Doomsday scenario and what keeps society surviving

[Ogion]

This evening i had an interesting discussion about the question, what society really needs to keep going, or better said, what technical and other infrastructure is necessary to allow a population to survive and to survive on which level.

So, lets take an arbitrary scenario: Tomorrow, there is a plague, a virus whatever, which kills literally overnight 99% of all humans all over the world in a equal manner (from every population from every social classes, ethnic groups, whatever). So the next morning there are only 1%, or 60 million people left on earth.

Okay, let's try to analyse (if you are interested ) what consequences this will have on the short term, and on the long term.

Short term:
Imangine a city with roughly 100.000 inhabitants, which comes out of that tragedy with about 1.000 people left. Say there was a small university in that city (in fact the city i am living in has about 70.000 inhabitants and a university with about 20.000 students; there are a lot of commuter students there), the city served as a center for shopping and jobs for a circle of about 50km radius around (this is the case here, i suppose Europe is much denser populated than USA?).
A positive chain of events would be, that after the first shock, the remaining 1.000 people would eventually gather, and were willing to cooperate on the task of surviving and limiting the damages to the infrastructure (technical, informational...like local libraries, supplies of tools etc...). So they hope that there are a few peasants (in Germany only 2-3% of the population work in the agricultural field, so bad chances here) survived, or some students and professors of the agricultural and nutrition science departments. The group will have to raid the supermarkets for short term nutrition, will have to clean a certain area from the bodies (of course not the entire city, but at least the parts to be used), will have to bring some organisation to themselves, find out the fields of experience and knowledge of themselves, and try to work out plans on what to do next.
They do have a chance, i think. There should be enough nutritional supplies for a few weeks, in this city there was a university, so there is a stock of knowledge (in form of books...), there should be a few places with tools to manufacture etc... They have to organise themselves and most importantly have to cooperate. (Oh yes, some other thing: Try to save at least some livestock and set the rest free to nature. You will need them later.)


Long term:
What should be long term goals and measures? I think one very important thing is to preserve as much knowledge as possible. So get to the libraries and take care of the secure storage of all the books which you don't need
right now. Them you should mutliply in some way.
Then preserve technology. As in every computer you don't need (or can operate) you have to store in cellars in some clean way. Also of course most tools you find.
Some other things could be to savely shut off power plants, or chemical deposits etc.



So, what do you think about that? Other suggestions and ideas? Do you share my interst in that, or dou you think it is silly?

I anticipate an interesting discussion.

Ogion

 

[Dissident]

(I know this one, but with zombies )

Do they have a chance? I think it depends, chances of what? Just surviving or returning our civilization to its pre-doomsday "glory"?

Maybe most of the people from the small villages would gather in the capitals and semi-populate them to a point of regaining functionality, little harm done.

 

[Jesin]

So, what do you think about that? Other suggestions and ideas? Do you share my interst in that, or dou you think it is silly?

Not mutually exclusive.

 

[zxc]

So, what do you think about that? Other suggestions and ideas? Do you share my interst in that, or dou you think it is silly?

I do share yoru interest in that, and don't think it's silly.

I think one very important thing is to preserve as much knowledge as possible.

Even the knowledge that allowed us to build nuclear weapons and bombs? There are some questions to be considered, though I would of course want as much knowledge as possible; I simply don't want stupid people to be armed with that knowledge!

 

[orion119net]

The awesome thing about post-apocalyptic scenarios is that stupid people don't survive long in them.

Bad people do, but stupid ones don't

 

[Dissident]

In situations like that natural selection becomes active again in humans, and nature doesnt give a damn about good or bad, only what works.

 

[Ogion]

Yes, sure, such times would require careful action and intelligent acting. But that doesn't mean, that the 'stupid' would die out necessarily. For one, such times we had in much of our history, and are there not still 'stupid' ones? And then, given such a situation, i, as being someone of the 'not-stupid' ones (the ones who would try their best at restoration of infrastructure), would for sure try to loose noone of the remainging, if they are stupid or not doesn't count. I imagine, that in such a situation you need everyone who is there.

