500 years have passed......

[Blackhawk748]

So we hear this a lot in TTRPGs. The current world has been built off of a once great Empire that fell 300+ years ago and is barely remembered. Now im not here to discuss how overused this trope is or anything, as i rather like it. What im here to discuss is, What would our world look like 500 years in the future, if a great catastrophe destroyed most of humanity.

So lets say that humanity died to The Scouring. Its poorly remembered and even more poorly documented. Lets also say that it was caused by magic. A magical Disease, lets go with that. So humanity gets nearly obliterated by The Scouring, lets say 1/10 survive, and loses most of its advanced tech, as the survivors just want to survive. So 500 years go by and the world is now populated by Humanity and a few other Sapient species (cuz magic did some weird stuff) and Tech Wise they have returned to Late Medieval.

So what does the world look like?

Does the Statue of Liberty still stand? Is Big Ben still there? Hell is some random house in Suburbia still there in 500 years? Has the topography changed substantially? (as in if someone where to be transported from now to then, would it look the same geographically, more or less)

[DigoDragon]

Here's a handy reference from the tv series "Life after People" that answers those questions. The Statue of Liberty will theoretically collapse (be destroyed by the elements) after 300 years. Big Ben only lasts about 100 years.

[Blackhawk748]

Here's a handy reference from the tv series "Life after People" that answers those questions. The Statue of Liberty will theoretically collapse (be destroyed by the elements) after 300 years. Big Ben only lasts about 100 years.

Wow really? I figured Big Ben could make it longer than that

Edit: Though holy crap is Notre Dame tough, 2000 years!

[Strigon]

Here's a handy reference from the tv series "Life after People" that answers those questions. The Statue of Liberty will theoretically collapse (be destroyed by the elements) after 300 years. Big Ben only lasts about 100 years.

I'm skeptical of these numbers. They seem to suggest that the most grand structures would begin collapsing in just a few decades.
My family has been living in my current, fairly average house for a couple decades and we've never had to take any steps to prevent its collapse.

Heck, the Chernobyl incident was 30 years ago, and a quick Google search shows that most of the buildings are still fine, if unclean.
Naturally, big storms could cause big damage, but really I think most of the structures would be intact for about a century.

After 500 years, I'd say that most civilian buildings are gone (though the foundations are still there, if broken up), and the most sturdy buildings remain standing.



Don't forget that 1 in 10 people is still a lot of people, who are probably going to work very hard to prevent their homes from falling apart - so the more people there are in an area, the more structures will be standing - though they would have been repaired in a rather patchwork fashion.

[DigoDragon]

I'm skeptical of these numbers. They seem to suggest that the most grand structures would begin collapsing in just a few decades.
My family has been living in my current, fairly average house for a couple decades and we've never had to take any steps to prevent its collapse.

You do have climate controlled interiors, yes? Paint the home every few years? Things like that extend a building's life. A big point of failure I imagine is the roof. Once it starts leaking, if there's no one to quickly plug it, it's going to mold, expand and eventually come apart, exposing the interior to weathering effects.

That said, the show does have to speculate some of their figures. We don't tend to just leave structures abandoned for long. Someone usually demolishes old buildings to build new ones.

[Ashtagon]

I'm skeptical of these numbers. They seem to suggest that the most grand structures would begin collapsing in just a few decades.
My family has been living in my current, fairly average house for a couple decades and we've never had to take any steps to prevent its collapse.

Heck, the Chernobyl incident was 30 years ago, and a quick Google search shows that most of the buildings are still fine, if unclean.
Naturally, big storms could cause big damage, but really I think most of the structures would be intact for about a century.

After 500 years, I'd say that most civilian buildings are gone (though the foundations are still there, if broken up), and the most sturdy buildings remain standing.

Don't forget that 1 in 10 people is still a lot of people, who are probably going to work very hard to prevent their homes from falling apart - so the more people there are in an area, the more structures will be standing - though they would have been repaired in a rather patchwork fashion.

Grandiose buildings (especially tall/thin buildings and those with large open areas with only the technical requirement of internal supports, as is common in more modern architecture) require proportionately more maintenance work. It seems quite believable that famous landmarks will go before ordinary houses. "Over-engineered" buildings tend to last longer.

