In two movies that I recently watched, the end of life on Earth was just around the corner. In one film, the movie starts three weeks before an asteroid is due to hit the earth. In the other film, a nuclear cloud has assured death within a few months.
In both of these movies, the average citizen is going about their normal business. With minor modifications, it’s just business as usual. “Yes, I’m going to die shortly, but I might as well go to the supermarket and pick up a steak for tonight’s BBQ before Monday Night Football.”
Absurd … In the real world, the butcher would be hoarding anything he could get his hands on to stockpile in his cave in the off-chance that he could survive the catastrophe. Would Tom Brady be playing football if his death were to occur withing five months?
So, … If we all woke up tomorrow and the lead story was that an asteroid would hit the earth in four years with a 99% probability of killing everyone, what would happen? I contend that society would collapse within days; money (even gold) would be worthless; and that half the world’s population would starve to death before the asteroid actually arrived. What do you think would happen?
What would be the purpose of hording? In many apocalyptic scenarios there is a chance for survival (The Road, The Walking Dead, Alas Babylon, etc.) whereby people are hoarding, raiding, etc. for survival. In the scenario you outlined, there is no chance of survival. The asteroid hits and all life on the planet ceases. There is no reason to try and gain an advantage on your fellow human, because we are all going to die. Why not do the things that you really wanted to do. I’m sure there would be chaos, but not on the scale where there was a 25% survival rate.
Bone city. Seriously, what did the Germans do when the Soviets were closing in and their world was falling apart around their heads? Fucked in the air raid shelters, that’s what. And boozed it up, because why not?
I read that book when I was about 9 years old and [del]still to this day [/del]for years was afraid of bleeding through my skin. IIRC the people in the book were civilized Australians from the 50’s or 60’s; not rude “Ugly Americans”
I recently read a series by Ben H. Winters that I think dealt with armageddon very well.
I think civilization would quickly collapse. If I were younger I would fuck all day and I would certainly stop exercising and start eating everything I like. But why would anyone do any of the nasty jobs that hold society together?
I wonder how many would seek revenge on others who harmed them. After all, what are the repercussions? It’s not like the legal system is going to be hellbent on due process, ultimately sending you to prison. But for those bent on revenge, it may be their way of tying up loose ends.
I’d restate that as follows. With my parts in italics:
… The asteroid hits and all life on the planet ceases. There is no reason to *NOT *try to gain an advantage on your fellow human, because we are all going to die. If you ever wanted to rape, plunder and/or pillage, now’s the chance. Do absolutely everything on your bucket list, and all the things you’ve ever thought about but would never do in the presence of civilization. And even if you personally would think of this as a good time to volunteer at a kitty shelter, I guarantee there are plenty of selfish jerks who’ll jump at the chance to set aside civilization’s niceties and take what they deeply believe is rightfully theirs.
Why not do the things that you really wanted to do. Exactly. And most of what many people want to do is get even or get more or get new. From somebody else.
I’m sure there would be chaos, but not on the scale where there was a 25% survival rate. *The day after folks decide *en masse *to not go to their normal job, we start a countdown timer. Even absent panic buying within 2 days there will be no food in stores in cities. Within 2 weeks most people in cities will have no food at all. Even if they just decided to all mellow out at home until they starve, 90% of them will be dead in 8 weeks. And damned few people will choose to mellow out at home while starving.
I cannot imagine 25% of urban / suburban society worldwide still being alive in 2 months.and probably not even in 2 weeks. Rural Africa or the wilds of backwoods Brazil, sure. Anywhere else? Not a chance.*
I always liked this story about a particular end-of-the-world movie. The film is Last Night, a Canadian film from 1999. In Roger Ebert’s review, he mentions being asked on a Canadian talk show to explain the difference between American and Canadian movies. He wasn’t able to, but "another guest [on the talk show] was Wayne Clarkson, the former director of the Toronto Film Festival. He said he could, and cited this film. ‘Sandra Oh goes into a grocery story to find a bottle of wine for dinner,’ he said.
