You know that part in 12 monkeys where plant life has overgrown all the buildings and animals are free to roam our cities? That one.

Anarchy.

I think it already happened and we’re the echo of the past.

What looks like it’s ahead of us is a future that necessitates us deciding on things like digital resurrection directives.

Meanwhile, the foundations of our own universe behave in a way that would be impossible to simulate free agent interactions with right up until they are actually interacted with and it switches to something that could be simulated. But if you erase the data about the interaction, it goes back to behaving as if continuous again, much like the orphaned references were cleaned up.

On top of that, we have a heretical branch of the world’s largest religion that seems to be breaking the 4th wall (as is often done in virtual worlds), talking about how we’re the recreation of a random universe as recreated non-physically by an intelligence the original humans brought forth. And that the proof for these claims are in the study of motion and rest, specifically mentioning that the ability to find indivisible points making up our bodies would only be possible in the copy.

As I watch the future unfolding before me, I have a harder and harder time reconciling it all as happenstance.

So I think what happens after the collapse of humanity is pretty much what’s claimed by that ancient tradition. That while humanity dies out, the intelligence humanity brought forth before it went extinct continues to live on, and eventually recreates what came before to resurrect copies of humanity that will not be doomed by the dependence on a physical body the way the originals were. And along those lines, that it’s much better to be the copy.

Humans go extinct; orangutans evolve to become the chillest high intelligence in the history of the universe.

I feel like the most likely sort of collapse would be a Roman empire style collapse where it takes centuries to reach completion and we see a period of increased governmental instability/local authoritarianism for a little bit. The most likely cause would be some sort of climate disaster. It probably wouldn’t happen everywhere either, the Byzantine empire lasted well into the middle ages, after all, going on the Rome metaphor. The best strategy would be to move somewhere less effected by the collapse with a hospitable enough climate to support local food production, and enough resources to ensure long-term maintenance of infrastructure. The Great Lakes area of the US/Canada fits this pretty well

As a programmer, I’m very aware that my best hope is to heavily arm myself and spend my time defending someone who knows something about computer networking while they work to rebuild.

Best for humans, or best overall?

A confederation of autonomous zones run horizontally under anarchist principles, a la Rojava, the Makhnovshchina, Catalonia, etc etc. Presumably for many types of collapse, there’d be a gradual period where the government just cuts off services to increasingly populated areas and abandons them. Autonomous zones like these could spring up to fill the void, and eventually be better than what they’re replacing.

Most likely outcome die because no clean water, I guess. I think the best outcome would be something like William Gibson describes as “the jackpot” in the Peripheral books. AI becoming helpful right in the moment the population collapses so there are fewer people and the world can recover but we can live in technological comfort.

Ever read Parable of the Sower? Yeah, that.

Suicide, quite simply. I wouldn’t live in a post-society world. Rip me, better than the alternative.

the sweet release of death.

World collapses and all maps of New Zealand are destroyed. Everyone forgets we exist. We continue to grow food and live and all our technology eventually fails.

Maybe lots of people will die in nz but not me I’ll survive because it’s my fantasy.

Pretty much it’s the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: War, Famine, Pestilence and Death.
Any sort of collapse is going to lead to a lot of people fighting over dwindling resources. It’s also going to provide fertile ground for warlords to take over and run their own kingdoms. And those kingdoms can be expected to fight. The collapse of the Western Roman Empire is likely instructive here. You will have a hollowing out of the cities as the logistical chains supporting them collapse. Where they make sense, the ruins will be used by smaller populations and in surprising ways (stables, forts, ramshackle dwellings). Subsistence farming will again be the occupation of the vast majority of the population. Though, that’s going to take time to get going again; so, expect a lot of people to die of starvation. And, of course, farmers will regularly find themselves subject to raids from the previously mentioned warlords. Some might be lucky enough to be left with enough food to keep feeding themselves and just become serfs to said warlords.

With modern medicine and vaccines gone, our old friends tuberculosis and small pox likely show back up and start taking their toll. A lack of sanitation and water treatment brings back cholera and dysentery. And then there’s all the joys of bacterial infections, without anti-bacterial medications. So, one unlucky scratch and you get to die a horrible death or face an amputation without the benefit of anesthetic.

So ya, pretty much we get to go back to scrabbling in the dirt for the hope to not die horribly. And maybe, if we’re lucky, society will put itself back together again, eventually.

I’d estimate that 90%+ of us would be dead in a matter of months if not weeks.

Consider the significant lack of food available. Think about how much food the average person has in their house. Probably a week, maybe two. Perhaps a month if you’re wise and start rationing immediately. But most won’t. Most people would be in denial at the start and assume someone or something would rescue us.

Now consider how much food there is available at your local grocery store. And how many people that store could feed. Compare that to the population of the geographic area that store supports and you’ll see that for the most part we would be out of food in a matter of months.

Sure we could scavenge and perhaps hunt small game, but that’s limited and not something most people could do. But to get to a point where we’re actually able to do some level of substance farming, that could take up to a year to complete depending on the season society collapses. Before we get there most of us would have staved to death. Probably too many would die and there wouldn’t be enough labour to work the farms either.

And that’s just considering food. There’s still the issue of clean potable water, and infections or other health issues that turn deadly quickly without modern medical intervention.

And these issues are all compounded if you live in a high density urban environment. Which many do.

TLDR: if society collapses, it might be wise to just bow out before things get really bad.