> My dude, if you are among the lucky few who survive the initial filter of starvation, disease and mass violence following a nuclear conflict I wish you the best leading your band of raiders across the Great Plains or Central Valley feasting on the scraps of civilization and eventually dying of dysentery, typhus, scarlet fever or simple exposure.

That sounds like a fantasy over-"informed" by fiction. Might just as well be, that after that initial filter, most people just end up living in a village and farming like it's 1700.