The survival show Alone on Netflix

[upptick]

I've been watching the survival show Alone where various survival experts are dropped into the wilderness with maybe a bow, a knife, and a firestarter. They all pretty much starve, even with game present. Firearms absolutely revolutionized human culture and allowed Man to tame nature. I'm so grateful that our ancestors figured it out. ...

 

[WrongHanded]

Firearms certainly helped. What helped more was collaboration. Because without that, a society stable enough to invent firearms would never have emerged.

 

[Mark_Mark]

I would like to be dropped off with a Pump BB gun. When I was a little boy, we took everything from rabbit to bird with that pump gun. Yes, we ate everything we killed

 

[troy fairweather]

Because there not hardly alowed to hunt anything or use a gill net until day 45 something. Think there's other things not show there must be a max amount of fish per day limit of something. Plus I think 99% of these people bs that they really know nothing and why they have Survival school before they start, not sure if it the early seasons did this.

This season 8 was about unwatchable.

 

[Old Dog]

Firearms absolutely revolutionized human culture and allowed Man to tame nature.

I know, right? It's amazing that homo sapiens actually survived several thousand years before the invention of gunpowder and firearms.

Seriously, though -- if you believe you have to have a gun in order to take game to survive, you're in trouble from the start.

I mean -- the Stone Age began about 2.6 million years ago and lasted until about 3,300 B.C. until the beginning of the Bronze Age. And there were three periods of the Stone Age: the Paleolithic Period, Mesolithic Period and the Neolithic, so, it looks as though human were doing pretty good getting meat on the table (well, whatever they ate on) for quite a while.

Anyway, I can't watch these shows anymore. They never have contestants who actually know how to fish. (Why I hate "Naked and Afraid")

 

[Mark_Mark]

Most of those survival shows are seeing how long they can go with minimal amount of food.They should call it, “Naked and Fasting”

Would love to see one of the contestants with a 10/22 and a brick of Remington Thunderbolts. Eating good every night

 

[Atavar]

You have to remember that reality shows are akin to All Star Wrestling. Nobody is alone on that show. They are surrounded by a full production crew. It is all scripted and nothing is left to chance.

 

[caribou]

I remind people that when the Constitution was written, muskets were the assault rifle of the day, bayonet and all.

Thats why people generally quit killing each other with bows and arrows.

It takes skills and more than skills to make a living hunting/fishing/trapping

If your going to hunt for a living, You need a wife. It helps you happen to be in really good health, have some luck and be skilled with weapons of all sorts. Fishing will feed you all year round,if you can put some up and know what/where/when they runs are.
A back up to the back up and possessions are a burden, so cache'n/preserving skills help too.

Ive made a living, with wife and 5 kids then, the hard way, due to being broke, ripped off and stuck, one Spring/Summer.
2 Guys cleaned out our spring camping stash, just before the spring breakup floods. I was lucky to keep my boat and motor, snowgo and sled, ( They had dug the boat out , and I was useing my snowgo) as well as some stuff here and there and what was on us, but the bulk of our gear, food , guns, nets, bedding, tents, etc . A friend who was pushing for home with a sled load of Caribou stopped and gave us his big sleeping bag, tarps, rope and popup tent, as well as his Ruger 10/22 and a carton of 500 LR. He offered his shotgun, but was outta shells and so was I. Making due got us by, our work was before us and we got our hunt on. By mid summer, when the pack ice cleared we went to town,we had worked up a load and then I could afford another rifle and gas, gear and some revenge, but thats another story. LOL!!

 

[Mark_Mark]

I remind people that when the Constitution was written, muskets were the assault rifle of the day, bayonet and all.

Thats why people generally quit killing each other with bows and arrows.

It takes skills and more than skills to make a living hunting/fishing/trapping

If your going to hunt for a living, You need a wife. It helps you happen to be in really good health, have some luck and be skilled with weapons of all sorts. Fishing will feed you all year round,if you can put some up and know what/where/when they runs are.
A back up to the back up and possessions are a burden, so cache'n/preserving skills help too.

Ive made a living, with wife and 5 kids then, the hard way, due to being broke, ripped off and stuck, one Spring/Summer.
2 Guys cleaned out our spring camping stash, just before the spring breakup floods. I was lucky to keep my boat and motor, snowgo and sled, ( They had dug the boat out , and I was useing my snowgo) as well as some stuff here and there and what was on us, but the bulk of our gear, food , guns, nets, bedding, tents, etc . A friend who was pushing for home with a sled load of Caribou stopped and gave us his big sleeping bag, tarps, rope and popup tent, as well as his Ruger 10/22 and a carton of 500 LR. He offered his shotgun, but was outta shells and so was I. Making due got us by, our work was before us and we got our hunt on. By mid summer, when the pack ice cleared we went to town,we had worked up a load and then I could afford another rifle and gas, gear and some revenge, but thats another story. LOL!!

great story! Sound Wild and dangerous

 

[jdc1244]

allowed Man to tame nature.

Which really wasn’t necessary.

For more than 300,000 years humans thrived and flourished as prolific, successful hunters absent firearms; our ancestors had it figured out millennia ago.

That participants in a ‘survival’ reality show end up starving has more to do with modern humans having lost the skills and abilities of our ancestors.

 

[hso]

Firearms absolutely revolutionized human culture and allowed Man to tame nature.

Nope

What helped more was collaboration.

For more than 300,000 years humans thrived and flourished as prolific, successful hunters absent firearms

Yep

While the topic of human cooperation/society/hunter-gathers and the development of agriculture and pre-firearms societies is broad, deep, and fascinating...it is outside our scope. We've begun to touch on them and demonstrated that the success of humans wasn't dependent upon firearms so we'll let this thread go and encourage folks to look into that vast library out there on how humans survived and thrived before firearms.