Postapocallyptic utopia

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I think thats the only utopia. Cant go back in time, cities are allready there, people allready exist, overpopulation is allready a problem, and everything thats too-much about us, is allready a fact. in only a growing fact.

after that meteor has struck, or whatever..
humans, by sheer number, could have a chance at survival. vaults and whatnot. small groups could make it. We _could_ potentially make it through a world where most of nature is torched off, we have seed vaults, and stuff.
if ALL go, all go, its finished, but if a LITTLE survives, humans can cling on.

Pollution would no longer be a worry, after a world-wide catastrophe, and with populations reduced to nearly nothing, the only groups of people would be small bands, with tight bonds. as is usual with people as a species, they would seek out other people, swap genetic material, and form little bundles near river outlets and stuff.

The older generations would probably be depressed, remembering whats lost, but the new ones are born adapted, and those following would be born into small tribal communities, and simply be what humans are meant to be, a pack monkey where every monkey in a group knows every other monkey.
Nobody knows a million people.

i would be wearing a bearpelt, and live in a wooden cabin in the mountains, and shoot every approaching stranger on sight
yeah
i'd miss the internet tho...

I don't see primal society being any more or less moral or "proper" than our society today. If anything, the loss of knowledge and technology and culture would be a great loss to the human race and indeed the universe.

i'd say its slightly more proper, cus it doesnt count an impossible 6,5 billion individuals.
im taking that number seriously.

im being blunt about reducing that number, drastically, and indiscriminately, which is why im leaving it up to space to do it.
knowledge and technology are accidents, we observed and tested enough, and got so-far, now we even know how far we can possibly go, we know about the speed of light, and we have mapped neighboring galaxies we can never EVER get anywherenear.

is human existence going to revolve around: fanatically gathering knowledge for impossible future dreams

or

revolve around: living, enjoying life, being part of the planet (that is, nature).

in my opinion, we know enough. we know the sun wil keep growing, and at some point interrupt whatever evolution is up to here on earth anyway. like that human-image plaque we've sent out into space. how long was it meant to float around out there? hundred thousand years? ANY argument for that being a clever and productive idea, is nothing but poor poetry at best.
our entire global system of society is based on few people sealing their pensions. everyone knows this, yet we dont seem to know better.
argh now i got OVERexistential again

just pondering.
or i just want any reason for everyone to be naked, including end of the world scenarios.

i should go to bed...

It's hard to know which way a post apocalyptic society would go. Either it would be awesome, and small family groups would recreate society, and everyone would be nice to each other... or more likely, since there'd be no law and order, some people would take advantage of their new-found freedom to be utter bastards to everyone else.

I don't see you volunteering yourself or your family to die for the betterment of Earth. Although, I would be willing to seriously consider some less lethal methods of population control.



Remember how it was before civilization? The Israelites, Canaanites, Assyrians, Ancient Egyptians, present-day muslim extremists. Civilization domesticates us from our bigoted and savage roots. At least, for most of us.

partly agreed, I think the number has to come down, but I also think a natural disaster wont leave much for the survivors; personally I just plan to adopt rather than have kids: my little part to deal with overpopulation.

Tip: its a well documented fact that richer people have far less kids than poor people, ending African poverty would hugely reduce the birth rate.

A study of the existing hunter-gatherer societies indicates that they are far more lethal than more civilized (or technologically advanced societies). The murder rate in such societies is rather high. 20 to 40 percent of deaths are due to murder. Even later in history, wars, brigandary, theft, robbery and disorder killed a far higher percentage of the people who died from other than natural causes than in modern society. In modern society wars last under ten years. In the middle ages there was the Hundred Years War which lasted 113 years and the Thirty Years War. If you include the famines that were caused by crop destruction in war the lethality rate goes very high.

Modern times may seem horrific (and in some respects it is) but the lethality rate is much lower than in prior times.

Male bonded coalition violence is a recurring pattern in hominid species and was very lethal in earlier less technologically advanced societies.

See a talk by Stephen Pinker:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/stev ... lence.html

for an eye-operner.

ruveyn

I am distrustful of any Utopia that starts with the death of 99% of the human race.

I concur with you 99 percent.

If that many people died we would lose the critical mass of skills necessary for maintaining civilization. The surviving world would revert rapidly to late bronze age conditions and it would take hundreds of years, maybe thousands to reconstruct a sophisticated civilization.

People who want to return to the noble past are deluded and know nothing of history.

As counter intuitive as it may seem, modern life is considerably less lethal (relative to the population) size than days past. A much smaller percentage of children die before they are five years old. The Good Old Days were not all that Good.

ruveyn

ZEGH8578, since you are interested in the topic, find "The world without us" by Alan Weisman. Its an excellent read and full of surprises.

i SAID "indiscriminately", show me where exactly it was i excluded myself from this idea :]



oh your right, savagery and bigotry ended around 500 BC, yes?

ruveyn: the "100 years war" is just a name. read about it. most wars back then lastet like wars today, only historians have made funky names like 100-years and 30-years to keep them in track. some even use a similar number about ww1 and 2.
and sure more of the deaths are due to murder, in society, most deaths are due to cancer. to be COMPLETELY honest... i prefer murder :b

fuzzy: i have several the-world-without-us books, theyre all about dinosaurs
*poke* if i spot it, ill keep it in mind

Some of you have touched on this, but I see one huge problem for Aspies in particular.

Most humans are NT and regard that as the norm. We have no reason to think it would be any different in a post-apocalyptic society.

Many Aspies here have suffered hugely from ostracization, bullying and outright abuse. This is in a supposedly civilized society that has laws to protect people who are different from the norm. In other societies through history, kids or adults seen as 'different' have often been tortured or killed because the authorities, and indeed their families and communities, thought they were witches, changelings, possessed, or 'bad luck' for the tribe. I have little doubt that in primitive conditions, people would happily revert to that kind of behavior. And the harder things get materially, the more pressure there is for social cohesion, and the greater the pressure to conform. In a Bronze Age society, most of us wouldn't last five minutes.

I sometimes think about these things too.

In order for a post apocalyptic civilization to be any better then our current state all of science and technology would have to survive. Globalization would also have to survive the cataclysm (to ensure medical supplies and food are still transported around the world), which would only happen if people all around the world had prepared for it.

Only then could our civilization become stronger because of the cataclysm.


A more viable way to reach Utopia is through technology. What if energy was so plentiful that you could power your entire house for just a few dollars a month. What if food was grown within cities in huge farm towers, requiring almost no maintenance and ensuring no one ever goes hungry. Efficient water purification systems pipe sea water into the deserts, eliminating the worlds deserts and dramatically increasing living space. What if self sufficient colonies were built around the solar system, and great space stations sent off into deep towards new worlds space ensuring humanities survival for all time. War is nonexistent because there are no tangible things to fight over, and without poverty crime is extremely rare so a small police force is all that's needed to keep everything secure.

All of this could be accomplished in the next few centuries if they right conditions are met. In fact I think we'll see the start of some of it start within just a few decades. The future will come, and with it brings a utopia. Not a utopia of propaganda and draconian laws, but one of both freedom and security.

^ Interesting and nice...kind of a trekkie-style type of utopia. Although, I got the impression ZEGH8578's utopia version was utopic based on a lack of civilization. I guess either could be accomplished in the next few centuries if the right conditions are met...

well, an utopia that starts with the idea of the death of 100% of the human race doesn't sound that bad.