Even the knowledge that allowed us to build nuclear weapons and bombs? There are some questions to be considered, though I would of course want as much knowledge as possible; I simply don't want stupid people to be armed with that knowledge!

Well, you wouldn't want that today either. No, i think, as i could only act locally of course, i would preserve every bit of knowledge (okay, let's say scientific knowledge; No point in rescuing 'astrology' or such, but that of course is a matter of personal judgement), for i couldn't know, what would be a necessity later. And in the specific case of 'atomic bomb knowledge' i would say, the already existing bombs were much more dangerous, because there probybly wouldn't be the infrastructure to actually use that knowledge in the near aftertime. And give that a new interregional society would evolve again, so would that knowledge.

Do they have a chance? I think it depends, chances of what? Just surviving or returning our civilization to its pre-doomsday "glory"?
Maybe most of the people from the small villages would gather in the capitals and semi-populate them to a point of regaining functionality, little harm done.

'Little harm done' is a bit cynical Well, i think the most people will live at the edge between agricultural areas and cities. For you have to be near agricultural areas, but probably don't want to miss the cities with their big supply of so much useful and recyclable things.

Ogion

EDIT: It is a good scenario/campaignsetting for roleplaying games and novels, for sure. Quite interesting, because it is a setting, in which things really depend on the actions of the acting people.

 

[Dissident]

such times would require careful action and intelligent acting. But that doesn't mean, that the 'stupid' would die out necessarily. For one, such times we had in much of our history, and are there not still 'stupid' ones?

Stupid people are born from smart ones everyday, still, chances are lower that from stupid ones.

'Little harm done' is a bit cynical Well, i think the most people will live at the edge between agricultural areas and cities. For you have to be near agricultural areas, but probably don't want to miss the cities with their big supply of so much useful and recyclable things.
Ogion

I dont mean to sound cynical.... but i am, so thats the way it comes out (Bill Hicks paraphrasis)
Supose that there was a 2% left, in England for example that would mean 1million people, if they all moved to London or some other city they could keep electricity and water working with not much problem. And with all the room left in the city you could have part of the agricultural work done right there (imagine a football field full of cows or tomatoes )

 

[Vrecknidj]

This is why you need to have read and understood the Zombie Survival Guide.



The tips and tactics in there will help with just about any kind of catastrophe.

Dave

 

[Jesin]

This is why you need to have read and understood the Zombie Survival Guide.

Hey, I've read that! Well, some of it anyway. Actually, I thought of that when I read the original post in this thread, and I wondered if someone was going to bring it up.

 

[zxc]

I've read it

 

[Ogion]

Well, i personally don't like all these zombie films, so i am a bit unknowing there.

But there are of course many other places, where somebody writes something on what strategies to use, of what things you must think etc...
One example can be this: [Steampunks guideto the apocalypse"]http://www.steampunkmagazine.com/pdfs/steampunksguide-web.pdf[/URL]

But i intended more to speak about bigger communities or 'societies', than about a personal journey (which nonetheless is interesting too).
About the question if after a few generations for example the surviving would live in a new stone age, or if they could maintain some kind of modern society.

One thing, which would speak against a society with a technological standard as we have is that there are way to few people for all the manufacturing infrastructure. There are not enough people for the global oil trade.
but there are enough technologies with which you could be selfsustaining on a regional scale. So perhaps they even come out with a societiy which is more modern, which has another type of government (like a more direct democracy). Or on the other side would there be another 'monarchy' (meaning the regimen of a single person; like in 'Postman', film).

So, could, and if yes then how, society survive this with keeping a certain level of 'civilisation'?