[Âmesang]

Yeah, 10% of the current population is about, what, 700 million people? I believe most volcanologists and paleontologists are of the belief that the Toba eruption reduced the world population to no more than 10,000 — and that was during the Stone Age.

It'd be slow going at first, but I imagine with those numbers humanity could bounce back (assuming they work together). It's not a bad concept, you just might need a more catastrophic scenario (think Fist of the North Star).

[Darth Ultron]

Plants would quickly over grow everything. It really does take a huge effort to keep the plants trimmed down. One of the funny things you will notice in The Walking Dead is how short all the grass is years after the Apocalypse. But as anyone with a lawn can tell you, it can grow a lot in just a couple weeks. And wild fields are even worse. After a couple years, and more so decades and centuries the world will look very different.

Shows like ''life after people'' have buildings crumbling quite fast. It does not seem to be correct. I live in an area with lots of farm houses, barns and buildings around 100 years old. And while I'm sure many have had upkeep over the years, I'm sure few ever faced ''utter collapse and obliteration''.

Though storms would destroy a lot. Tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, lightning and high winds do a ton of damage. Add in things like mud slides, fire and earthquakes and the damage really does add up. And the cumulative effect would be quite extreme with out continual repair and upkeep. One hurricane might not do too much damage to a building, but 100 of them would obliterate it.

[Blackhawk748]

Yeah, 10% of the current population is about, what, 700 million people? I believe most volcanologists and paleontologists are of the belief that the Toba eruption reduced the world population to no more than 10,000 — and that was during the Stone Age.

It'd be slow going at first, but I imagine with those numbers humanity could bounce back (assuming they work together). It's not a bad concept, you just might need a more catastrophic scenario (think Fist of the North Star).

Ok so itll have to be 1/1000, so down to 7 million people worldwide.

[Anonymouswizard]

I'm going to take a different approach to normal. To start I'm going to assume that the 70,000,000 (1/100) survivors are spread out in an area surrounding the middle East, all able to communicate with each other.

The absolute worst that might happen? A drop in the speed of technological development and various ideological wars, which I want to think ends up with several power blocks in a set up more similar to the Chinese Warring States period than anything else. Islam becomes the majority religion, but that's due to location, if we plopped our survivors in North America I think we'd see many Christian powers and a couple of Islamic ones.

What if the plague wipes out creative types first and technical and unskilled labour after that? We lose many high end scientists and engineers, and there are very few new books/films/games/theatre productions for the next generation or two.

If it hits the engineers and scientists first? I'm sorry creatives, it turns out you're less important to society. Technology regresses a few decades, possibly further. Working horses become more common and horse populations rise, but between that and the eventual death of tractors it might be a bit lean. People start to learn how technology works and we climb back up to our tech level, possibly before anything bad happns.

It hits everywhere evenly? People end up living in towns and villages, not modern cities. We recolonise the modern cities before the 500 years are up.

It kills the youngest first? We die out.

It acts like a real disease? I suspect we end up with power blocks forming around places like Madagascar, and slightly weaker ones around places like Japan, the UK, the Carribean, etc. Canada and Russia have a decent chance of survival.

EDIT: at less than 10% population and spread out we do start to lose infrastructure, but we can keep that which is needed.

[Forum Explorer]

I'm skeptical of these numbers. They seem to suggest that the most grand structures would begin collapsing in just a few decades.
My family has been living in my current, fairly average house for a couple decades and we've never had to take any steps to prevent its collapse.

Heck, the Chernobyl incident was 30 years ago, and a quick Google search shows that most of the buildings are still fine, if unclean.
Naturally, big storms could cause big damage, but really I think most of the structures would be intact for about a century.

After 500 years, I'd say that most civilian buildings are gone (though the foundations are still there, if broken up), and the most sturdy buildings remain standing.

I can't speak for the timeline, but I do know that we've had our house for some 30 years. And it's hitting the point where if we did no maintenance, I don't think it would last another 30 years. Not really 'intact' anyways, though there would still be a structure. Not only because of a water leak like Digo suggested, but also because wildlife (mice and squirrels at first) would quickly invade, and dig into the walls and the like, and would increase the exposure to the elements. And the more damage there is, the faster the damage accumulates.

Climate would play a big part. The less life and water there is in an area, the longer the structures will last.

Also it depends on your definition of collapse. If you mean completely flattened, then that takes a lot longer.

