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gemini://willowashmaple.smol.pub/2024-06-09-echoes-of-tomorrow-flash-fiction
We imagine a dramatic end of our run - a nuclear holocaust, AI taking over, or as above, a solar flare taking out the electronics we depend on...
Here is what may happen. TLDR: No particular event is necessary. A financial 'accident' will take us out.
A massive inflationary wave hits the US after yet another stupid spending spree (likely, another 'war' on something like gasoline, avian flu, or poverty, and of course sending weapons and money to every country that doesn't like Russia). This time it's different: it spreads immediately to other countries that depend on the US dollar. Industries collapse, riots emerge as currencies quickly become cheaper and buy less. Simultaneously, interest rates go through the roof as bond prices are repeatedly cut in half. Banks collapse and are taken over by the governments.
As prices rise, the demand for more dollars from other countries and within the US prompts the US Government to put more money into circulation. Interest rate manipulation and hidden corporate subsidies maintain domestic employment. Then, direct 'helicopter drops' to individuals -- guaranteed 'bridge' loans, then, forgiven loans, checks in the mail, government-issued debit cards refilled monthly (with a hefty profit for the banks involved, of course). Paper money is phased out. US Government offers a new 'everyone works for US' program open to everyone seeking employment, with a remarkably high pay. Central banks congradulate each other on another successful intervention and politicians announce that prosperity is returning -- we have no unemployment!
This slows the collapse, but waves of devalation keep coming, and whatever money people get is never enough. Hungry people riot and break things. Borders are closed, and international agreements are broken; supply chains are disrupted as factories are destroyed and ships no longer come from China, which has gone silent a while ago. Life becomes harder and harder, and very quickly food becomes rationed and violence escalates.
People start realizing that even though the checks keep coming, the government is no more -- they ran off to their hiding places where they have a stash of guns, gold and whatever else they managed to plunder while in power. The military is in fact disbanded, and small groups of militias roam the countryside, some causing trouble and even detonating tactical nuclear weapons, but mostly entrenching and trying to keep order within newly-formed cooperating groups of people.
Within a few years, the society is unrecognizable, cities are burned to the ground, remaining roads are dangerous to travel, and as all existing stores of food and other goods are emptied, people revert to an agrarian lifestyle to feed themselves. Diseases roam the world as antibiotics are unobtainable, and most technology becomes largely unused and unusable due to lack of fuel and power. Short-wave radios still allow distant communities (more than a day's walk) to communicate. Small groups stabilize and life goes on.
As centuries go by, people on horses and large ostriches occasionally stop to see strange ruins of old civilizations they've heard stories about from their parents. Some are truly ridiculous -- they've been to the Moon and Mars. Right. Doing stupid shit like that, no wonder their civilization failed.