Once upon a time, I crossed paths with a soldier of fortune,

a mercenary, coming from Rhodesia on his way to Nicaragua.

His POV based on his first-hand experience with societal collapse was that all one needed to survive was more ammo, everything else that one needed or desired was in the possession of someone either dead or soon to be.

Sections of highways extending across counties and states have already been spoken for by local paramilitary groups. Some will be contested. The same can be said about neighborhoods, small towns, nature preserves, national parks, and almost any other definable, defendable, or desirable space. It must be so, look at how many of us there are.

Maybe one can hide out in a basement or attic for a couple of weeks during the initial kerfuffle. After that, the level of scavaging and competition for essentials will become, what else can I say, intense.

Bunkers and functioning communities will become targets of conquest. All survivors will have maimed, crippled, or killed someone or many people in the recent past. Functional PTSD will become the norm. Positivity will become more than merely toxic, trending towards lethal liability.

A lot of people will die quickly. A lot more people will have to die before people cease being seen as a threat to other people. The word for "stranger" and "enemy" will once again be the same word. It will carry an immediate death sentence.

It's not so very far to fall after all.