Supply chain collapse, and or extended down comms occuring simultaneously with a biological weapon capable of > 30% mortality. The devastation from sudden unexpected disruption of pharmaceutical dependency and substance abuse withdrawl alone would be unprecedented. I know many people under 30 years old, who cannot tell the time on an analog clock face, or cook a nutritious meal, let alone kill one. I am personally terrified how presently fragile and interdependent ascendant and peaking generations are currently. The simple detatchment from nature in its totality leads me to believe it would require precious little to decimate the majority of 2 standing generations.
Realistically this won't happen without a collapse of the energy economy. Oh, we can have shortages, or complete runouts. But the system keeps churning as long as people can get food, which is predicated on energy. Fuel to move food around, and electricity to keep it cold (and/or make it hot). If people can't buy clothes, widgets, or shit from ikea, modernity doesn't end, people just go without shit they probably didn't need anyway.
Loss of communications is itself not sufficient to trigger a total failure of energy and food distribution. Because those systems operate partly on MOMENTUM, whether bureaucratic or mechanical. Piggly Wiggly opened decades before they had computers in every store and they did fine. Hell, the store I worked in as a kid only had a proper actual computer to track video rentals. Whenever we got a truck, we gave the driver our (on paper) order for the next shipment. Literally sneakernet.
Now, as for your point about a biological attack... unlikely to happen. Explaining WHY it's unlikely to happen would require going into pages about R0. Oh, you can make deadly biological agents. But they generally have to be deployed in the same fashion as chemicals. They're paradoxically TOO lethal to actually spread in the wild. LIke, literally, a virus that deadly is not likely to be that transmissible.
You could pick up a handful of dirt and there are deadlier viruses in your hand then man could think up. But they're too deadly to be effectively weaponized on a large scale, you have to keep manufacturing it, it's R0 in the wild will simply be too low.
Spanish flu is the sweet spot. You really can't expect more from a readily transmissible virus. There are deadlier, they don't spread anywhere near as fast or easily. There are faster spreading, they aren't as deadly. It's a biological balancing act.
When I was a bagger, I witnessed the transition from mechanical to electronic cash registers. 😆
Unlikely, yes, though not impossible. Simultaneous and coordinated manual deployment of a lab cultured pathogen with a high burn rate would probably be sufficient and not rely heavily on propagation by natural means if delivered as an aerosol in a weaponized fashion in densely populated areas. The pandemonium this would trigger would exceed my ability to imagine. Just to reiterate, my greatest cause for concern is modern western human. The level of physical and moral weakness and the potential for exposure at the hands of the natural environment leads me to think horrible things. I was likely amongst the last generation to be educated in general survival skills as a matter of course as children. I can build a house, raise produce and livestock, fix your car and paint it too. I don’t need matches to start a fire, or a weapon to kill an animal and prefer trapping. I was then a software engineer for 22 years in metropolis. I feel more threatened by simple ignorance than intentional evil.
Supply chain collapse, and or extended down comms occuring simultaneously with a biological weapon capable of > 30% mortality. The devastation from sudden unexpected disruption of pharmaceutical dependency and substance abuse withdrawl alone would be unprecedented. I know many people under 30 years old, who cannot tell the time on an analog clock face, or cook a nutritious meal, let alone kill one. I am personally terrified how presently fragile and interdependent ascendant and peaking generations are currently. The simple detatchment from nature in its totality leads me to believe it would require precious little to decimate the majority of 2 standing generations.
Good.
Realistically this won't happen without a collapse of the energy economy. Oh, we can have shortages, or complete runouts. But the system keeps churning as long as people can get food, which is predicated on energy. Fuel to move food around, and electricity to keep it cold (and/or make it hot). If people can't buy clothes, widgets, or shit from ikea, modernity doesn't end, people just go without shit they probably didn't need anyway.
Loss of communications is itself not sufficient to trigger a total failure of energy and food distribution. Because those systems operate partly on MOMENTUM, whether bureaucratic or mechanical. Piggly Wiggly opened decades before they had computers in every store and they did fine. Hell, the store I worked in as a kid only had a proper actual computer to track video rentals. Whenever we got a truck, we gave the driver our (on paper) order for the next shipment. Literally sneakernet.
Now, as for your point about a biological attack... unlikely to happen. Explaining WHY it's unlikely to happen would require going into pages about R0. Oh, you can make deadly biological agents. But they generally have to be deployed in the same fashion as chemicals. They're paradoxically TOO lethal to actually spread in the wild. LIke, literally, a virus that deadly is not likely to be that transmissible.
You could pick up a handful of dirt and there are deadlier viruses in your hand then man could think up. But they're too deadly to be effectively weaponized on a large scale, you have to keep manufacturing it, it's R0 in the wild will simply be too low.
Spanish flu is the sweet spot. You really can't expect more from a readily transmissible virus. There are deadlier, they don't spread anywhere near as fast or easily. There are faster spreading, they aren't as deadly. It's a biological balancing act.
I agree with your edit.
When I was a bagger, I witnessed the transition from mechanical to electronic cash registers. 😆
Unlikely, yes, though not impossible. Simultaneous and coordinated manual deployment of a lab cultured pathogen with a high burn rate would probably be sufficient and not rely heavily on propagation by natural means if delivered as an aerosol in a weaponized fashion in densely populated areas. The pandemonium this would trigger would exceed my ability to imagine. Just to reiterate, my greatest cause for concern is modern western human. The level of physical and moral weakness and the potential for exposure at the hands of the natural environment leads me to think horrible things. I was likely amongst the last generation to be educated in general survival skills as a matter of course as children. I can build a house, raise produce and livestock, fix your car and paint it too. I don’t need matches to start a fire, or a weapon to kill an animal and prefer trapping. I was then a software engineer for 22 years in metropolis. I feel more threatened by simple ignorance than intentional evil.