Ogion

 

[Jordan~]

For me, an apoccalypse would be much more interesting if only about 1% of the people survived and society as it was known collapsed. Supposing 99% of people are dying either way, I'd rather society collapsed for the sake of how interesting it would be. Supposing we could go back to the cities, or people were afraid of them because of the trauma of whatever it was that happened, or something like that. Eventually they would crumble away, be reclaimed by nature, and all that would be left is this strange landscape of reinforced concrete fingers grasping at the sky, strangled with vines. Before that happened, presumably a few people would be interesting in trying to save the extent of mankind's knowledge. I can see people searching for computers, salvaging parts that might still work from the ones that are broken beyond repair, taking whatever information they could from the ones that still function. Give it three-hundred years or so, and society has recovered slightly, though to more of a Middle Ages standard. Things like the Statue of Liberty, Mt Rushmore and hydroelectric dams would be objects of legend and wonder, people would develop a new folk mythology as knowledge of the pre-apoccalyptic world was corrupted through the generations. It could get so bad that some societies didn't believe in the Americas (which, with a good number of the surviving remnants of mankind's works, would seem too wondrous to be true when told of by those who knew about it). History would be corrupted, archaeologists would struggle to interpret evidence found long ago (harvested from computers) that the pioneers who saved it didn't have time to explain. It would be fairly tragic, but awfully interesting!

 

[FreakOfNature]

Quick Thought: Do you think this could have already happened? That maybe scientists are, as we speak (or type) analyzing remnants of some society/civilization that collapsed a long time ago from some unforseen tragedy? That our ancient folklore and legends spanned from ignorance after the collapse? And maybe the Dark Ages was like a mini-society collapse that wasn't complete.

Anyway. Back to the original question.
I think that crime would definetly sky-rocket. In the months after the disease, the ones who lived on the fringes of society would storm through abandoned homes/apartments/work places and take everything worth anything in the new market...which would be in such a state of distress that we would definitely not be able to buy products using currency anymore. We'd probably reverse back to the barter system. And a lot of higher education knowledge would be lost.
In third world countries, whole ways of life would be destroyed. Unless dense jungle and inaccesible tribes would be spared. Even so, with 99% of the population gone, we'd have at least a few dozen tribes gone from places like Africa, South America and Southeast Asia.
Though I don't think the Americas would lose contact with Europe, Asia and Austrailia. We have the Internet now, don't we? All we'd have to do is storm Microsoft and hold Bill Gates's successor as hostage, demanding free Internet access for everyone (assuming there's enough people left to keep them open). But we'd have no more tech support...
Huh. Maybe we would lose contact with Europe and Asia.

(I don't know about you, but I'm hiding out in the local library until the apocalypse is over. I have a good ten million pages to work through if everyone suddenly forgets to read in the second wave of the epidemic. .)

 

[murkrow]

It would go in a few stages.

1. Cooperation: Everyone is so shocked by what has happened that they come together and work simply to survive, there are a few self serving and maliciously minded individuals but the vast majority of those see greater chances of surviving with the herd.
2. Idealism: Amazed and proud of their ability to survive (which is far greater than anyone assumes) the people begin to look ahead and plan their future. They see how they can make this era different from the last, and many different ideals begin to emerge and gain popularity.
3. Schism: A few, possibly two, strong personalities with admirable ideals rise in opposition of each other, this opposition need not be their preference but the pack mentality of their followers will ensure it anyway. Separation will become preferable to conflict and the groups will split up.

eventually this becomes war.

 

[slacker247]

Jericho, Jeremiah, mad max, water world, these are good representations of possibilities. But I would say that the population in local towns would first focus on necessities until they created the infrastructure of trade then things would get back to normal, i.e. today’s level of industry and social structures.

Interestingly, murkrow has a good comment.

As for indigenous people they would survive no matter what. Being isolated and self sufficient they would probably not even notice.

Sadly, catastrophic events are very unlikely though. Large scale extremes only exist in theory.

 

[murkrow]

interestingly?!

 

[Jordan~]

Sadly?!