[Inevitability]

I'd say that with most science gone, humanity would become more religious. This in turn would increase the relative number of ideologic wars. There might even be new 'crusades'.

Also, a number of communities will become isolated. With no modern technology, there really isn't a way to know what is happening on random Pacific island X without going there yourself. People there may come to believe they are the only humans left, which should make for interesting situations.

[Jelly d6]

Speaking of structures, and speaking of structures made with concrete and steel which are by far the most common in my area, it's not about storms - it's about earthquakes. An earthquake of even medium intensity can momentarily and severely damage the building even it's being maintained perfectly. The same goes for a long enough series of smaller earthquakes. So 500 years in a seismically active area and 500 in a stable one would be VERY different.

Roads will be overgrown quickly. 20 years for a country 2-lane. 100-200 years for highways. I've trekked down the railroad which was dismantled 50-60 years ago. I had to guess my track only by mostly even elevation where rails once were laid.

The climate can advance the destruction. Moonsoons are horrible even when there are people to deal with various issues. Negative winter temperature is not helpful either. On the other hand, constant negative temperature like in Arctic region preserves things quite well.

As for the objects of nature, remember that rivers like to change their beds often whether there are people around or not. Oh, and not a single hydroengineering structure will hold 500 years. Even 100 years without maintenance is an optimistic suggestion.

[Âmesang]

…now I'm reminded of an old PC game called Strife: Quest for the Sigil that took place in a medieval environment (in terms of building structure and NPC clothing) that was ruled over by a futuristic technocratic-theocracy.

So basically imagine "Merry ol' England" 'round the 13th century with MechWarriors stomping through London and the enemy militia decked out like Judge Dredd.

Would a world of non-engineers in the future look at remaining, working tech as "magic?"

[Blackhawk748]

…now I'm reminded of an old PC game called Strife: Quest for the Sigil that took place in a medieval environment (in terms of building structure and NPC clothing) that was ruled over by a futuristic technocratic-theocracy.

So basically imagine "Merry ol' England" 'round the 13th century with MechWarriors stomping through London and the enemy militia decked out like Judge Dredd.

Would a world of non-engineers in the future look at remaining, working tech as "magic?"

Thats part of the idea im working with. Pre Scouring stuff is "Magical Artifacts" but there would be actual magic

[Lvl 2 Expert]

So humanity gets nearly obliterated by The Scouring, lets say 1/10 survive, and loses most of its advanced tech, as the survivors just want to survive. So 500 years go by and the world is now populated by Humanity and a few other Sapient species (cuz magic did some weird stuff) and Tech Wise they have returned to Late Medieval.

So what does the world look like?

Does the Statue of Liberty still stand? Is Big Ben still there? Hell is some random house in Suburbia still there in 500 years? Has the topography changed substantially? (as in if someone where to be transported from now to then, would it look the same geographically, more or less)

1/10th survive? They'd rebuild. Pretty much. The plague killed about 95% of the native American's, and yes, a lot of them ended up being set back quite a bit, becoming wandering tribes chasing buffalo over cliffs and stuff. But there were also still organised nations left impressive enough to inspire some revolting European colonists who were looking to write their own constitution. A hundred years later everyone on that continent would probably have been at or above their pre-plague tech level again, if not for the armed follow up that disease got. Just still with less people than before probably.

Modern society if anything is more resilient to these sort of events. Yes, a lot of things have to line up correctly to produce and use say modern cars, but we also have a a lot of living experts on that stuff. And we're pretty organized. Even if electrotechnical stuff no longer worked at all suddenly I bet we'd have visual telegraphs or something set up pretty quickly to stay organized. And that's not even this scenario. You'd have to hurt us pretty damned good to actually throw us back to the middle ages/stone age/whatever era you prefer and make us stay there for more than 3 decades. I'd say it starts sounding semi-plausible when you kill of about 99.9% of all humans. One person in every thousand left, or about 7 million all together. Even if they quickly congregate in a hand full of communities so many knowledge has been lost that they might have to resort to steam tractors to do their farming. That's like getting thrown one or two centuries back. Seriously, I bet just the people in this thread could come up with a working design for some sort of engine just based on what we know, as well as a method of producing the needed metal parts, either from scrap or from ore. We know a lot more than we think, even if it's incoherent and requires a lot of experimentation to get right, and that knowledge needs to be completely without use for about 50 years for it to disappear. In the case of an apocalyptic event with few survivors, most of that knowledge instead becomes more useful, we start trying to apply as much of it as possible, and anything that works gets passed on.

