Even if things do break down such that you need years of food people have the wrong things. You don't need gas for your generator, you need to learn how to live like 500 years ago - without all that. Have enough food to last until next spring, and enough seeds and farming knowledge (which you can get from a few books that you read after the disaster) that you can continue to live off of your garden.
As I said elsewhere, make sure you can share knowledge and work with other survivors. A community of people with various skills (even if you give them the book and they learn it) makes survival a lot easier. Maybe your garden fails, but if you have a few other people you work with you can support each other and everybody lives.
But how do people realistically prep for this? Not a historian, but in my understanding, when major metropolitan areas devolved, people had to spread out significantly in order to restart the agrarian lifestyle that could sustain them without the complicated "modern" economy. This isn't feasible for cities like New York or Tokyo, and those people are not able to purchase a homestead and stock it with these things ahead of time for a hypothetical situation.
It feels like you're suggesting prepping for a Shit Hits the Fan type scenario, which the OP post explicitly says is unreasonable. It postulates a world where most people would starve because growing plants to survive through a year is extremely difficult if you don't have any experience doing it, assuming you have enough land time and other resources to even do it properly. And I guess I just doubt that a box of seeds and a willingness to share your garden would see you through the year. You would need a whole lot of luck.
I agree with OP that major collapse is not a likely/reasonable thing to prep for. I'm saying that those who think they are prepping for it are not prepping the right things and so no better off (or only minimally better off) than anyone else.
Major metropolitan areas devolved over centuries from how I understand history (I'm not an expert). that means you and your descendants have time to figure it out. However where to go is a question. My [very limited] plan is since I live in Iowa, I'll just find a farmer who can't get fuel for his tractors and thus can't afford to farm his land anyway - I'll buy a small homestead cheap and make it work. I have a few books from 1920 on how to do things that might be useful, but I suspect the local library has others. However if you live in New York you will find all the land taken by the time you can walk to Iowa...
There is also the case where war killed everybody in the city, but that isn't devolve and I'll ignore it: prepping for an afterlife is a religious discussion. I feel the need to acknowledge this though just in case.
Overall though, I don't think this is a realistic thing. I haven't done much more prepping than the above. Civilization won't collapse - and even if it did I'd probably die in the collapse so I'm focusing my preparing on religion which applies even if civilization doesn't collapse.
I'm not sure, likely labor and friendship. I doubt a farmer would have a clue how to value my gold or anything else in this situation. What the farmer will know is there are all these fields, but with no fuel he can't farm them and so they are worthless to him, but useful to me. I'll be sure to bring my books from the 1920s and 1930 which described how to have a luxurious life without electric or much gas (since most people didn't have them) - some of that will be priceless in this world (and a lot useless since it assumes things like carbide (to make acetylene) is readily available.
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Even if things do break down such that you need years of food people have the wrong things. You don't need gas for your generator, you need to learn how to live like 500 years ago - without all that. Have enough food to last until next spring, and enough seeds and farming knowledge (which you can get from a few books that you read after the disaster) that you can continue to live off of your garden.
As I said elsewhere, make sure you can share knowledge and work with other survivors. A community of people with various skills (even if you give them the book and they learn it) makes survival a lot easier. Maybe your garden fails, but if you have a few other people you work with you can support each other and everybody lives.
But how do people realistically prep for this? Not a historian, but in my understanding, when major metropolitan areas devolved, people had to spread out significantly in order to restart the agrarian lifestyle that could sustain them without the complicated "modern" economy. This isn't feasible for cities like New York or Tokyo, and those people are not able to purchase a homestead and stock it with these things ahead of time for a hypothetical situation.
It feels like you're suggesting prepping for a Shit Hits the Fan type scenario, which the OP post explicitly says is unreasonable. It postulates a world where most people would starve because growing plants to survive through a year is extremely difficult if you don't have any experience doing it, assuming you have enough land time and other resources to even do it properly. And I guess I just doubt that a box of seeds and a willingness to share your garden would see you through the year. You would need a whole lot of luck.
I agree with OP that major collapse is not a likely/reasonable thing to prep for. I'm saying that those who think they are prepping for it are not prepping the right things and so no better off (or only minimally better off) than anyone else.
Major metropolitan areas devolved over centuries from how I understand history (I'm not an expert). that means you and your descendants have time to figure it out. However where to go is a question. My [very limited] plan is since I live in Iowa, I'll just find a farmer who can't get fuel for his tractors and thus can't afford to farm his land anyway - I'll buy a small homestead cheap and make it work. I have a few books from 1920 on how to do things that might be useful, but I suspect the local library has others. However if you live in New York you will find all the land taken by the time you can walk to Iowa...
There is also the case where war killed everybody in the city, but that isn't devolve and I'll ignore it: prepping for an afterlife is a religious discussion. I feel the need to acknowledge this though just in case.
Overall though, I don't think this is a realistic thing. I haven't done much more prepping than the above. Civilization won't collapse - and even if it did I'd probably die in the collapse so I'm focusing my preparing on religion which applies even if civilization doesn't collapse.
Are you lugging around a suitcase full of gold bars? How are you purchasing land in such a scenario?
I'm not sure, likely labor and friendship. I doubt a farmer would have a clue how to value my gold or anything else in this situation. What the farmer will know is there are all these fields, but with no fuel he can't farm them and so they are worthless to him, but useful to me. I'll be sure to bring my books from the 1920s and 1930 which described how to have a luxurious life without electric or much gas (since most people didn't have them) - some of that will be priceless in this world (and a lot useless since it assumes things like carbide (to make acetylene) is readily available.
I can’t tell if you’re serious or not. Cultivated land has value, someone will pay for it.