 

[Ogion]

Lol. Sadly but interestingly i didn't found a third one...

I mean, imo, of course i don't wish for such a catastrophe (where 99% of all humans die) to happen, but i still am imagining such, and think it is an interesting scenario in many ways.

Ogion

 

[Jordan~]

I don't want a catastrophe, but if it did happen, I'd be pretty damn excited. So long as certain people didn't die.

 

[slacker247]

Wow, I get that no matter where I go.

But they are words.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/interestingly

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sadly

or am I just missing what ur making fun of?

 

[Ogion]

Well, murkrow was upset because you implied that it is an interesting thing (and thus scarce). Then Jordan had objectives to your sttement that it would be sad, that such catatrophes didn't happen (obviously upset about the notion that it would be sad if humans didn't die...) and just caught on on murkrows style of answer...

(Hope i did explain everyones thoughts right...)

Ogion

 

[slacker247]

Sorry if I offended anyone, I didn't me to do that.

The interesting statement is that it intrieged me and I never thought about that so therefore it is interesting.

The sad comment is how ogion precieves it. I'm sorry for that it's a bad habit I have of always pointing out the nagative in a scenario.

 

[Jesin]

So you were saying that murkrow's good comment was interesting? It looked like you said that it was interesting that he even made a good comment at all, as if it was a rare occurrence.

 

[Jordan~]

I was more objecting to your delcaration that it was a bad thing that catastrophic events are unlikely. You know, what with all the death and suffering they bring.

 

[slacker247]

Yes, the "interesting" comment was only to highlight that his comment intrigued me. I don't know murkrow so I couldn't say if he makes good comments all the time.

On the subject of things that cause horrific disasters are very unlikely at least to my understanding because of, if you will, laws of nature will dissipate the disaster before it can reach a large scale. Take for instance the Ebola outbreaks. It is one of the more deadly viruses out there to the human population. It’s self containing in the sense that you have to make physical contact with someone to contract it and not only skin to skin but through bodily fluids. This virus is hard to transmit. Also, other man made biological agents are even more deadly but their lifespan is short. Other weapons of mass destruction, such as the nuke, man has realized it’s destructive power and has held off from using it, in the case of WWII (used only twice) and the cold war.

One can say that there is a natural balance to things. So that is why I said that the catastrophic events are unlikely.

Jordan, I still may be missing what you are saying but I hope that brings clarity to my comment.

 

[Ogion]

She thinks it to be good if disasters doesn't happen oftenly.
But you started your sentence with "Sadly...". That implied you would find it good for such a disaster to happen.
Jope to be clear.

Ogion

 

[IfloatTHRUlife]

This is an interesting conversation but consider another thing, imagine if the 1% that lived were either to spread out to come together and continue civilization or what if the people who survived were mostly uneducated or just so stupid they cant comprehend the information left behind by society...this meaning that all of the modern ways would be lost (given the fact the people would still be surrounded by the technology and so-on but not know how to use it)

This goes against what was originally stated about the plague (thats what ill call it for the time being) not being discriminate, but what if the only people not effected were either elderly, or possibly adolescent, what do you think?

....after i have looked back at what i wrote and what i have been considering saying, i think i might want humanity to fail

 

[Ogion]

Of course, if the plague (let's call it that way) is in some way discriminate (like only children survive or something) the chances for humanity (meaning humans and todays civilization) to survive diminish quite further.
I think in either way probably most of todays 'technosphere' and everything correlated would crash. There will most definitely come somtheing new. One can only hope for archives and databases and such to survive, so that they can help start new civiizations and rescue some knowedge, so that not everything has to be found or understood another time (like invent the wheel again).

Well, at least doubting and probing the real status of our global civilization is a good thing. I think humanity may have quite some technological and scientific advances, but in other respects? Like the global food crisis. There is enough food on earth, but because of various reasons there are so many people starving or on the brink of it.

Ogion