Society destroyed...

[WildRose1010]

I know I am new, but bear with me. I think I have some good points to make and I would love some feedback on them.

 

One thing that no one has touched on is the relationships the .1% survivers might have. I know that a family, perhaps a mother, father, sons(s), and daughter(s), would probably band together more readily then, say, a group of strangers. The fact that humans always seem to cling to the things that are most familiar to them would also make it logical that the survivers would want to stay with those they knew before whatever happened, be it germs, comets, etc.

 

Another thing I am wondering about is the human bond after civilization, as we know it, is gone. Will there be the same emotions, morals, religions, etc., that there is now? If not, would it not be an obvious conclusion that we would resort to our natural instincts to survive? (I.e. hunting in packs, no regrets, etc.)

 

Also, what would our reproduction rate be? If it were high enough, the sudden drop in population would easily be erased. This, I believe, would depend upon the circumstances that created the destruction of civilization. The germ theory could be elaborated on by saying the disease made any survivers sterile. Then humanity itself would have no hope.

 

One last thing, though I know that I am probably bothering some of you that only worried about schooling and fields. How could we decide who could reproduce, and how the children should be raised, etc. Who would want to give birth to any child that had to be raised in such a desolate future?

 

Ok, I'll shut up now, but I really would appreciate some comments, criticism, or whatever. After all, I AM STILL A NEWBIE! Thanks.

[nkt]

Another thing I am wondering about is the human bond after civilization, as we know it, is gone. Will there be the same emotions, morals, religions, etc., that there is now? If not, would it not be an obvious conclusion that we would resort to our natural instincts to survive? (I.e. hunting in packs, no regrets, etc.)

I don't know if proto-humans had "no regrets" exactly. And we still hunt the most dangerous animals in packs - from a two man sniper team to the entire Army. Morals would obviously shift a long way. You would see a lot of weird religions, too.

Also, what would our reproduction rate be? If it were high enough, the sudden drop in population would easily be erased. This, I believe, would depend upon the circumstances that created the destruction of civilization. The germ theory could be elaborated on by saying the disease made any survivers sterile. Then humanity itself would have no hope.

Hard to say. If there were no hope because everyone was sterile, it would be a very different thing to any other scenario. Normally, humans breed like rabbits. We would do a fair bit to replace the dead in a short time, probably with disease being the limiting factor for a long time.

 

One last thing, though I know that I am probably bothering some of you that only worried about schooling and fields. How could we decide who could reproduce, and how the children should be raised, etc. Who would want to give birth to any child that had to be raised in such a desolate future?

Everyone could and would breed. It wouldn't need to be more controlled than today. Of course, a little selective breeding might be a great idea... Get us out of this evolutionary rut.

[IrishEyes]

Wild Rose,

First - WELCOME. What an incredibly thought-provoking first post. I hope you enjoy our forums, and we get to hear lots more from you in the future.

 

I like the slant you took- what happens to the human relationships? Very interesting, and different than others have thought. Good for you!

 

I'd like to think that people would band together, even if they weren't 'family'. That's just me hoping for a better world though. :Waldo: I think that the emotions would be much the same. As for morals, I guess you're coming from the view that today's society actually has/practices a degree of morality. If so, then I can't see the morals degrading any lower than they already are. But then again, I'm not of the opinion that the morals are very much to speak of today.

 

I'm wondering why you asked who would get to have and raise children though. I would think that it would be up to each individual person/couple whether or not to have children. Considering the then-current state of the world, it would be beneficial to have children as quickly as possible if the goal was to perpetuate the human race, right? As there would probably be too few people to have a true government, I don't see a state-run reproduction and child-rearing center being in the picture. Parents would have the responsibility (and the pleasure!) of raising their children without any of the ridiculous interference that they have today. It would probably be at least a few generations before the population was big enough for the state to again seize control of child-rearing. :hyper:

[infamous]

 

Ok, I'll shut up now, but I really would appreciate some comments, criticism, or whatever. After all, I AM STILL A NEWBIE! Thanks.

You may be a Newbie, as you put it, but I agree with Irish, you pose a few very good questions WildRose. I'll give others a chance to respond and in the mean time I'll offer a sincere welcome to Hypography.............enjoy.

[Qfwfq]

I know I am new, but bear with me.

Welcome and don't worry, we are all newbies here. :hyper:

 

One thing that no one has touched on is the relationships the .1% survivers might have. I know that a family, perhaps a mother, father, sons(s), and daughter(s), would probably band together more readily then, say, a group of strangers. The fact that humans always seem to cling to the things that are most familiar to them would also make it logical that the survivers would want to stay with those they knew before whatever happened, be it germs, comets, etc.

Certainly, people would go with those they trusted the most, as they have always done. Typically, first family, then friends, then tribe, then friendly other tribes etc. Through history, social conventions have always gone with necessity and possibility. Both individualism and communitarianism have survival values but prevail differently according to situation.

 

Another thing I am wondering about is the human bond after civilization, as we know it, is gone. Will there be the same emotions, morals, religions, etc., that there is now? If not, would it not be an obvious conclusion that we would resort to our natural instincts to survive? (I.e. hunting in packs, no regrets, etc.)

 

Also, what would our reproduction rate be? If it were high enough, the sudden drop in population would easily be erased. This, I believe, would depend upon the circumstances that created the destruction of civilization. The germ theory could be elaborated on by saying the disease made any survivers sterile. Then humanity itself would have no hope.

 

One last thing, though I know that I am probably bothering some of you that only worried about schooling and fields. How could we decide who could reproduce, and how the children should be raised, etc. Who would want to give birth to any child that had to be raised in such a desolate future?

When the last ice age was setting in, who wanted to give birth to any child that had to be raised in such a desolate future?

