Life After People With a Twist

[Lord MJ]

Watching the series, Life after People.

Was wondering what would happen if humans suddenly disappeared today, but reappeared at some point in the future. Would humanity be able to survive after reappearing in a world that previously had been devoid of humans for many years?

What would happen after

1 year
10 years
50 years
100 years

Would say 1 year be a reparable state of affairs for human civilization? I would imagine after 100 years, it would be worst than a nuclear holocaust for humanity, with 6 billion people needing to live of no infrastructure.

[atg]

Not really sure of the details of this but I would think the 10/50/100 year options would be much the same. Unless there are some handy giant storehouses of very long life foodstuffs, 6+ billion people reappearing when there hasn't been any crops for 9 years would be pretty devestating for the population.

[Lord MJ]

Life after people is essentially a documentary series trying to predict what would happen to the world, human infrastructure, etc if humans simply disappeared. After even a year the series shows our left over infrastructure starting to deteriorate without human maintenance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_After_People

[Knife]

As a species? We'd be fine. Our various cultures and societies would take a serious blow.

[LaCroix]

Big blow, world population would be reduced to 'sustainable' size, probably 1 to 2 billion range.

Most of Africa and large portions of Asia are doing well without much of an modern infrastructure today, but without any crops planted, we'll see a major famine for a couple of years until crops are produced in quantity. Still, they'll get back to status quo much quicker than 'we' do.

Europe and America would take big hits, and probably be reduced to 1/4 of their size as we quickly reactivate all infrastructure that is still there and repair the rest. Wildlife should have regrown sufficiently to work as an initial food supply.

In general, I guess any kind of absence would take us back about 50-100 years - a decade or so to re-establish our food supply chain, and then we'll start catching up on education - which would take us a generation or so. Frankly, I guess the US would take longer to get back, since the people to survive are those in the more rural parts. The size of European cities is much lower, and they are more spread out, which means that they are in a better initial position. NYC and other megacities will be hit hardest... Also, Europe's infrastructure was in better shape to start with - so we gain a good couple of centuries in deterioration. Oh, and Europe has less tornadoes and hurricanes.

Come to think of it and remembering the series - Washington would be gone in swamps, New Orleans, too. NYC might be half-rotten, and Vegas and some other southern cities might be inhabitable, as well, considering there is suddenly no air-condition and massive damage due to climate. If Los Angeles/San Francisco is still there or destroyed by multiple earthquakes with no repairs between is anybodies guess.

[cosmicalstorm]

I would love to go to such a world in a time machine and visit it for a short time, take a stroll down a major city.

[RedImperator]

I would love to go to such a world in a time machine and visit it for a short time, take a stroll down a major city.

I think we can safely say that (absent a glacier) the Empire State Building will not be migrating to Brooklyn no matter how long we're gone.

[Iracundus]

Aside from simple population fall due to starvation, there is the societal effect of a sudden scramble for food. Anarchy and violent conflict would be the natural result. It would possibly also result in massive fall in technology as people would be concentrating on the rudiments of survival. Your electrical engineer or computer programmer is going to concentrate first on filling their bellies with food before they have time to practice what they know (or teach others). A lot of knowledge may be lost due to primal priorities of food and shelter taking precedence over more technical or theoretical knowledge.

Even agriculture might take time to re-establish. Modern agriculture is often dependent on imports of fertilizer, pesticides, and existing stores of seeds. Food crops have also been bred to be better nutritionally and better yielding but at the expense of being less adept to survive in the wild. It is unlikely these plants would exist if the absence of humanity has been long. Yield on wild plants is going to be poor and would not support a big population.

[Eulogy]

It would be better for humanity if the reappearance of humans was a gradual trickle instead of a huge wave - say, half a million people every five years or so.

[Bedlam]

It would be better for humanity if the reappearance of humans was a gradual trickle instead of a huge wave - say, half a million people every five years or so.

That would probably depend on who reapears and where. If their all scattered around the world and each is more or less left to fend for themselves then only a very small proportion of people can probably survive by themselves even if their used to hunting/farming.

If half a million urban first world dwellers appear in their home city, again most of them are going to die as they cannot cope.

However, if the people and area returning were selected for the optimum plan then things would be much better withe the first waves being able to rebuild agriculture to provide food for the later waves (if they wanted to, the first groups may want to change civilisation somewhat).

[Irbis]

It would be better for humanity if the reappearance of humans was a gradual trickle instead of a huge wave - say, half a million people every five years or so.

Then, the population of today would return in ~70.000 years, or only 25 times the length of recorded history. Doesn't that strike you as a bit excessive?

[Lord MJ]

How long can humanity's disappearance last before infrastructure deteriortates to the point that the population is sustainable.

I would imagine that even a disappearance of a month would cause widespread economic devastation. Indeed in one episode it says that Oil Refineries would cook off in a matter of days. So if humans were gone for 1 month, they would return to a world in which all the world's oil refineries are giant bonfires.

Also I would imagine that livestock would not be in a good shape. Urban subways and water infrastructure could be in very bad shape also.

[Vashon]

Past two weeks all hell would break lose but the modern status quo would be mostly okay.

Past a single year, holy shit things go to hell and stay there for quiet some time. China and India have it the easiest thanks to sheer inertia helping them reunite as semi-recognizable nation states. As will Japan and the Nordic countries. Ethno-Commonality and shared identity help a lot. Everybody else, and I mean everybody else is double fucked. Basically, everywhere that has been inhabitted by one civilization or another throughout the last 4000 years or has a stable and homogenous population along with relative isolation from outside invaders will get their shit together first, everybody else will be too busy with civil wars and reunification through conquest.


The USA dies. Everybody who lived off of American food exports is fucked. With famine comes disease, with these comes war and more devestation. Africa takes some population hits and possibly another African Empire is built out of the blood and misery and klacking of the Kalashnikov. World wide HIV rates are going to crash dramatically in five years. Because they all die. The morbidly obese, diabetic and severely asthmatic are similarly screwed. Those who squander resources trying to save these people are also screwed on the whole.


This event undoes 200 years of progress for the Western Worlds in the way it treats people. America will not rise again to superpower status. It simply cant. After twenty years, the New Era begins.

[Flameblade]

Y'all are looking at crops, going "We'll starve!" but most everyone would be dead long before that. See, most places where people live, there's not a whole huge amount of this little thing called 'clean, potable water' that's readily available right then and there. So if humanity is gone long enough for utilities to break down and wells going uncleared, then within a week, maybe two for the hardier, the overwhelming majority of the human race will be dead from either dehydration (or related complications) or from drinking tainted water. That's even leaving aside people dying from reappearing in buildings that have since burned down or on ships that have long-since drifted away, or up where their plane had once been.