WI: North America in 2020 is ISOTed to 30,000 BCE?

[Neruz]

Ice Age shouldn't make AMerica starve on its own- there's enough stores of food to get through the short-term, and as long as the US keeps 10-20% of its current agricultural capacity, it could feed itself.

Mexico would have fewer problem, Canada would have massive problems.

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The problem isn't the total quantity of food; in our current world we grow enough food to feed every living human, yet there are still millions of people starving all over the world, the problem is the logistics network needed to transport that food from the places where it is grown to the places where hungry people are.

This is a problem because of the lowered sea levels, which means that every single port promptly becomes non-functional and the majority of ships are either beached in the stinking salt-swamp left behind by the receding ocean that was brought along for the ride and promptly leaves to join its past counterparts, or are swept out along with said receding ocean and probably thoroughly wrecked in the process.


Without functional shipping, I am not at all certain that the internal land and aerial logistics networks can keep up with demand; food is one of the bulkiest items to transport and often has very strict time limitations on such, and I believe that the majority of food transportation is done via boat, which is no longer a viable option in the years immediately following the transition.

If so, people who live reasonably nearby food production areas will be okay in the short term, but people who live further away? They could potentially be right up shit creek without a paddle.

 

[Nyvis]

The problem isn't the total quantity of food; in our current world we grow enough food to feed every living human, yet there are still millions of people starving all over the world, the problem is the logistics network needed to transport that food from the places where it is grown to the places where hungry people are.

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Nah the problem is capitalism deciding some people don't deserve food.

In any way, America has the ways to throw together the logistic needed. The question is will it be willing to ignore what the free market tells it and set up a proper rationing system?

 

[Neruz]

Nah the problem is capitalism deciding some people don't deserve food.

In any way, America has the ways to throw together the logistic needed. The question is will it be willing to ignore what the free market tells it and set up a proper rationing system?

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Indeed.

And frankly, that is not a question I am willing to definitively say 'yes' to.

 

[Nyvis]

Indeed.

And frankly, that is not a question I am willing to definitively say 'yes' to.

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Does this happen before or after the election?

 

[Neruz]

Does this happen before or after the election?

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January 1st, 2020.

So it's before.


Yes.

That's right.

The USA goes into this event with Donald Trump at the helm.

That is why I am not willing to definitively say that the country gets it shit together before starvation hits: We've all seen how Donald Trump handles unexpected global disasters.

Poorly.

 

[Nyvis]

January 1st, 2020.

So it's before.


Yes.

That's right.

The USA goes into this event with Donald Trump at the helm.

That is why I am not willing to definitively say that the country gets it shit together before starvation hits: We've all seen how Donald Trump handles unexpected global disasters.

Poorly.

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At first, I expect we'd see the same thing as we did with covid: state alliances to try figuring out things at a lower level.

But the northern states are so boned without food transfer that's likely to backfire more than anything.

 

[Neruz]

At first, I expect we'd see the same thing as we did with covid: state alliances to try figuring out things at a lower level.

But the northern states are so boned without food transfer that's likely to backfire more than anything.

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And you can just bet that Trump will spend at least the first couple of weeks vehemently denying that anything has happened at all and pretending that everything is fine and the apparent disappearance of the rest of human civilization is obviously a Chinese hoax.

This will not improve the situation.

 

[Alias_the_J]

snip

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Industry is a huge medium-term problem, but as long as most of the manufacturing knowledge was brought along, we'll probably be able to survive. As long as everything else goes alright.

...which isn't a guarantee.

The problem is industrial agriculture. In the US, at least to my knowledge, most farmers don't save their own seeds and grow them, they buy high-yield hybrids or GMOs from companies like Monsanto. If those companies have problems- and given the date of the ISOT, they might by the start of the growing season- then there might be difficulties in getting crops planted. After that, there would be problems getting fertilizer, herbicides and pesticides, all of which are based on oil- which would have a reduced supply. Then, because of the aforementioned reduced supply, there might be problems getting fuel to the vehicles in time for harvest (as reserves will likely have been dropping). Finally, the lack of fuel may make transport for processing and then more transport for consumption difficult. Worse yet, the time it takes for crops to grow may prevent early mistakes from being readily apparent and the nature of farming prevents easily "starting over." The US has a relatively low population density, so requires a huge amount of transportation- and so a huge minimum oil requirement.

The need to solve the immediate problem of agriculture will divert resources away from other slightly-less-urgent problems- like rebuilding American industry to supply parts that can no longer be imported. Oil supplies could probably be met from American fracking and Canadian tar sands- as long as the equipment for new wells could be built and transported and new pipelines built using resources only on the continent- so you could expect for the Keystone XL construction to be expedited. If the American and Mexican harvest fail, however, then retooling industry will become more difficult, and due to wear, tear and aging of the devices brought along, we'll have fewer resources with which to try again next year.

If food supply does become a problem, then so will migration- and migrating people are people who aren't retooling industry. If the supply chain becomes weakened enough, then factory workers may end up "hurrying up and waiting" to make the spare parts for the factory that makes their own spare parts. This will be a huge problem if they are supposed to be making, for instance, electrical transformers. The nature of the problem, of course, means that this retooling will take time- an uncertain amount of time in most cases- with a large uncertainty in prioritization, so any early problems will have outsized effects.

