Thanks for great piece! One thing which may increase the extinction risk is that after the collapse, the remaining economy will be based not on agriculture and manufacturing, but on scavenging remains of previous civilisation. The problem with such economy is that it constantly shrinking and also does not help to learn useful skills, but instead helps local warlords arise and fight over leftovers. (Example: the economy of the post Soviet Union countries declined partly because it was more profitable to sell a factory for metal than to use it for manufacturing of goods.)
This problem will be also fuelled by “dangerous leftovers”: in any moment, the access to weapons will be easy than to manufacturing capabilities. If most humans will extinct, enormous amounts of powerful weapons will still be available for decades, mostly firearms. Dangerous leftovers will include pieces of what has caused the catastrophe, for example, a biological agent or radioactive contamination. In such situation, the remaining population will die more often than rise successful children.
An example of dangerous leftovers are… dogs. If 99 per cent people went extinct, but all dogs remains, these feral dogs will eventually start hunting of survivors.
Thanks for great piece! One thing which may increase the extinction risk is that after the collapse, the remaining economy will be based not on agriculture and manufacturing, but on scavenging remains of previous civilisation. The problem with such economy is that it constantly shrinking and also does not help to learn useful skills, but instead helps local warlords arise and fight over leftovers. (Example: the economy of the post Soviet Union countries declined partly because it was more profitable to sell a factory for metal than to use it for manufacturing of goods.)
This problem will be also fuelled by “dangerous leftovers”: in any moment, the access to weapons will be easy than to manufacturing capabilities. If most humans will extinct, enormous amounts of powerful weapons will still be available for decades, mostly firearms. Dangerous leftovers will include pieces of what has caused the catastrophe, for example, a biological agent or radioactive contamination. In such situation, the remaining population will die more often than rise successful children.
An example of dangerous leftovers are… dogs. If 99 per cent people went extinct, but all dogs remains, these feral dogs will eventually start hunting of survivors.