With worrying global trends like climate change, pollution, increasingly divided or radical governments, economic woes, misinformation and disinformation everywhere, dangerous health crises and so on, what do you think - how much time do we have before “it all comes crashing down”? What will end life or our way of life as we know it first?
Or do you think we’ll make it? If so, how?
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I think people tend to underestimate human resilience. To use the bronze age collapses as an example, sure, it brought down existing polities, the names drawn on maps changed.
But most of the cities were still there. People still lived in them. Does changing the rulers while keeping a similar paradigm ultimately matter that much? I’m reminded of accounts of the experiences of some Afghanis during the American intervention there. First they paid their taxes to the Taliban, then the govt we set up, then the Taliban again. shrug.
While supply chains could be disrupted, any time that happens it opens the door for another profitable enterprise to rise in its place. People suffer, some die, but life goes on. If the knowledge of how to build those supply chains is still around, it will be done, and swiftly.
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I think that’s a little sensationalist. For instance, we do find the ruins of ancient cities in archeological digs and can link them to where we do have surviving records of their appearance in stories.
Your point is taken, though. I do, however, remain convinced that people massively overestimate how many people would die in some form of collapse though, unless it somewhat swiftly took down major portions of the Earth’s biosphere.
If a group blew up a hydro dam, or other electrical source plant and also destroyed water stations, you would see local society and ecomony crumble quickly. People aren’t prepared, like they may have been in the 50s for food/water supply, etc. You would have chaos. So an enemy would just need to coordinated that across cities…its why have web/internet enabled infrastructure is a security diaster waiting to happen.
The people would remain though, and begin to rebuild unless the attacks were extremely broad and sustained for a long duration. No power or water stations in Gaza any more, but they are still hanging on in very dire conditions.
People are resilient. And adaptable. Just because we do things one way that works for us does not mean that one way is an absolute requirement.
Not that there wouldn’t be chaos, suffering and casualties. Just that it wouldn’t be the end.
I guess by collapse I am thinking complete devolution, not neccessarily the end of people