I doubt it. I've ruminated a little on this and what I think is that as people start dying off, the survivors will find a rather pleasant existence before the end.
People start dying off, and all of a sudden housing prices go down. There's more parks open. The air feels fresher gradually. It's a gradual decline as human influence tapers off near the end. I think it will be more "The Last of Us" than "Mad Max"
Humans living through an event where many people are dying will not be calm and happy, they will panic. There will be factions of people trying to survive and hold society together no matter the cost, others who don't believe or agree with these methods and actively resist, as well as those who seek to exploit the chaos.
COVID was a relatively minor example of this, not even close to an extinction event - how pleasant was existence during that time?
I'll be honest, covid wasn't much different than my usual routine. Maybe it would have been if I lived in a more densely populated area.
If not for modern comms, I am convinced that even in a cold war USA vs USSR style aniliation event, there would still be a handful of people on the far corners of the earth who would otherwise take weeks or months to learn anything happened.
To use your COVID example, most of us living well outside the cities and suburbia were very little affected by it. The biggest inconvenience I remember was having to go to Walmart at 6:00 when it opened to get a chance at buying toilet paperl
>COVID was a relatively minor example of this, not even close to an extinction event - how pleasant was existence during that time?
For me it was mostly terrific. We had increased streams of revenue and were food secure for the first time in a decade. Meetings I dreaded due to crowds were streamed online.
And the roads were blessedly, amazingly, wonderfully travelable.
The housing crisis in 2021 was another matter entirely. Our long term rental was sold and what few listings there were got 400 hundred applications - every day.
2020 was excellent for us. 2021 was a slow moving, panic-strewn nightmare.
The net global birth rate is still above replacement, and many parts of the world much higher. The species is not going extinct because some of us are below maintenance rates.
But I guess my line of thinking is the need for these things will be lesser. The hypothesis is society will decrease proportionally There will still be firemen, there will just be less firemen than if measured against "now."
People start dying off, and all of a sudden housing prices go down. There's more parks open. The air feels fresher gradually. It's a gradual decline as human influence tapers off near the end. I think it will be more "The Last of Us" than "Mad Max"