But you know, especially in that last scenario a lot of parts of the world would be abandoned to the wild. Even now you can travel through the Balkans and find village after village consisting of three houses with people in them and seven ruins. A lot of them are missing their roofs, despite looking like they were pretty well build. The changes are probably going to be biggest in areas where active human interference is keeping the landscape in shape. The Netherlands are of course always a good example. The Hoover Dam might be safe for 10.000 years according to discovery channel (although I kind of wonder if that's really true and what happens if and when the water starts flowing over the dam) but if regular dikes go without maintenance for a few decades there will be holes. If the land behind those dikes has over the centuries lowered to a few meters below sea level (or used to be a lake floor) than the area will flood. If the area is a bit higher up than it will only flood ones every so many years, creating a natural landscape anywhere between a real swamp and a forest where there might be water sometimes. But the reason the Netherlands make a good example is the other half of the country. There are no original natural landscapes left anywhere in the country. Most of it is agriculture, some is cities and towns and even the parts we think of as nature are carefully maintained cultural landscapes rather than what it would become if left to its own devices. And that's probably true for a lot of ground all over the world. Most of Europe would become a big forest, most of North America too. It doesn't have to take more than a few hundred years, possibly less. Whether Big Ben stands or not, it will definitely not be standing in an abandoned city or even in a clean field of ruins. Rather all the remains will be sitting in a big forest somewhere.

And if there are still enough people to prevent that from happening, if our cities keep existing, than our tech level probably won't drop too far back either.

At least, that's what I'd think.

[DigoDragon]

Plants would quickly over grow everything. It really does take a huge effort to keep the plants trimmed down. One of the funny things you will notice in The Walking Dead is how short all the grass is years after the Apocalypse. But as anyone with a lawn can tell you, it can grow a lot in just a couple weeks. And wild fields are even worse. After a couple years, and more so decades and centuries the world will look very different.

Shows like ''life after people'' have buildings crumbling quite fast. It does not seem to be correct. I live in an area with lots of farm houses, barns and buildings around 100 years old. And while I'm sure many have had upkeep over the years, I'm sure few ever faced ''utter collapse and obliteration''.

The key is having any upkeep at all. We trim lawns, put up a fresh coat of paint every few years, fix leaks, keep the interiors clean and dry, etc. All those activities go a long way to preserve a building.

Location is important too. I've seen homes around here condemned after being unoccupied for only 5-8 years because the roof collapsed. Just a little over half of one decade and the roof caved in. Florida is notorious for mold and it will eat through wooden roof struts like candy. On the other hand, The Boneyard in Arizona is an ideal place to store old aircraft because of the very dry conditions. Stuff there will last decades with just minor maintenance.

[Strigon]

You do have climate controlled interiors, yes? Paint the home every few years? Things like that extend a building's life. A big point of failure I imagine is the roof. Once it starts leaking, if there's no one to quickly plug it, it's going to mold, expand and eventually come apart, exposing the interior to weathering effects.

That said, the show does have to speculate some of their figures. We don't tend to just leave structures abandoned for long. Someone usually demolishes old buildings to build new ones.

They could extend its life, certainly, but look at any abandoned city, or an abandoned building in a city; odds are, they're still very much intact, but just not suitable for habitation either because of mold, leaks, or partial collapses. Naturally it depends on how we're defining whether a structure is still there, but I feel confident in saying a lot of buildings would at least still be standing in some fashion.
In particular, I'm thinking schools, libraries, government facilities, prisons, hospitals, and even things like shopping malls or department stores would still be quite intact. We tend to massively overprepare structures whenever possible - at least in theory; there's a chance someone somewhere down the line will fudge some numbers to save on construction costs.

Earthquakes would, naturally, be a huge concern where they occurred; 500 years without maintenance near a fault line would bring pretty much anything down.

Grandiose buildings (especially tall/thin buildings and those with large open areas with only the technical requirement of internal supports, as is common in more modern architecture) require proportionately more maintenance work. It seems quite believable that famous landmarks will go before ordinary houses. "Over-engineered" buildings tend to last longer.

