The whole world population dead or only 99% dead (keeping the wealthy 1%). Which do you choose and why?
The whole world population dead or only 99% dead (keeping the wealthy 1%). Which do you choose and why?
100%
I dont actually care about the continued propogation of the species all that much, and I'm cooked either way so... lets crab bucket it up.
6
1I don't think this question is particularly interesting or productive, either you accept total extinction or you accept eco-fascism as a valid viewpoint in the context of this question. There's nothing to be learned from, and it sets the user up to align with eco-fascism based on a false dichotomy to begin with.
24Nah, if 99% are dead, then its definitely as the result of the rich 1% murdering them, so no murderer should get to live.
Let other species have a chance.
5There's only one answer. What's the point of this question? The only people that would want total wipe out are the ones that say stuff like "Humanity is a cancer on the world I shall go and do a clean-up!".
16The outcome would be the same. If the 1% survived some event, they wouldn't be able to survive on their own and would thus die out. It would just take a little longer for them.
8Eh, 1% includes like 80 million people globally, they're not all useless billionaires. There are probably a good number of them (likely towards the lower end of the spectrum) that actually work for a living and enough existing resources they'd have time to rework society.
The real question I have is how they'd be distributed. 1% globally or 1% per country/region. Both have advantages and disadvantages for survival.
11Good points. I wonder if they would try to enslave each other.
3
Starting over wouldn't have any benefits unless humans would somehow have a completely changed consciousness. Otherwise the same egocentric views would dominate and competition would make sure that we get the same world again.
Humans are not capable of prioritizing "what do we as a species want to accomplish this year". Should we look at world production and make sure nobody goes hungry, for example. Nope, can't do it, because we have countries and money, making sure we can't just cooperate and make it happen.
3Most of the richest 1% would come from few different countries, so there would probably be less cultural differences at least. I could imagine the world being divided into one country per continent or something. People living very far from each other would accelerate digitalisation of governance.
Cutting emissions by about 95% could also help with climate change. Also people could just move away from highly affected regions.
I think humanity might just be better off. That said, I dont think this is limited to the richest 1%, most distributions of 1% of the population would do.
2
The latter. It's bad, hopeless, but still better than the former which is a completely nonrecoverable loss position.
8The 1% live a sheltered and privileged life on the shoulders of the rest. If that support would disappears, I don't see much chance for long term survival. You'd be fucked anyway.
7I don’t think you give them enough credit. Do they live a good life? Yes.
On the shoulders of others? Yes
Are they stupid? No
Are they unable to read or learn? No
They’d survive
4Are they stupid? Yes
FTFY
1
Maybe the 1% of the 1% would survive then. The billionaires who spent their wealth on batman training. They would make good cannibals.
2And then they'd die
1
How did everyone die? Assuming that you were the rich person or the indentured servant of a rich person, it would depend on that for sure.
Was it a horrendous, highly contagious mega-pandemic that no one is immune to, and you survived because you billionaire-bunkered the moment that news reports started to hit? I'd think you could resurface sooner rather than later, and there will be places you can travel to that aren't really contaminated by the dead (like places that had low population before the outbreak).
After a few years, you could branch out to wherever (not that any single place is really that much better than others in a nearly empty world), likely the plague will no longer be virulent among the dead. You could quickly carve out a decent life for yourself, though you'd better get self-sufficient fast, without the support structures of the old world being there to do everything for you.
But if it was nuclear apocalypse? You're going to be bunkered for a long time, with little company. You'd likely end up envying the dead.
6An alien invasion gone wrong. Creatures from another dimension did a demonic possession of the whole world population at once. Misjudged their ability to handle our genre of reality. All died from seizures. Except for the 1% who happened to use the same very expensive skin-care products that gave them an unexpected resistance to all that.
3
Keep the species alive.
70m rich people to run humanity.. they won't be rich anymore, it's all relative. Probably the first problem is going to be to organize self sufficient communities, search and rescue the isolated pockets of survivors.
Many rich people tend to live near each other, but not too near, so some communities will be able to get started quickly.
Basics of life, food, shelter, security, health. Probably a fair few doctors in the survivor group, so health is covered.
Probably many can fly airplanes. A few might even be able the maintain their planes.
Adventuring is an extremely rich person's hobby, so there will be basic survival skills in the group.
Food, like in many zombie scenarios, will last a few years before it becomes critical.
In this scenario, we're probably looking at a lot of learn skills in this group, because of their previous amount of leisure time, some of them have accrued lots of knowledge. That they can now apply. For those who have no basic skills, they will be forced to learn. Maybe not all 70 million will thrive, but enough. Society will continue. Humans will continue.
As far as the survivors are concerned, they're no longer rich, they're in a labor poor environment, and they have to provide for themselves. So society will effectively reset.
5Seeing as I'd be dead either way, I'm not sure why I'd care.
4This is just a question on whether one were rich or not lol.
But anyway, both option tend to end with everyone dead or at least only 0.001% surviving if we're talking about Thanos snap situation. The 1% cannot run any facility on their own(electricity, plumbing, health, etc), and tend not to be a survivor expert. Infighting will happen soon, and tribes will form. If it happens in winter, the one from cold country will all die out if they don't all have doomsday vault, leaving those from the warmer climate to face the element. In the end, they will realise the billions and millions of moneys they accumulated is worthless if there's no way to use it.
3Lol indeed
1
These scenarios are identical in my opinion. They'll likely dwindle and die in a short time anyway. The wealthy are not particularly well suited to rebuilding society, nor are they at a disadvantage, they are just average people who (used to) have wealth.
Actually, little side thought occurs to me here, they can't access their wealth unless it was stored physically, and even then, only if our concept of currency hasn't changed. In my version of this scenario, I'm assuming the 1% still have useful currency, banks still work, etc.
So we got a bunch of more or less equally rich people, who may have access to resources, but their laborers and security forces are Thanos-snapped away.
Hmm..
My guess is that the ones who have weapons will establish a sort of warlord apocalypse scenario. Wouldn't be much different from any other random selection of 1% of the population. The resources you hold and the skills you know matter even more when society disappears. It will start with 1%, the sudden shock of not having most other people to provide for each other will quickly halve that. The fighting over resources will kill a bit more. Eventually there will be an environmental disaster like a drought, and that's it for humanity.
1If 80m people survived a few thousand years ago and kept growing, why would 80m people now, with access to thousands of times more knowledge and technology, die?
1People run technology. People have knowledge. These things die when people die.
The richest 1% are not those people. We'd have a better chance with a random selection (only 12% of billionaires are female!)
The internet, electricity, running water, sewage, do not work unless someone is operating and maintaining them. Manufacture of supplies to maintain them depend on coordination across the globe, and further specialized skills.
Effectively, technology will be reset for at least a generation to pre-electricity levels. This is survivable, sure.
But, the way I see it, if this event happened instantly or close to it (months, even) the survivors would not be prepared to shift immediately to that lifestyle. This is where I would predict mass deaths.
I've also been assuming these people are not together in one place, and without air travel they would be limited to a shorter range. I suppose if they were all smart enough, they might congregate in a few different places. There's a chance if they cooperate and don't fight each other. Humans can do that. The richest humans, though?
1
Well, the top 1% is not really that wealthy. Globally, I'm in the 1% and chances are pretty good you are too if you live in a western country!
As to whether I'd choose to live in a world where only ~80 million people remain... Well, I'd try, though my country would be pretty much fucked and immediately occupied by larger neighbours. And generally I think the world would be pretty fucking terrible for a decade or so.
1