Hypothetical Doomsday Scenario

[dave1949]

Modern medicine saves many lives, but at the same time it also contributes to the growing problem of overpopulation....

Well, yes and no. Doctors save and extend lives but not until someone makes the decision or "happens" to create a life. That is part of the deal we make, if we have the knowledge to heal, create life or fly to Disneyland, we seem to be unable to resist using it. Humanity's fatal weakness?

[MasseyWV]

Well, yes and no. Doctors save and extend lives but not until someone makes the decision or "happens" to create a life. That is part of the deal we make, if we have the knowledge to heal, create life or fly to Disneyland, we seem to be unable to resist using it. Humanity's fatal weakness?

That's why I used the word "contributes". And I agree that "making babies" is a much bigger contributor to the growing problem of overpopulation. If nothing changes, we are a doomed species, and the worse part is that we know it. Fatal weakness? Yep, that fits humanity to a tee.

[Alien]

I see someone suggested we would go back to typewriters. This would lead to billions more letters, postmen on horses or pushbikes and back to sailing boat days. Ah well, we have a horse.....
Hmmm, cost of horses would multiply somewhat......

[madmax12]

Wait a second! I just got my first tractor. Don't be pushing any stone-age buttons!!! This whole tractor thing is just way too cool...

Maybe we could just spend more time on our tractors making the world a better place, helping neighbors, etc... maybe then no one would want to push the button.

[LD1]

Push the button and no more TBN......Nah, I'll pass. I like TBN

[k0ua]

Well you have the Natural way, like the 1859 solar Coronal Mass Ejection. That would do it or there is the man made way the Explosively Pumped Flux Compression Generator, here is some information..

Explosively pumped flux compression generator - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Me I hope no one pushes the button, and we don't ever again in my lifetime have a large CME.

James K0UA

[riptides]

...
Would the world be better off without technology?

No, technology is a tool that has enabled mankind to do wonders. Your looking at only the recreational aspect of it? It is imbedded within so many things, it would be difficult to move forward without it.

[Blitzn]

In the 1800's you could die young or lose your wife to childbirth difficulties or lose a child to cholera. The growth of medical technology prevents that, but comes at the cost of necessary complexity. Imagine the chaos of cell phones/tv/radio without an FCC to assign frequencies. Then think of all the government related actions it takes to create, empower, enforce the creation of an FCC or modern hospital, it's endless--not that it can't always be improved upon.

I think the "button question" is asking if we have made a deal with the Devil in accepting/wanting the benefits of technology while resenting the complexity it necessarily imposes upon us. I don't think we get a do-over. If someone pushed the button, we would work like heck to put it all back together again.

I think to automatically assume we are living longer due to technology could be open to debate. My grandma is still around at 96 with no health benefits, great grandma was 94, and great great was 102. Certainly some form of social darwinism is probably at work - but would society also be healthier as a result? That's opening a can of worms I don't want to open - choosing who lives and dies - I'll leave that up to the govt healthcare panels.

[dave1949]

I think to automatically assume we are living longer due to technology could be open to debate. My grandma is still around at 96 with no health benefits, great grandma was 94, and great great was 102. Certainly some form of social darwinism is probably at work - but would society also be healthier as a result? That's opening a can of worms I don't want to open - choosing who lives and dies - I'll leave that up to the govt healthcare panels.

That is another can of worms indeed. Having technology and having access to that technology are two different things. Good on your Grannies!

[patrick_g]

If the "magic button" caused a slow irreversible degradation in all things electronic rather than an immediate loss which would result in a mass extinction worse than Hitler's death camps on steroids you might find more (sane) folks willing to push it. Have we slaughtered way too many "others" in our video games such that the concept of killing millions of humans is palatable for a discussion, hypothetical or otherwise?

Who among us would "REALLY" push the button knowing there would be a way greater than 50-50 chance they would be dead within 90 days along with their wives, children, and friends? The millions of city dwellers who are fully dependent on modern technology to run the "conveyor belt" which provides a stream of food to them will not sit casually in their dwellings in the dark and die quietly of starvation and thirst in a pool of their own excrement. After exhausting the pitifully small reserves of canned foods and bottled water these millions will look to the countryside for food and drink. Armed roving gangs will take what they can find by force. Few to no armed and disaster prepared citizens are sufficiently prepared for the hoards of city dwellers in their "survival mode." The addicts alone will cause chaos aplenty but with literally millions of city dwellers scrounging the countryside for food and water you so called prepared folks with a shotgun, rifle and pistol or two and your chickens , goats, pigs, etc will be starving within weeks.

Unless you have truly trustworthy friends, well trained in military arts with whom to band together for mutual self defense and have an arsenal including flame throwers, machine guns and the like in hardened bunkers interconnected underground you won't withstand the first few attacks from the city folks.

This is what pushing the button would cause. Of course disease would be an issue as well but you might be killed, starved, or dead from thirst before disease could run its course.

So, if you opt for the button then you may be an insane megalomaniac who may not have a good grasp of the consequences or some demented idiot who thinks the ends justifies the means. Gee, if we just cause a living hades on earth for a few years and cause millions upon millions to die terrible deaths while destroying much of civilization then we can return to a simpler time where life was just one big Disney theme park petting zoo. BALDERDASH!!! It is likely that this pastoral utopia would not happen. It is more likely there would be thousands of little emperors with their armies killing over the means of food production in a chaotic maelstrom of misery. Without a way to cause amnesia so no one could remember when there used to be technology there would always be folks who would want to make life easier.

I may not be prescient but I'd put good odds that my prediction is not so far from what would actually happen. To think otherwise is useless wishful thinking. People aren't just going to, for the convenience of the button pushers, dig their own graves and climb in to await death by starvation and thirst.

Pat