Well, I agree with you on the tall/thin one; large apartment buildings and skyscrapers wouldn't tend to last long, but I think there would be plenty of large, grand structures that would last quite some time - it just depends on whether they were built with aesthetics or functionality in mind.

[Cealocanth]

Our modern infrastructure is actually quite tough from a historical perspective. Concrete with steel reinforcement, while it will crack, will last significantly longer than wood or anything but the most robust stones. However, don't expect most cities to withstand 5 centuries. Especially in places with large moisture levels, plant life, and high winds, most skyscrapers will be a pile of rubble within less than a century, and that's pretty generous. The foundations will last significantly longer, to the point that the people living in your post-apocalyptic reset world may speak of 'fields of stone' or something like that in reference to the utterly massive amounts of lasting ruins that will be left behind with the destruction of modern cities.

As for our monuments?

Ancient monuments like the Stonehenge, the Pyramids, the Great Wall of China will not care in the slightest. They have been around for a lot longer than 500 years, and another 500 years will not do much unless someone deliberately dismantles them.
Monuments that are old by our standards, such as medieval castles or Notre Dame, will probably still be around as well, albeit quite decrepit and nonfunctional unless someone restores them.
Big Ben probably won't be around for very long, though its foundation and possibly its history might remain. The Statue of Liberty is crumbling today, without repair we're going to lose it in about 50 years. The only reason the Leaning Tower of Pisa hasn't been destroyed yet is because of tremendous effort on our part. I imagine that some particularly long-lasting modern monuments would be large-scale projects meant to withstand tremendous amounts of weathering, like the Kremlin, Hoover Dam, The Eisenhower Tunnel, etc. will probably still be relatively intact, though some might be in sorry shape.
As for our modern wonders: The infrastructure of the Internet will last well into the future, though it will not remain functional during that time. Though we might lose miles of cable each decade due to weathering, there is so much raw material in the internet buried beneath our cities, across continents, crossing oceans, that people will probably see evidence of it thousands of years from now. GPS will still be in geostationary orbit for thousands of years, and probably will still be functional, as they are designed to not need regular maintenance. The ISS won't last another decade, let alone 500 years. The rest of our space junk will probably still be there in 500 years, though some of it might deorbit, including both Hubble and Kepler. The Large Hadron Collider is surprisingly sturdy and protected from the environment, so will probably last a few centuries. The Seed Vault will probably still be present and in near-working condition at that point.

Other things that will still be there in 500 years:
The radiation from Chernobyl will still be deadly. Most other nuclear accidents will still be detectable in the atmosphere for centuries. They will be detectable in rocks for thousands and thousands of years.
Most of our landfills and our plastics will have not decomposed entirely.
Most of humanity's other pollution will have very real effects in 500 years, with the likely exception of fertilizer runoff and oil spills, which decompose quickly in an archaeological sense.
Most of our highways, while cracked and collapsed, will probably still be visible.
Most of our mines will still be accessible.
The areas which are our active farmland today will quickly come to be among the most fertile strips of land in the world, primarily due to latent fertilizer buildup. Expect new rainforest-level diversity in what is currently the U.S. Midwest.
It is possible that the Yellowstone Supervolcano will have erupted in that period. This is up to you, though, as it is inherently unpredictable.

@Digo: Corrected. Thanks for that.

[Arbane]

It acts like a real disease? I suspect we end up with power blocks forming around places like Madagascar, and slightly weaker ones around places like Japan, the UK, the Carribean, etc. Canada and Russia have a decent chance of survival.

And Scandanavia.

(This premise sounds almost EXACTLY like Stand Still, Stay Silent's, except I think it's only ninety years post-Illness.)

[Blackhawk748]

And Scandanavia.

(This premise sounds almost EXACTLY like Stand Still, Stay Silent's, except I think it's only ninety years post-Illness.)

Hilariously i've never read it. I just got the idea for a magical world following a technological one while reading the Septimus Heap series.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I think that even with a 99% extinction rate, we wouldn't experience a huge setback in science, counted it in years of progress, unless you specifically had the plague target educated people. I mean, most of our knowledge is available in digital format somewhere, and that's distributed all over the world, with hundreds of copies, and immune to diseases. Yes, you would lose the finer points of certain theories, and a lot of small sub-fields would face extinction, but something like general relativity is well enough known amongsts physicists, we won't lose that.

