If society collapses what would happen?

PETA resorts to cannibalis

You can pee outside drive around without insurance and all at the same time..

Society all over the world collapsed? I should imagine that would either be the beginning or the end of WW3?

That really does depend on the cause of such a collapse. And by society do you mean some sort of "end of the world" scenario or in terms of a specific society such as the Roman Empire?

Roman empire esc thing NASA predicted it apparently

I'd plant a massive garden.

Then we work hard at getting society back on it's feet.

But tbh, when we had a blackout here in new york awhile back, I remember people going crazy and whatnot. So if a blackout brings out some bad mutha [censored]ers..imagine a "end of the world" scenario.

Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

Because the world economy is so interlocked an economic collapse in any of the major players would probably end up world-wide. The US is the most likely major player. An environmental disaster beyond their government's capacity to deal with is pretty easy to imagine.

That said, those who can rapidly develop a way to stay fed without any of the long distance distribution systems that most people rely on will survive, those who can't won't.

I have to wonder why this forum loves these sorts of topics so much. What's so interesting about war and death?

I'd imagine we'd lose a lot of the things we take for granted and life would get a lot harder. But I don't think it would become an apocalyptic, end of times, sort of deal.

There would be less emphasis on luxury and more on hard work to literally make end's meet.

People would begin to grow their own food (more so), alternate forms of energy like solar power would also be used more, communities would become even tighter knit and rely on eachother more.

Urbanized communities will collapse due to their need for resources that require logistical infrastructures to remain sustained while small rural communities may very well survive due to the allocation of external resources being less critical in scope and content (towns/villages can live without their Bodyshop or Starbucks being resupplied, but cities can't survive without food..)

The law of the land would be marshalled or at gunpoint (same difference really) with communities fending for themselves as displaced populations tried relocating away from the unsustainable urban areas.

The planet would go tribal again.

Funny that you should wonder that, over the last few weeks I've been increasingly wondering not about whether society will collapse, but what will happen when it does. And http://guymcpherson.com/ is the reason for that.

I suppose he could very well be wrong about everything, for some reason, but what if he isn't...

A huge fraction of the world population lives in areas that cannot produce enough food to sustain them. Urban population densities are unsustainable just due to lack of area. Major population centers are built in environments that are totally inappropriate (deserts, mountains, swamps) where they are totally dependent on massive transportation infrastructures. So the 'oh let's grow some food' idea will be impossible to put into action, particularly without massive preparation that basically no one is doing. Do you have seeds? Do you have any sort of independently supplied irrigation system? Do you have the first clue how to create a food source? Do you have the will and the where with all to defend it once you do create it?

Solar? Got some sort of last ditch emergency shipment of solar panels lined up? The industry that manufactures things like that doesn't have a chance in heck of sustaining itself. Plan on living in the dark after the sun goes down, unless you have the solar in place...and totally independent. Most residential solar power systems are actually 'peak providers' on the grid. They provide power during the day and consume at night (a balance that allows home owners to have low bills) with no built in storage capacity...so unless you have the know-how and materials to disconnect them from the dead grid and connect some sort of storage they are going to be very little help in a calamity. Those storage devices (batteries) have a fairly limited lifespan and there aren't going to be any replacements, so even the best 'solar advantage' is only temporary.

Communities will eat each other until they get down to sustainable numbers, then try to forget that that happened.

Sounds like your minds is already made up! What pessimistic corner of the Earth are you coming from?

I live in one of those huge population centers in the desert. If the long distance water supply breaks down 30 million people will find themselves in a place that can sustain about a million, tops, and that's if they manage to spread themselves over hundreds of miles of surrounding area that is currently undeveloped. I expect 29 million casualties within about ten days, That's not pessimism, that's just acknowledging realities.

I have a well, powered by independent solar. I can irrigate, I have seeds, and I have guns. So unless the diseases spreading from the millions of untended corpses get me I don't expect to be one of them. That's not pessimism, that's planning.

The crazy doomsday preppers will continue business as usual and weather our society [censored] storm...I will take up arms and take over 1 of their setups

psst there's no gold left in most of the federal reserves, the pretty paper is just pretty paper that people give value to

I know who to call... But seriously I'll be one of those guys who takes a few guns. And walk off into the wilderness, I'm close enough to it already. Build a cabin somewhere and hunt and gather. Or die in a few days, whatever comes first.

Not to sound like a crazy doomsday prepper...but how well fixed are you for reloads? I have guns to get through the initial madness, but once most of the rivals (other humans) have died off I don't expect to need them or be able to use them. For long term sustainability as a hunter gatherer you better make a serious exploration of archery.

If there's no disaster archery is a fun and challenging pass time. If there is a disaster the production of ammunition is not dependent on any significantly advanced technology or scarce material.

Let's hope it does. Our current society as a whole isn't good at all, mostly because of politics and how the government spends our money, and nature and everything is suffering because of it. What the world needs, in my opinion, is a social/economical reboot, a chance to start over and learn from past mistakes.

Yes, we would try to rebuild a society, yes, we would be successful, and yes, there would be people hellbent on bringing back this "democracy" that we have now. But at least it would be a chance at a fresh start, I think. But I'm no expert.

Us British will take over and get it back up and running again.

It would not happen unless an outside force caused it to. Modern societies are typically based on the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, where the primary motivation for human beings is fear of violent death. Human beings conditioned to living in these societies (aka all of us) would do anything to avoid a collapse of society. This is Hobbes' state of nature teaching, where men are willing to forfeit their freedom in order to achieve security. When staring down the barrel of a gun, human beings are willing to make all sorts of sacrifices previously unimaginable to avoid the state of nature.

"In the face of disaster lies the opportunity for renewal".

Society would rebuild. Maybe not as good, but it'd be there. Of course there'd be lawlessness, chaos and anarchy, but even in civilization today, we see traces of it yet still.

While I see the value that a "fresh start" could bring (nevermind the cost in lives along the way), there's a key problem with that: if our civilization falls, it is very unlikely we will ever reach the level of development we have today, or any level of industrialization at all. The easily accessible energy sources upon which we've built our civilization in the recent centuries have been consumed, and without the explosive power of mass coal and oil, we'd have little hopes of bringing back our industries on their feet. We would be relegated to living the rest of our existence as hunter-gatherers, maybe in medieval-style enclaves at most, with the occasional gadget of "the age of magic" being found or created.

That may be very desirable and even idyllic to most people, but to me, that prospect simply svcks. I would very much prefer that we manage to keep our full technological prowess while at the same time learning how to better live with ourselves and the rest of the planet, so that one day in the future we have a chance to literally shoot for the stars. Alas, with an ever increasing population and with resource depletion and biosphere destruction already knocking at our doors, that is very unlikely to happen.

Yes, the current way of doing things simply can't last for too long. Maybe humanity will see this and starts changing things. History says "lolno". It'll be a massacre, perhaps literally.

Since i'd have no skills to survive or contribute to anything in such a world, i just hope it takes long enough for the [censored] to hit the fan that i'm dead before it happens. It's a good time to live fast and die young And for goodness sake don't have children, they'll have to deal with the [censored]storm!


Wallowing in cynicism is fun! Give it a try!


But would that be such a bad thing? One doesn't need a 124" TV or a giant SUV to enjoy life