Fragillimus335
Member
Sauropod fanatic, and dinosaur specialist
Posts: 573
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Post by Fragillimus335 on Sept 1, 2013 5:11:32 GMT 5
Humans are horrifyingly adaptable, and while many billions will die, I believe humanity would escape extinction by a wide margin. The physical effects of a 10km bolide impact would be quite devastating, but of course, countless millions, and likely billions would survive, especially in china and other Asian countries. Now, the other factors of course would be mass famine and inter-human conflict. As far as famine goes the past gives us ample evidence of outcome.... the poor die, but upper and upper middle classes usually maintain their dominance of resources. Also, we tend to view post-apocalyptic worlds like that of "The walking dead", or "Road warrior". A place where everyone wants to kill you, revolt, and overthrow for personal security or gain. This is a science fiction fantasy. In reality under times of immense stress and disaster humans tend to band together and seek the common good, which as no surprise, is evolutionarily beneficial. For these reasons, I believe humanity would survive the asteroid impact quite handily, with a few isolated centers of modern civilization, e.g. (Large Chinese cities) in the East being relatively intact, with millions of smaller communities reduced to early 1900's levels of technology, which would rebound to modern levels within the century.
In short, humans are a very virulent affliction to this earth, and it will take far more to remove us.
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Post by theropod on Sept 6, 2013 23:05:39 GMT 5
Mosasaurs and pliosaurs simply had the problem of large size+endothermy causing high metabolic requirements. That's why among endotherms mostly small taxa survived.
The presence of such large organisms (sauropods, plesiosaurs) makes whole ecosystems unstable.
And in the case of a bolide impact, humans have the questionable "advantage" of making their civilisation rather independant of the ecosystem around them, by growing their own food. As long as there are seeds and enough fertile ground and breathable air, ecosystems around us could collapse to a good degree without affecting us too badly.
This would still be a terrible event, but imo humanity would be able to adapt. How many will die is a question I cannot answer with certainity.
I agree with fragillimus that usually scenarios like this tend to be viewed like a zombie film (or like the zombie scenario story from Carnivora which I enjoyed reading). Humans would rather cooperate when faced with such huge problems than kill each other, at least on a large scale.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Sept 18, 2013 19:43:20 GMT 5
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Post by theropod on Sept 18, 2013 19:55:22 GMT 5
if true, that's indeed a humungous impact!
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wiffle
Junior Member Rank 1
Posts: 41
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Post by wiffle on Sept 19, 2013 15:11:34 GMT 5
What makes everyone think all our technology would magically evaporate? At the very least we would hang onto it-no reason to discard several thousand years of innovation and advancement. That would simply be stupid and ridiculous, especially considering it will likely come in very handy once the whole event has blown over. Plenty of forms of technology don't even require electricity to function.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 19, 2013 17:37:13 GMT 5
What makes everyone think all our technology would magically evaporate? At the very least we would hang onto it-no reason to discard several thousand years of innovation and advancement. That would simply be stupid and ridiculous, especially considering it will likely come in very handy once the whole event has blown over. Plenty of forms of technology don't even require electricity to function. No-one said that technology would magically evaporate, the issue is that a ~40-kilometer asteroid is far too powerful of an impactor. |
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wiffle
Junior Member Rank 1
Posts: 41
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Post by wiffle on Sept 20, 2013 9:27:39 GMT 5
Does it produce a worldwide EMP? I doubt it.
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Post by theropod on Sept 20, 2013 16:40:47 GMT 5
Another thing about the K/P event is that there wasn't just one impact from that time, but rather 2 or more (and if one of them was really a 40km giant, the effect is not surprising at all).
Obviously the consequences of several meteorites+incredibly strong vulcanism+both gradual and rapid climate change+marine regression+change of landscape and flora are not comparable to the effects a single impact may have on us, whom we are not really affected by several of these points given the initial blast is survived.
That being said, I am not sure whether the direct effects of a 40km bolide wouldn't be just too massive.
It just seems 40km is a bit of an exageration considering a 400km crater (600km as explained has nothing to do with the meteorites size but whith a probable low entry angle) should correspond to a 20km one.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 20, 2013 21:02:22 GMT 5
Does it produce a worldwide EMP? I doubt it. No, but the ejecta rain, worldwide fires, kilometer-high gigatsunamis*, and magnitude 10+ earthquakes, all together, would destroy civilization. *megatsunami seems like understatement for such a wave! |
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wiffle
Junior Member Rank 1
Posts: 41
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Post by wiffle on Sept 21, 2013 2:52:06 GMT 5
I was not addressing the impact of the asteroid itself so much as the people who said that it humanity survived, it would start over again with no modern technology.
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Post by creature386 on Sept 21, 2013 12:52:40 GMT 5
The problem is that people who live without technology already have it hard enough to survive (basically due to habitat loss). Therefore, such a catastrophe may be too much for them.
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