On the more practical side, things like radios and computers would still be around. Yes, it'd be a bloody huge pain to service the world's networks with a much smaller population, but chances are there will be someone left who can read the maintenance manual, chances are there's still an engineer or ten around*, and core infrastructure would last long enough that a crew can be cobbled together to service the net. All the renewable power in the world is suddenly enough to supply the world's needs, which is pretty cool.

A disaster that destroys the internet to an appreciable degree will also destroy pretty much any monuments and buildings on Earth. The things we're likely to lose are the things that only a few dozen people ever do or know - several hundred languages might go extinct, for example.




*I don't know how many engineers work in a typical power plant, but I imagine that there will be someone left in most power plants, and those engineers together can safely shut down a hundred power plants, then man the remaining one, if needed, and relocate to the next plant once local storage is empty.

[Arbane]

On the more practical side, things like radios and computers would still be around. Yes, it'd be a bloody huge pain to service the world's networks with a much smaller population, but chances are there will be someone left who can read the maintenance manual, chances are there's still an engineer or ten around*, and core infrastructure would last long enough that a crew can be cobbled together to service the net. All the renewable power in the world is suddenly enough to supply the world's needs, which is pretty cool.

*I don't know how many engineers work in a typical power plant, but I imagine that there will be someone left in most power plants, and those engineers together can safely shut down a hundred power plants, then man the remaining one, if needed, and relocate to the next plant once local storage is empty.

I don't know many details about the electrical gird, but I suspect you are being WAY too optimistic about the manpower and infrastructure needed to keep these things going.

[DigoDragon]

They could extend its life, certainly, but look at any abandoned city, or an abandoned building in a city; odds are, they're still very much intact, but just not suitable for habitation either because of mold, leaks, or partial collapses. Naturally it depends on how we're defining whether a structure is still there, but I feel confident in saying a lot of buildings would at least still be standing in some fashion.

Well, walls would probably be there, enough to identify that there was a inhabited building at the site. Here in my city I've seen roofs collapse after just 5-8 years of no maintenance, but the walls are still standing. Not that it does the building any use without the roof.

Rebar-enforced concrete does not decay well compared to ordinary concrete structures it seems. As it ages, the rebar expands and cracks the concrete. So while it is stronger, it lasts a shorter time.

Most modern arsenals will still be present, but most will be nonfunctional, and most nuclear weapons will be completely useless. Almost all of our known uranium and thorium reserves will have decayed.

Uranium's half-life is measured in millions of years. The bomb casings might rust away in 500 years, but most of the uranium will still be around.

Thorium... depends on the isotope. The stable version has a half-life of a few billion years. Some of the isotopes we create last only hours.

[AMFV]

I think that even with a 99% extinction rate, we wouldn't experience a huge setback in science, counted it in years of progress, unless you specifically had the plague target educated people. I mean, most of our knowledge is available in digital format somewhere, and that's distributed all over the world, with hundreds of copies, and immune to diseases. Yes, you would lose the finer points of certain theories, and a lot of small sub-fields would face extinction, but something like general relativity is well enough known amongsts physicists, we won't lose that.

On the more practical side, things like radios and computers would still be around. Yes, it'd be a bloody huge pain to service the world's networks with a much smaller population, but chances are there will be someone left who can read the maintenance manual, chances are there's still an engineer or ten around*, and core infrastructure would last long enough that a crew can be cobbled together to service the net. All the renewable power in the world is suddenly enough to supply the world's needs, which is pretty cool.

A disaster that destroys the internet to an appreciable degree will also destroy pretty much any monuments and buildings on Earth. The things we're likely to lose are the things that only a few dozen people ever do or know - several hundred languages might go extinct, for example.




*I don't know how many engineers work in a typical power plant, but I imagine that there will be someone left in most power plants, and those engineers together can safely shut down a hundred power plants, then man the remaining one, if needed, and relocate to the next plant once local storage is empty.

The problem is that the disaster would take people who were doing engineering and make them do only subsistence things. Then their kids wouldn't learn engineering, because it's not a useful skill when survival is what matters, so that knowledge would be lost.

