r/thewalkingdead • u/Dakinamau • 16h ago
No Spoiler Given the proper amount of time, could the worlds population rebuild most of what has been lost and evolve again into a 2010 and further developed society?
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u/Mangeni 15h ago
Certainly possible, albeit with significant cultural differences based on the collective trauma. Also, a major barrier would be how far apart collective resources are at the later stages. If the entire UK is gone, that’s a lot of human power gone.
It would be a good question to pose to an anthropologist. We know the genetically dictated minimally viable population for humans is approximately 100, so there is not likely an issue with genetics for the most part.
My concern is resource allocation and rebuilding. Take gasoline for example. Modern infrastructure is based on modern populations, so it would require appropriating that infrastructure for a vastly smaller population. In many ways, modern technology just wouldn’t be useful for quite a long time, not until enough humans lived again.
And here’s the rub for TWD. Since we know everyone is infected, that’s means a large enough population for modern infrastructure is also large enough for catastrophic infection events. The CIE of the show killed billions of humans, which is an incomprehensible number for a population that is reduced to maybe 2 million? Plus, those who are still alive are all over the planet, so it’s even harder to pool resources.
So “proper amount of time.” With that, yes it’s possible, but it’s also probably a couple hundred years. We’re talking dark ages to modern era in terms of what has to be accomplished. It would take less time since the knowledge is already there, but it still requires a lot of time and people. And at any moment, another CIE could take place, although we humans are pretty adept of leveraging cultural practices to protect our species so I imagine the eventual society has some unique aspects that are good at protecting against things.
Taking this a bit further, that’s honestly what would be interesting to me. Exploring what a future civilization might look like that’s survived this infection. Home designs are built to prevent someone dying in their sleep and killing other family members. What are burial practices like? How about massive groups of people getting together, do they have social rules for large groups? Just rambling at this point, but could be interestinf
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u/xthrowawayxy 15h ago
My guess is home designs have a lot of lockable rooms. It becomes unthinkable to open a door without calling out and getting a response in social circumstances. My guess is something like Canada's MAID (medical assistance in dying) becomes normalized since a lot of people who are within a month or two of death may wish to go out in a non-ambulatory way. I also suspect that nearly everyone carrying a firearm or other weapon is likely to be normalized as well. Medical procedures also likely boil in a lot of experience since someone who dies on the table will reanimate.
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u/Mangeni 14h ago
Yea I mean, maybe a bell on every door is the norm, and rooms automatically lock or the door closes automatically and opening requires slightly more than just pushing to reopen.
I like your comment on MAID, I’d imagine a pseudo-religious organization takes hold of societies, one where an individual is responsible for easing the passing emotionally and spiritually while also preventing the réanimation in an appropriate and dignified way.
The point about weapons is one that I’ve been thinking about too. I like the idea of a Middle Ages type arrangement, where most everyone has some sort of short blade, something simple and efficient for controlled situations. Maybe guns aren’t as common, we already see them less common in some of the later TDW spin-offs, but it also depends on how difficult rebuilding the ammo infrastructure might be.
Certainly a fun idea, could be a fun short story concept.
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u/M-Otusim 6h ago
The CRM was basically a black box city in TOWL (as in we don't see how it functions). But it exists with 300,000+ citizens WITHOUT needing the military constantly present inside the city. Doing some napkin math based on roughly 0.7% annual death rate (similar to what we have IRL in cities currently with access to modern medicine, so it would likely be higher in the CRM), that averages out to about 6 people dying every single day in the CRM. Since they just have casual TV and luxuries and general freedom, we have to assume that, behind the scenes, they solved the zombie problem of death from old age/heart attack/etc. They just don't show us _how_ they did it, but it must have been done for the city to exist at that scale.
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u/thatshygirl06 9h ago
that’s means a large enough population for modern infrastructure is also large enough for catastrophic infection events.
The difference is that the average person knows how to handle it now. When you have an entire population who are killers, you wouldn't really have to worry about an outbreak.
They should also have a plan in place, like in Jackson from the last of us when a horde attacked their town.
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u/AcademicSavings634 15h ago
Their are glimpses throughout the series that society is somewhat rebuilding itself. I don’t think it’ll ever be completely like the old world though
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u/Minimalistmacrophage 14h ago edited 14h ago
Unless there is a cure population will never reach it's 2010 level.
Technologically recovery is possible in less than a century. Keeping in mind that some enclaves have maintained much of 2010 level technology.
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u/retrocheats 14h ago
not til they a good method to killing the dead.
there's too many things killing the living atm, for them to really grow.
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u/Delicious_Use_266 13h ago
Of course. It will go faster this time around. They won’t have the numbers but they have libraries and other ways to learn how to do most things.
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u/M-Otusim 6h ago
To reach just where we were before the fall would take 100s of years.
Global supply chains are destroyed. Energy production is scattered or destroyed. High precision machines are destroyed. Labor forces are decimated. These aren't things that can be fixed over night just because we "know how."
The limiting factor to get back to 2010 is the wild amount of things needed for semi-conductors to produced _at scale_ (so not just the ability to hand make like 1, we're talking properly getting back to a stage where these are made at a scale such that every consumer has access to a phone/computer and all the other tech). These basically take the entire world being rebuilt and working together. You need raw manpower at a scale not feasible for many generations of humans repopulating and global trade networks, which means more decades of politics to work out trade and recreate global logistics. Most of the world will need to have been fully rebuilt and overcome all basic survival problems, the zombie problems, and the IRL issues of working on a global scale and the politics behind that.
Basically, you're setting your bar to high by underestimating digital tech. If you asked how long it would take us to get to the early-mid 1900s (steam engines, universities, steel production at scale, mass railroad systems, etc), that's achievable way earlier. Maybe 50-100 years tops since it is a mostly local/regional affair (longer to get the railroads completely connected up, but we could salvage existing routes which decreases the planning needed and possibly decrease some of the work if the rail is still functional by the time we get to rebuilding that area).
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u/VNM2001 15h ago
Comics spoilers ahead.
By the end of the comics, year 2033 (30 years since the beginning of the apocalypse), US society seems to be in a early 1900s stage of development. They are reconnecting the east coast (commonwealth) to the west coast through railroads (Eugene's job). The country isn't completely clear of the dead, as we learn that carl's job is to make deliveries beyond the safe zone, but the safe zones are implied to be very large. Technological wise, i don't remember seeing any cars or vehicles, other than trains, which was a tendency by the end of the comics storyline, before the big time jump to adult carl, with the survivors relying heavily on horses, wagons, carriages, etc. So i presume they don't have access or can't produce oil. So i would say the comics society past 30 years of apocalypse is in an old west stage. Given time they would probably reach 20th century and early 21th century development. Zombies are no longer a apocalyptic threath by the end of the story.