Without a massive population of worker bees, can we maintain the level of technological sophistication we've reached?
I suppose governments probably have that fairly well doomsday planned.
I suppose governments probably have that fairly well doomsday planned.
Probably not but I doubt we'd regress very much. The world's population of less than 2 billion in the early 20th century was able to produce automobiles, airplanes, radios, etc. With the benefit of all the inventions and knowledge left behind I bet just a billion people could pretty easily maintain at least an early to mid 20th century level of technology. It would be a step backwards for sure but in the context of human progress it would be a minor blip.
Don't bet on governments having anything planned. That sounds like fantasy; just look at how governments actually behave in the real world: they're inept too.
This apocalyptic thinking is something you only do if you're so removed from violence that you have to imagine the whole world ending to conceive of it getting to you. People who actually deal with violence know they never get all of us. People are lost. It sucks. But we are resilient too. In a million people, there are always a few who are both smart and lucky and are able to reorganize reality ahead of the wave. That's why there are 6 billion of us. We survive.
Want a historical example? Look at the fall of the Roman Empire (and also older empires before them). They knew how to make concrete, huge buildings, aquaducts, plumbing, etc. It was all lost when the society collapsed, and that didn't involve killing off most of them, only having them give up on it and move away, and give up on the idea of specialization of labor. It took 1000 years or more to regain the level of technology they had, and really they never did figure out how to make concrete that good until modern times.
People absolutely survive, but survival is far more work, and far less population is supported per acre. Not necessarily bad, but very different. And hard everyday.
An extinction event is not the same thing as a man made holocaust, it can be far more thorough. None the less, it seems more prudent to ameliorate the issue rather than just accept it as if it's inevitable.