The same thing HAS been observed in other population crashes (Easter Island comes to mind), education is lost, not because the educated population is reduced to zero, but because that knowledge is no longer the most useful. The only reason we have the level of science that we do is that people now have the time to devote to it, because they aren't constantly worried about whether or not they have food and shelter. Take away that time, and science (and many other endeavors) fade pretty quickly.

Of course once subsistence again reaches a point where it can be sustained, then you'll have the reemergence of science, but if that's several generations after, a great deal of knowledge might have been lost. And at that point, the servers will be down (servers cost power, and who's paying the bill after the apocalypse), so you're stuck with whatever writings you can recover, but that might even be gone (paper degrades or gets wet). So a lot of knowledge is often lost in those sort of population crashes.

[Beleriphon]

You're basically asking the Fallout question. In a way Fallout is utterly ridiculous in many respects, but other make a lot of sense. Take the Brotherhood of Steel for example. They have a very high level of technological prowess compared to most other groups, the reason is they have dedicated themselves to keeping that knowledge base up to pre-war levels. In a more realistic scenario any level of technological knowledge requires that a group make a dedicated effort to keep that knowledge and pass it on to the next generation.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I don't know many details about the electrical gird, but I suspect you are being WAY too optimistic about the manpower and infrastructure needed to keep these things going.

Very possible, but keep in mind that we're not trying to support all of the electrical grid all over the world. We just need to do the bit around the place we're going to live - maybe Europe, because it's fairly small and developed, though I'm not sure what the exact food balance would work out to. China is pretty concentrated, too, I believe, or the US east coast. As long as the infrastructure is in decent enough shape, we can tide over with simple fixes. You might have to drop health and safety standards, but it'll still work, more or less.

The problem is that the disaster would take people who were doing engineering and make them do only subsistence things. Then their kids wouldn't learn engineering, because it's not a useful skill when survival is what matters, so that knowledge would be lost.

The same thing HAS been observed in other population crashes (Easter Island comes to mind), education is lost, not because the educated population is reduced to zero, but because that knowledge is no longer the most useful. The only reason we have the level of science that we do is that people now have the time to devote to it, because they aren't constantly worried about whether or not they have food and shelter. Take away that time, and science (and many other endeavors) fade pretty quickly.

Of course once subsistence again reaches a point where it can be sustained, then you'll have the reemergence of science, but if that's several generations after, a great deal of knowledge might have been lost. And at that point, the servers will be down (servers cost power, and who's paying the bill after the apocalypse), so you're stuck with whatever writings you can recover, but that might even be gone (paper degrades or gets wet). So a lot of knowledge is often lost in those sort of population crashes.

Well, yes, but why would the remaining 1% be reduced to substistence farming/hunting? There are large frozen/dried/preserved food stores, in parts of the world anyway, not to mention loads of cattle around. In addition, 1% of the food producers is still a lot of food producers, they're not going to stop producing, even if fertilizer will be in short supply for a while. The grain will still be out in the fields, and 99% of the mills might close, but that last one will do fine for the reduced population.

Obviously, a disaster that reduces the human population to a much smaller fraction - 0,001%, or 70.000, for example - would suffer from this huge fallback, although temporarily. But a disaster that reduces the world's population by 99%, over the course of at most a year, that will scale down the world. We have a (few) hundred of most things, even a few hundred people who can run the LHC or launch a space probe, probably.

[AMFV]

Very possible, but keep in mind that we're not trying to support all of the electrical grid all over the world. We just need to do the bit around the place we're going to live - maybe Europe, because it's fairly small and developed, though I'm not sure what the exact food balance would work out to. China is pretty concentrated, too, I believe, or the US east coast. As long as the infrastructure is in decent enough shape, we can tide over with simple fixes. You might have to drop health and safety standards, but it'll still work, more or less.


Well, yes, but why would the remaining 1% be reduced to substistence farming/hunting? There are large frozen/dried/preserved food stores, in parts of the world anyway, not to mention loads of cattle around. In addition, 1% of the food producers is still a lot of food producers, they're not going to stop producing, even if fertilizer will be in short supply for a while. The grain will still be out in the fields, and 99% of the mills might close, but that last one will do fine for the reduced population.

Obviously, a disaster that reduces the human population to a much smaller fraction - 0,001%, or 70.000, for example - would suffer from this huge fallback, although temporarily. But a disaster that reduces the world's population by 99%, over the course of at most a year, that will scale down the world. We have a (few) hundred of most things, even a few hundred people who can run the LHC or launch a space probe, probably.

