If it kills 99% of us, it’s going to kill all of us. We are no longer the rugged generalists who survived previous bottlenecks. The people going into bunkers are not actually going to be the people best equipped to survive afterwards, they’ll be the privileged assholes who can politic their way in.
If we can do that, it seems we should be able to deflect the impactor. Significantly more easily, too.
Geostationary is 24,000 miles up. It is very unlikely that much, if any ejecta gets thrown that high, and if any does, it’s also a much larger area for an object to be missed.
Probably most things in low Earth orbit, like the space station, starlink, and a substantial number of communication and weather satellites would be toast.
But your Direct TV signal should be fine.
Depends on how bad the hit is, but a lack of sunlight and extremely frigid temperatures would prevent even greenhouses from doing much good until the fallout settled.
Probably not true, evolutionarily (its a word now) speaking humans are the same as the rugged generalists. 99% of humans is still a shitload of humans.
You don’t think that those privileged assholes are smart enough to bring along people who know how to make and do things?
I don’t think that they could get enough people to build and supply the bunkers in the first place. I would think that most people would want to spend their last days on Earth enjoying time with their family rather than building a bunker so that a bunch of privileged people could survive. I don’t think that many people are so concerned with the survival of the human race that they would make that kind of sacrifice. And even if the bunkers were built, they would be overrun by people trying to get in. Technically we could probably build well-stocked bunkers strong enough to allow the inhabitants to live, but human nature is not likely to make that a reality.
I’m not talking about physically. I’m talking about behaviourally. We are no way the same behaviourally.
No, I don’t. I don’t even think they’re smart enough to know who those are…
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The “bunkers” won’t just be huge massive things built by governments and megacorporations. In many cases, ordinary houses, built for no other purpose than being ordinary houses, would be sufficient. All you need is someplace that remains habitable in a bad winter, with enough food and fuel stored for a few years, and defensible from other people who want to have that food and fuel instead of you. And then you need someone inside that someplace, who knows how to grow food once they come out.
OP here. That’s what I’m wondering. Presuming, say, it smacked into Antarctica, what’s the chance that the average American, hunkered down in the home like the worst possible hurricane/tornado/forest fire was coming - all stocked up on food and supplies - based on some semblance of advance notice, would make it?
Based on humanity’s response to less catastrophic problems–Covid 19, climate change, ecological devastation, etc.–Mankind would survive until the toilet paper ran out, then shoot itself in the face.
Interesting article here.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/02/did-volcanic-eruptions-help-kill-dinosaurs
Pertinent points.
It does seem like the asteroid strike moving already extensive volcanic activity into higher gear is a reasonable but not firmly proven hypothesis.
Time course was not impact and immediate explosive volcanism. It was a change in currents leading to changes in activity over hundreds of thousands of years.
If you took 1% of humans (~78M) and scattered them in groups of 10-100 spread over half the planet, where the average distance between the initial groups was about 50 miles AND THEN took away all travel except foot, no it’s not. You’re talking about a world-wide population equivalent to around 2000 BC, but not in stable populations with developed infrastructure, rather in tiny isolated groups. Humanity lasts 30-40 years and then it’s sayonara. Some humans will live longer, but as a species? No.
For every doer that the high-privileged make room to accomodate in the bunker there’s another slightly-less-highly privileged person who just misses the cut-off for access. I’d bet in the political tussle the slightly-less-highly privileged person wins that argument.
I never said human extinction would be an instantaneous event.
I question both your premises and your conclusions. First, why would all the survivors be spread out so thinly? There would definitely be some larger clumps. Second, why wouldn’t they have any other forms of transportation? Cars will keep working as long as fuel reserves hold out (which can be a while, with such a small population, and hopefully rationing it), and anywhere humans survived, our domesticated animals would, too. Third, 1% of humanity surviving would mean people would be a lot closer together than 50 miles. And fourth, 50 miles isn’t even all that far to travel by foot.
It was an extinction level event. The impact was equivalent to around 10 billion nuclear bombs. Our civilization would be completely annihilated. Whatever might be left of humanity could be properly called “remnants”. They would have to claw and scratch just to survive, constantly searching for food and drinkable water. They would have to survive the “nuclear winter” that would result from the huge amount of pulverized rock and earth thrown into the atmosphere by the impact.
Curious–has there been a decent, at least semi-hard SF novel dealing with the aftermath of such an event? I’ve seen plenty of post-apocalyptic stories, and (spoiler ahoy) it’s possible that this is the premise for the decidedly non-hard-sf novel The Road; but I’m not sure I’ve seen a novel set in the aftermath of a 15-km asteroid hitting modern Earth.
Based on what happened when relatively modest volcanoes Tambora and Krakatoa went up, we could expect serious climatic shifts for a few years, probably a decade at least. The botany of the Cretaceous-Paeogene boundary suggests really serious collapses and shifts in plant ecosystems. You should not assume the survival of pasture, wheat, or viable agriculture under those conditions.
Some basic things to remember to pack with your swimming trunks and a spare phone charger:
Gasoline has a shelf life, and it’s months, not decades.
Well, there is this. Apparently, there would be roving gangs of jive-talking cannibals.
eh, depends on how particular your car is.
I wouldn’t put gas from a few years ago into a modern car, it’d probably not like it. But get a 1970’s car with a carburetor, and it probably won’t mind.
Diesel lasts even longer.