens to one location, my entire supply for Phase 3 isn't lost forever.

Here's where things get sad, gas isn't a stable chemical. There are chemical stablizers that can be added to gas that extend the shelf life of it but we still wouldn't be looking at having technically "fresh" gas for more than two years (bad gas turns dark and smells sour, just fyi). You may want to spend the time you have with gas methodically looking for solar and electric replacements. More importantly, you should find yourself a prime spot to live the rest of your days in without having to travel very far. Safe from as many natural disasters as possible and such. Remember, without people around to work in nuclear power plants there will be a lot of huge chernobyl's, so just finding a nice mansion could be detrimental to your longevity if there's a power plant next door.

http://radiationnetwork.com/index.htm

Hehe, I sometimes wonder how bad the nuclear fallout would be after such an event once all the water cooling the spent rods of all the Nuclear plants finally evaporated. Would it cause a fallout?

Phase 3 is for when I eventually run out of food and will only happen if there is no internet to teach me how to farm, but again since this is hypothetical I would like to think it would live on.

I am very glad I don't live in a city like New york because the rats would be a serious problem to deal with. After a decade or so I'd be fighting those little monsters for food. FORGET THAT.

Here's a secret, on the back of every packet of seeds are the planting directions. There's even pictures. You should go ahead and start planting as soon as possible because those things have a shelf life too and grow more easily the sooner they're planted. You'll also want to plant the widest variety of plants you can and scatter the rest into open fields to encourage wild growth.

You guys hit on one of my very favorite things to think about. I absolutely don't believe that anything like this could ever happen or that I'd be the one or one of the ones to survive if it did, but it's sure fun to think of myself in a scenario like this.

 

[DishonoredElderSouls]

10 AM: Wake up, have breakfast
11 AM: Read books
12 PM: Read books
1 PM: Read books
2 PM: Read books
3 PM: Break glasses
4 PM; Cry

Excellent Twilight Zone reference.

To address the original topic, I would more thank likely spend a lot of time walking, singing, and exploring the ruins of places I was never allowed to go to before. I guess this would also give me the opportunity to write and read a lot more, but I suppose that would depend on exactly how the world ended (can't remember if that was specified in the OP).

After getting bored with all of that, I would begin to toy around with fire, and start to develop crude tools. I would learn to chase the deer in the area off of the suddenly prosperous number of cliffs around my home. Slowly, my comprehension of the world would develop, and I would begin to look to the stars with wonder, developing the first religion. I would teach my children my ways, who would then go on to take my teachings and advance them into farming. This would raise up an organized society unlike any ever seen before.