Power goes out. Food stores spoil in under a year. You don't get large stores of canned goods most places, and you wouldn't know how to find them, not without the internet, (again I cite: Power goes out servers go down). Also then you have the issue of who winds up dying. Supposing it's truly near random, then you might wind up with NO people that know how to grow grain, certainly those people who do would not be anywhere near each other.

Then you're only one bad harvest from starvation, because without power storing food becomes increasingly difficult. Just look at the effects of famines on scientific production, it's pretty measurable.

The other problem you have is that 1% of the population CANNOT maintain the necessary infrastructure to move food around. That's absolutely impossible, so even if you can produce food, you won't be able to move it to sustain other population centers.

But if it wasn't random you might have a chance, random 1% remaining (as with a disease), you'd have mass starvation and would be lucky if any progress remained at all.

[Mando Knight]

Wow really? I figured Big Ben could make it longer than that

Edit: Though holy crap is Notre Dame tough, 2000 years!

That's the strength of solid stone construction for you. Barring a freak earthquake or human action, just the action of wind and rain will have little effect on the structure itself.

Very possible, but keep in mind that we're not trying to support all of the electrical grid all over the world. We just need to do the bit around the place we're going to live - maybe Europe, because it's fairly small and developed, though I'm not sure what the exact food balance would work out to. China is pretty concentrated, too, I believe, or the US east coast. As long as the infrastructure is in decent enough shape, we can tide over with simple fixes. You might have to drop health and safety standards, but it'll still work, more or less.

Well, yes, but why would the remaining 1% be reduced to substistence farming/hunting? There are large frozen/dried/preserved food stores, in parts of the world anyway, not to mention loads of cattle around. In addition, 1% of the food producers is still a lot of food producers, they're not going to stop producing, even if fertilizer will be in short supply for a while. The grain will still be out in the fields, and 99% of the mills might close, but that last one will do fine for the reduced population.

Because the network of people required would be destroyed, and everything in the modern world is connected. Destroy 99% of the people, and 99.99% of everything you like about the world grinds to a shuddering halt.

Provided people see the world coming to its end, they might be able to consolidate human knowledge in one server cluster, but without the infrastructure to supply fuel to the power generators, they won't last (and even current sources of renewable energy wear out in a few decades with maintenance, and without a dedicated industry it's impossible to support them). Modern farming is also extremely dependent on that same fuel infrastructure... no fuel, and you're not running those diesel-guzzling machines to harvest and transport your grain, you're doing it by hand and by cart. The way of the future, then, would be largely manual until the population consolidated and rebuilt enough to restore its capability to harvest and distribute fuel.

Now, I don't think humanity would be totally "bombed back to the Stone Age" by this, but the population drop and major infrastructure damage related to it would probably set humanity back roughly equivalently to just before the Industrial Revolution, and so by 500 years civilization would probably have bounced back and surpassed the pre-disaster world... if the destruction of the 99% of humanity doesn't take the other 1% in the ensuing chaos.

[AMFV]

That's the strength of solid stone construction for you. Barring a freak earthquake or human action, just the action of wind and rain will have little effect on the structure itself.

Because the network of people required would be destroyed, and everything in the modern world is connected. Destroy 99% of the people, and 99.99% of everything you like about the world grinds to a shuddering halt.

Provided people see the world coming to its end, they might be able to consolidate human knowledge in one server cluster, but without the infrastructure to supply fuel to the power generators, they won't last (and even current sources of renewable energy wear out in a few decades with maintenance, and without a dedicated industry it's impossible to support them). Modern farming is also extremely dependent on that same fuel infrastructure... no fuel, and you're not running those diesel-guzzling machines to harvest and transport your grain, you're doing it by hand and by cart. The way of the future, then, would be largely manual until the population consolidated and rebuilt enough to restore its capability to harvest and distribute fuel..

Another note on that topic is that the need for modern infrastructure for farming would be a huge issue, since very few people know how to farm without those kind of things. So I mean it'd be a few Amish people, and some people who live way out, but other than that, modern farmers would be very much unable to farm, since they wouldn't necessarily know how to do those sort of things. So that's another wrinkle.