Asteroid impact on scale of dinosaur killer. Super volcanic eruption. Regular eruption under Antarctic ice sheets or the middle of Greenland raise water levels by 10m. Total nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia.
I’m all of these cases actual societal collapse would be caused by sudden worldwide famine, not the disaster itself.
I do think you can find examples of societal breakdown in the recent past if you narrow yourself to consider local regions, such as various failed colonies, New Orleans in the days following Katrina, or Somalia or parts of Iraq.
Asteroid impact on scale of dinosaur killer. Super volcanic eruption. Regular eruption under Antarctic ice sheets or the middle of Greenland raise water levels by 10m. Total nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia.
As an aside, one of these is not like the others :-D
But sure, let’s consider an dinosaur killer. So what will happen? A lot of places will lose much of their population, either directly or because of famine. A great deal of land will become nearly empty of humans. But once the nuclear winter is over and the population stabilizes, humans will rebuild.
It might take a while to get back to microprocessor fabs, but the knowledge of e.g. how to make steel and electricity will not be lost. So what if the humanity will be thrown back to the tech level of Victorian England? That was merely a century and a bit ago.
Asteroid impact on scale of dinosaur killer. Super volcanic eruption. Regular eruption under Antarctic ice sheets or the middle of Greenland raise water levels by 10m. Total nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia.
I’m all of these cases actual societal collapse would be caused by sudden worldwide famine, not the disaster itself.
I do think you can find examples of societal breakdown in the recent past if you narrow yourself to consider local regions, such as various failed colonies, New Orleans in the days following Katrina, or Somalia or parts of Iraq.
As an aside, one of these is not like the others :-D
But sure, let’s consider an dinosaur killer. So what will happen? A lot of places will lose much of their population, either directly or because of famine. A great deal of land will become nearly empty of humans. But once the nuclear winter is over and the population stabilizes, humans will rebuild.
It might take a while to get back to microprocessor fabs, but the knowledge of e.g. how to make steel and electricity will not be lost. So what if the humanity will be thrown back to the tech level of Victorian England? That was merely a century and a bit ago.
Of course, we’re now in movie-plot land.