 

These thing have always been essentially so but change according to better or worse times. In particular, the emphasis a society places on urging young couples to proliferate is greater when there isn't overpopulation, this occurs quite spontaneously. I'm not sure why you see the problem of "how to decide who could reproduce" whereas I expect children would be raised by parents and partly by the communities that would most likely form.

[HydrogenBond]

If civilation was 99.9% extinct, what remained would be a cross section of culture. Without law and order, preditors would steal from the hard work of the resourceful thereby slowing cultural progress. Religion would be useful because it might help constrain behavior so people could get along better, allowing the resourceful more security. Common cause might also induce some peaceful folk to migrate into isolation from the preditors to get culture rolling. But eventually they may over extend their bounds due to population growth, thereby creating conflict with other neighboring cultural groups. With llmited resources this might mean war and consolidation. Thus the growth of empires.

[Turtle]

If civilation was 99.9% extinct, what remained would be a cross section of culture.

___Others have expressed this idea of a 'cross section' surviving & I find it a logically unjustifiable presumption. Chaos rules, probability drools. Be prepared.

:hyper:

[HydrogenBond]

This cross section assumes a rapid uniform event and a random distribution of survivors. If the event was slower, and people had time to prepare, I suppose the governments would pick the most garenteed survivors. Those with insight and preparedness would be the next larger group, then a sprinkling of everyone else. Some geographic areas may survive better than others and have a bigger share of the survivors. Maybe having the governments pick would help with law and order and would slant its choices to maximize recovery without backwards disruption of culture.

[WildRose1010]

Would the survivers be too spread out geographicly to find a mate to procreate, or would they survive in groups, therefore able to produce a new generation?

[HydrogenBond]

I would think that many people would survive in groups. A good outdoorsman might assure the survival of his family and friends, etc. If the survivors were sprinkled as random individuals, their instinct would be to migrate so thay can scavenge and bump into each other. They would probably be happy to see each other and would find security, survival and companionship in numbers. Once survival is assured who knows from there. Maybe alpha individuals wanting a bigger piece of the pie.

[nkt]

Well, if bird flu lives up to it's promise, we might find out!

 

There is always the scenario that 55% of the population dies, but it is all the women and a few men, or vice versa. That would sort of wreck things!

 

Even worse would be 100% of one sex and 90% of the other, or a disease or vector which took out everyone intelligent, though this would not be a realistic event.

[HydrogenBond]

No matter what the scenario, I beleive that human nature would allow survival and progression to the future. The speed of progression would depend on the numbers and the makeup of the survivors.

[goku]

humans would die off in a few generations, due to lack of variations in the gene pool. :naughty:

[questor]

i just joined this thread and would wonder....what if the only people left were

people currently on welfare or homeless?

[Tarantism]

i doubt that they would even last a few generations, goku.

 

the remaining human would destroy each other, becuase i highly doubt that the human mind could handle it.

 

i think that the survivors would go insane due to the amount of pampering we really have in culture (or at least united state culture, im assuming we are talking about the average, middle class person here?).

 

barring any creative thinkers that may survive, most of society couldnt handle having to hunt and work for themselves.

 

 

or perhaps i am completely missing the point, and all our buildings asd technology reamained?

[nkt]

I doubt you would need that many creative thinkers. After all, everyone knows roughly what the end result should be - a safe and nice place to be again, and they have seen that on TV. What you would need is people who had an idea about where to start rebuilding. People who have both a little knowledge and a little ability would suddenly be very useful, and indicisive managers with MBAs would be killed off by the other survivors after they "took charge" and destroyed the water supply, failed the crops, etc.

 

I think that a military type tight ship would be far better able to survive then the democratic systems we see today, as they would be far more likely to deal with a situation effectively and rapidly. Perhaps it wouldn't be the best answer, but it would be quicker than having a vote and arguements. And, of course, often the most popular options are very sub-optimal ("I propose we give everyone a nice bag of grain for doing nothing every week" beats "I propose we tax everyone 20% so we can build a grain store")

 

Someone like me would be well suited for the task of re-building, whether infrastructure was there or not. I'm not sure I would like to lead the whole thing though. Perhaps my brother, as he has the charisma. I'd rather be the power behind the curtain!

[CraigD]

humans would die off in a few generations, due to lack of variations in the gene pool. :Glasses:

i doubt that they would even last a few generations, goku. ...

With all these gloomy predictions, I think we need to look at the thread’s original premis

The premise: Civilization has been destroyed. Forget about the cause - it's not important. 99.9% of all people are dead and gone.

This isn’t describing a scenario of a few dozen people left on Earth, but 6 million. This is about the estimated population of the earth in 5000 BC, 5000 years after people began planting and herding, sometime after the Chinese started weaving decent baskets, but a bit before Europeans started making sophisticated (neolithic) stone tools such as spearheads.

 

There’s modern evidence of primate species not too genetically dissimilar from humans recovering from near extinction with populations under 1,000, so it stands to reason that 6,000,000 humans would do OK genetically.

i think that the survivors would go insane due to the amount of pampering we really have in culture (or at least united state culture, im assuming we are talking about the average, middle class person here?).

That’s a novel idea, but not one that’s well supported by evidence. During wars in this century, broad cross-sections of some of the most “pampered” nations, such as the US and the UK, were subjected to conditions likely more horrific than any collapse of society, such as the Bataan Death March. Although as many as 60% of the survivors of such horrors continued to suffer psychiatric illnesses for the rest of their lives, a negligible number actually “went insane” to the extent that they were unable to survive. Taking Bataan for an example, even if we assume that all of the approximately 16,000 that died did so due to disabling insanity, that’s still less than 1 in 4 people. A post-collapse population of 6,000,000 people wouldn’t be threatened by anything less than a 99%+ rate of stress-induced insanity.