‘The store has been looted, but she finds two bottles still on the shelf. She takes them down, evaluates them, chooses one, and puts the other one politely back on the shelf. That’s how you know it’s a Canadian film.’"
Well, now I know what I would be doing; I would be hiding from LSLGuy and his ilk.
Most people would not want to rape and pillage, because most people are pretty decent. OTOH, most people in the U.S. would not want to continue at their jobs, because they don’t really contribute directly to quality of life. I would; my company is associated with medical products, and we have to keep people at least comfortable for the next four years. Truckers would, until fuel was rationed. Some people would return to small scale farming and manufacturing.
So, if we all hunkered down and let those who think Road Warrior was a documentary kill each other off, it might not be too bad.
But in On the Beach, they didn’t just keep a stiff upper lip, they cherished the small things that gave meaning to life.
People tend to be decent in very particular situations. “You’ll all be dead soon, and by the way, forget about the standard of living you’re accustomed to because people are no longer inclined to do all the little things holding society together”? Not one of those situations, I think.
But four years is a long time, maybe there wouldn’t be such a knee-jerk reaction.
Four years out, the only consequence would be the end of long term planning and investment. Which in itself would have major effects on society that are hard to predict, but wouldn’t cause a breakdown.
It’s only when you get weeks away that things would start to go bad. Not so much because people would be rioting and acting like animals, but just because more and more people would just stop working to spend their last weeks with their loved ones or do things they’ve always wanted to do. So basic things like getting food and keeping the power on would become difficult. You’ll probably want to do some hoarding not for after the apocalyse, but actually for the last days even if you won’t survive. No sense going out hungry.
Why does society function now? Because we all need it to for us to survive day to day. We need to eat, and even if the world ends in four years I’d still like to eat for those four years.
There would be a lot of turmoil but on a basic level I think most of humanity would recognise that to survive for those four years we need our culture and society to continue, and so we all need to play our roles in that. I think strong leaders would emerge and a lot of people would continue to work and produce.
It would certainly change, there are a lot of shitty crappy jobs that would disappear and there would indeed be a lot of crime and terror for a lot of people, but there would also be an equilibrium of sorts. Because if you wanted to live for the next four years there would have to be.
We would find who the truly religious people are. They will be the ones behaving and preparing for the better afterlife as their religions describe it.
I don’t know that that’s necessarily likely. What good is it to be like that when there’s no good to come of it anyway. Is that really how you want to spend your last days?
I think that Seeking a Friend For the End of the World got it right. Most people will just go home and wait for the end.
The human capacity for hope is boundless. Every resource would be turned to trying to avert or minimise the disaster, and those not directly helping would hope that something would happen, that some rescue would be effected. Divine or alien intervention or human ingenuity or Bruce Willis, who would care?
Please do not mistake my bleak assessment of human nature as being my preference for human nature or for myself.
Individual humans are wonderful, thoughtful, generous creatures. Large groups of them are little smarter or more mature than chimps. Under stress that gets worse. Under severe stress that gets lots worse.
As events in places like Yemen and Somalia show us, it only takes a few percent of armed power-hungry selfish jerkwads to render civilized life mostly impossible for the majority. Of course you, gentle reader, aren’t one of those people. Neither am I. They do, however, exist. And they are spread fairly evenly across the planet’s population.
For all but a few subsistence farmers, civilized life depends on darn near everybody continuing to be civilized and do their role in the economic system that sustains us all. We have built a very powerful but ultimately brittle edifice. As such under severe enough stress it will go along for awhile, then totter a bit, then collapse in a mighty cloud of dust.
Starvation is a very powerful motivator. Once collapse occurs, the 80% of humanity who live in cities & suburbs will be facing an existential problem. Famine starts almost immediately.
Given 4 years warning, the human tendency towards denial will delay the reaction. As of course will be the fact that somebody somewhere will question the science and the certainty of the prediction. Lots of people and entities will desperately want to believe that. Which they will. For a while.
