I don't want to make this seem like I am totally invested in this, so let's characterize what I write in this post as "recreational argument".
Furthermore, let me preface my remarks by stating that it is very common for decision-makers to substitute various proxies for the variables that are really of interest. The variables that are of the most interest are rarely presented in their explicit form.
For example, a timber-buyer might make a bid on a stand of timber based the three most marketable species in a stand and use the median diameter at breast-height, the stem-count-per-acre-per-species and typical number-of-logs to the closest 4-feet as the basis for his bid.
So even if a stand have significant amounts of Red Oak and Black Cherry, he might not consider it in his bid if he only had reliable, high-volume markets for White Oak, Black Walnut and Tulip Poplar.
Is it fair? Maybe. Maybe not. But it is efficient. He makes his bid based on the number of board feet he KNOWS he can mill from the standing timber of the species he KNOWS he can sell. In a glut market, he might only break-even selling "minor" species to people making pallets.
Quantifying culture
Culture is a hard thing to measure but we all know that when push-comes-to-shove culture might be the determining factor in whether the typical resident survives or not.
It begs the question "Are there any reasonable proxies for measuring the parts of culture that are most critical to surviving the apocalypse?"
Pestilence
If one looks at historical data for the body-counts of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, one must be impressed by the death-toll for pestilence (and communicable diseases, dysentery, infections and the like) even though those deaths are largely controllable through simple sanitation.
Sanitation is a "culture" thing. So any proxy that stands-in for culture-impacting-survival must comprehend "sanitation". The proxy must "reward" OCD behaviors and penalize "opportunistic" corner-cutting behaviors.
Impulse-control
One other factor that will be HUGE will be if the members of the community will regularly sabotage your efforts to survive. Will they cut down your orchard for firewood because it is close to their wood-stove? Will they butcher your milk-cow for the back-straps?
Let's look at the extremes. On one hand you have sailors in a submarine or soldiers in a forward-operating-base. It has been drilled into them that if anybody fails, they all fail.
The other end of the spectrum is embodied by the person who throws Molotov Cocktails and burns down his apartment complex, the store where he buys his food and his employer's place of business.
In the first group, it would be difficult to fail. In the second group, it would be almost impossible to survive.
Sexually Transmitted Diseases as a Primary sort criterion
STIs are a mandatory reporting event. It is a fairly solid number reported at relatively high degrees of granularity like the county level.
Chlymidia is the most common STI so if you were going to track a single metric, this would be the one.
STIs are a DIRECT measure of the vulnerability of various communities/cultures to communicable diseases.
STIs are an indirect measure of a community's mores and norms with regard to impulse control and resistance to opportunistic "expedient" actions.
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Chlamydia rate data fro selected Michigan counties |
The spread is very large. Detroit (city) has 1400 cases per 100k population per year while Lapeer County has only 121 cases per 100k per year.
My county, Eaton, is highlighted in yellow. The three counties marked with red lines are adjacent to each other. Genesee county (604/100k) is home to the intersection of I-69 (stop snickering guys) and I-75 while Lapeer (121/100k) and Shiawassee county (161/100k) are bisected by only I-69.
If you didn't know a bunch of submariners who would be willing to take you into their fold and you had absolutely no other information, would you rather bunker-up in Lapeer County or Genessee county? Detroit (1400/100k) or Livingston County (129/100k)
I submit that STI rates per 100k are among the best proxies for a community's resilience in the face of "pestilence" and for as a measure of Impulse-control.