4 ms·

I agree that it's a huge IF, but the repercussions are much worse than "inconvenience." You have to follow the scenario a few steps further to figure out the fu

I agree that it's a huge IF, but the repercussions are much worse than "inconvenience." You have to follow the scenario a few steps further to figure out the full magnitude of things. "Civilization" is, in a sense, a massive and highly complex life-support system. You don't really need it to live in a small town, but the populace of a city or even a large town can't survive without it. There's a saying, "Any city is only three days away from a riot." Without a massive and sophisticated logistical system constantly bringing new supplies in and waste out, food and other critical supplies will run out very quickly, and then things get ugly fast. After the financial system is zeroized, how do you get paid? The company you work for has no money with which to pay you. They have no way to make money, because none of their customers have money to pay them with. If you're not getting paid, what's your incentive to show up to work? Everybody would be in that conundrum, so commerce would grind to a halt and cities would start to starve. The government would order law enforcement and the military to keep working even without pay, and they could probably force workers in key industries like power companies to keep going to work, but they couldn't do that for everyone. Even if you had cash to buy groceries with, the grocery store probably wouldn't have groceries to sell to you because they would have no money with which to buy them. The government could magically set account balances, putting money into everyone's pocket based on some sort of guesstimate, but that wouldn't really work, either. Fiat money is based on trust: the assumption that if you accept a dollar in exchange for goods, you will be able to turn around and exchange that dollar for a comparable quantity of other goods. If the financial system is zeroized, that trust is broken. People would rather have tangible assets instead of money of dubious origin that has demonstrated the capacity to literally vanish overnight. Hoarding and hyper-inflation would ensue. The punchline of all of this is that millions of people would starve to death in the cities within a matter of weeks. Millions more would pour out into the countryside, looting and pillaging. Law and order would break down completely in all but the most remote places. Remote places would probably degrade much more gracefully to lower levels of technology, and bounce back quickly as well after the dust settled, but the cities and suburbs would literally be wiped out. An event like this would probably result in a death toll comparable to a widespread nuclear strike, and would equally destroy the nation as a functioning political and social entity.

nitrogen 15y ago
Millions more would pour out into the countryside, looting and pillaging. While we're on the subject of apocalyptic scenarios, it's important to remember that there is an abundance of guns in the countryside, so any of us "city folk" hoping to loot some tasty country cooking are in for a different sort of treat. An event like this would probably result in a death toll comparable to a widespread nuclear strike, and would equally destroy the nation as a functioning political and social entity. I'd like to think that a new system of logistics would evolve very quickly after a total financial disaster, so long as the food supplies didn't get so low that peoples' low blood sugar diminishes their ability to control their anger.
- lucasjung 15y ago
  >While we're on the subject of apocalyptic scenarios, it's important to remember that there is an abundance of guns in the countryside, so any of us "city folk" hoping to loot some tasty country cooking are in for a different sort of treat. While the ratio of guns/people is much higher in the countryside, the absolute number of guns in a big city is orders of magnitude higher than the absolute number of guns in any rural county. Even if there were no guns in the city, a mob of desparate people will charge a smaller number of better-armed people if starvation is the only other alternative. Also, rural populations are, by definition, spread out, making it easy for large mobs of looters to pick them off one homestead at a time. Those well-armed country folk aren't going to fare so well unless they are really far from the nearest big city. >I'd like to think that a new system of logistics would evolve very quickly after a total financial disaster, so long as the food supplies didn't get so low that peoples' low blood sugar diminishes their ability to control their anger. I'd like to think so, too. In areas with lower population density, it will probably work out that way, in large measure because it is possible in a small enough community to know almost everyone, making trust and barter a lot easier. In cities, where trade relies on cash because there are too many strangers, and where the logistical system is much more complex, I don't think it's likely for a viable alternative to evolve quickly enough to prevent mass starvation and the accompanying violence.

nitrogen 15y ago

Millions more would pour out into the countryside, looting and pillaging. While we're on the subject of apocalyptic scenarios, it's important to remember that there is an abundance of guns in the countryside, so any of us "city folk" hoping to loot some tasty country cooking are in for a different sort of treat. An event like this would probably result in a death toll comparable to a widespread nuclear strike, and would equally destroy the nation as a functioning political and social entity. I'd like to think that a new system of logistics would evolve very quickly after a total financial disaster, so long as the food supplies didn't get so low that peoples' low blood sugar diminishes their ability to control their anger.

lucasjung 15y ago
>While we're on the subject of apocalyptic scenarios, it's important to remember that there is an abundance of guns in the countryside, so any of us "city folk" hoping to loot some tasty country cooking are in for a different sort of treat. While the ratio of guns/people is much higher in the countryside, the absolute number of guns in a big city is orders of magnitude higher than the absolute number of guns in any rural county. Even if there were no guns in the city, a mob of desparate people will charge a smaller number of better-armed people if starvation is the only other alternative. Also, rural populations are, by definition, spread out, making it easy for large mobs of looters to pick them off one homestead at a time. Those well-armed country folk aren't going to fare so well unless they are really far from the nearest big city. >I'd like to think that a new system of logistics would evolve very quickly after a total financial disaster, so long as the food supplies didn't get so low that peoples' low blood sugar diminishes their ability to control their anger. I'd like to think so, too. In areas with lower population density, it will probably work out that way, in large measure because it is possible in a small enough community to know almost everyone, making trust and barter a lot easier. In cities, where trade relies on cash because there are too many strangers, and where the logistical system is much more complex, I don't think it's likely for a viable alternative to evolve quickly enough to prevent mass starvation and the accompanying violence.