Facts About Life After The Apocalypse

We’ll Have WWE Matches To Entertain Us

Over the past few decades, the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) has amassed over 125,000 tapes of wrestling matches. This stuff is history; after all, future generations need to know precisely what Hulkamania is. To ensure this legacy remains undamaged by any future cataclysms, the WWE stores just under half of this collection (60,000 assets) in a nuclear-proof bunker in the Catskill Mountains of New York State. So when the apocalypse comes knocking, we may have hardships to face, but doing without roid-raged meatheads pile driving each other through tables won’t be among them.

We Won’t Be Able To Scavenge For Fuel

One of the most popular images of the post-apocalypse—thanks to movies like Mad Max—is that fuel will become a new currency. Forget money, gold, and diamonds: After mega-smallpox comes to town, you’d better have some gasoline to barter with, or you’re going hungry.

Or maybe not. The thing about ethanol-based fuels like gasoline is that they have an expiration date. Ethanol is a hygroscopic chemical, meaning that it will attract and absorb water; however, putting as much as even one tablespoon of water into fuel will contaminate it and render it useless. Over time, the fuel will attract naturally occurring water. Guidance suggests that after you’ve put it into your car, it should be used within a month. Even when stored within airtight drums, it’ll only last for six months. So what does this mean for us? Well, when we need fuel, we won’t be able to get any by scavenging it from abandoned cars (unless they were only abandoned recently). We can’t stockpile it either because no matter what we do, it’s going to expire.

“But, what about the refineries?” we hear you ask. The simple answer is: “What refineries?” Any incident that’s capable of causing the collapse of human civilization isn’t going to leave facilities like that in an operational state. If the refineries themselves aren’t destroyed, the workforce will be either killed off or pretty reluctant to venture out of their bunkers.

We’ll Be Drinking Beer And SodasodaIn 1955, under the auspices of “Operation Teapot,” the US government decided to test the effect of a nuclear explosion on “commercially packaged beverages.” Essentially, they dropped an atomic bomb on cans and bottles of soda and beer, all in the name of checking whether we’d still be able to get our drink on in the midst of nuclear winter. The results? Good, actually. Both the soda and beer were deemed to be of acceptable quality (although, depending on their proximity to the bomb, there might be a slight change in flavor), leaving the scientists to conclude that these drinks could easily serve as vital water sources.

We’ll Be Drinking Beer And Soda

In 1955, under the auspices of “Operation Teapot,” the US government decided to test the effect of a nuclear explosion on “commercially packaged beverages.” Essentially, they dropped an atomic bomb on cans and bottles of soda and beer, all in the name of checking whether we’d still be able to get our drink on in the midst of nuclear winter.

The results? Good, actually. Both the soda and beer were deemed to be of acceptable quality (although, depending on their proximity to the bomb, there might be a slight change in flavor), leaving the scientists to conclude that these drinks could easily serve as vital water sources.