 

[ironwar32]

Industry is a huge medium-term problem, but as long as most of the manufacturing knowledge was brought along, we'll probably be able to survive. As long as everything else goes alright.

...which isn't a guarantee.

The problem is industrial agriculture. In the US, at least to my knowledge, most farmers don't save their own seeds and grow them, they buy high-yield hybrids or GMOs from companies like Monsanto. If those companies have problems- and given the date of the ISOT, they might by the start of the growing season- then there might be difficulties in getting crops planted. After that, there would be problems getting fertilizer, herbicides and pesticides, all of which are based on oil- which would have a reduced supply. Then, because of the aforementioned reduced supply, there might be problems getting fuel to the vehicles in time for harvest (as reserves will likely have been dropping). Finally, the lack of fuel may make transport for processing and then more transport for consumption difficult. Worse yet, the time it takes for crops to grow may prevent early mistakes from being readily apparent and the nature of farming prevents easily "starting over." The US has a relatively low population density, so requires a huge amount of transportation- and so a huge minimum oil requirement.

The need to solve the immediate problem of agriculture will divert resources away from other slightly-less-urgent problems- like rebuilding American industry to supply parts that can no longer be imported. Oil supplies could probably be met from American fracking and Canadian tar sands- as long as the equipment for new wells could be built and transported and new pipelines built using resources only on the continent- so you could expect for the Keystone XL construction to be expedited. If the American and Mexican harvest fail, however, then retooling industry will become more difficult, and due to wear, tear and aging of the devices brought along, we'll have fewer resources with which to try again next year.

If food supply does become a problem, then so will migration- and migrating people are people who aren't retooling industry. If the supply chain becomes weakened enough, then factory workers may end up "hurrying up and waiting" to make the spare parts for the factory that makes their own spare parts. This will be a huge problem if they are supposed to be making, for instance, electrical transformers. The nature of the problem, of course, means that this retooling will take time- an uncertain amount of time in most cases- with a large uncertainty in prioritization, so any early problems will have outsized effects.

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Think the oil and fuel problems might not be as bad as it sounds at first. Since we're 30,000 years in the past we should know where all the big spots for oil mining are in the world and they would be untapped at this point. It would probably take a bit to set them up and to organize them but it can be done. I'm not too sure about the seed problem if what you said would be accuratee or not but I have done a few college-level studies on GMO's and they would problem dormant this time period. They're made to be stronger than other plants in the time period and many GMO's are made to need less or even no pesticides than other plants.

One thing I have noticed with this that no one else I've read had picked up on is that since we're in 30,000 bc there would be plants and animals that are extinct now that wouldn't then. We could save so many like the sabertooth tiger, giant sloth, or the woolly mammoth. We could even save Neanderthals and help them get up to modern-day standards.

 

[Alias_the_J]

Think the oil and fuel problems might not be as bad as it sounds at first. Since we're 30,000 years in the past we should know where all the big spots for oil mining are in the world and they would be untapped at this point. It would probably take a bit to set them up and to organize them but it can be done. I'm not too sure about the seed problem if what you said would be accuratee or not but I have done a few college-level studies on GMO's and they would problem dormant this time period. They're made to be stronger than other plants in the time period and many GMO's are made to need less or even no pesticides than other plants.

One thing I have noticed with this that no one else I've read had picked up on is that since we're in 30,000 bc there would be plants and animals that are extinct now that wouldn't then. We could save so many like the sabertooth tiger, giant sloth, or the woolly mammoth. We could even save Neanderthals and help them get up to modern-day standards.

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We'll need the equipment to get and refine the oil. If we survive few years we need to get that up and running, we'll make it. Honestly, we'd probably know how well our industry will survive by November.

Neanderthals and homotherium might still be alive, but no North American megafauna will be around. Neither will Australian, for that matter- they died out around 50k years ago. Truthfully, the cro-magnons will probably be just as interesting- if nothing else, they are genetically distinct from modern Europeans.

 

[UponALotusBlosom]

Industry is a huge medium-term problem, but as long as most of the manufacturing knowledge was brought along, we'll probably be able to survive. As long as everything else goes alright.

...which isn't a guarantee.

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Industry is not a problem. NA holds a massive cross-section of the various types of production needed to run our society. One of the most common-narrative I find myself having to fight when talking to people about globalization and it's effect on the US alone is that the US manufacturing sector is shrinking for example. This isn't true, the US manufacturing sector never stopped growing, even as steel-mills in the US went out of business out competed by Japanese firms because of the US firm's stubborn unwillingness to update their process even though total labor-costs were directly comparable and Japan doesn't have great native deposits of minerals like iron that the US does. But I'm getting off topic. The key here is that while manufacturing in the US plays less of a role in the economy than it ever has before and new jobs fail to materialize due to bad succession planning on the parts of many companies the actual absolute output has only continued to rise. Furthermore, the US specifically is one of the world's major producers of industrial machinery and other kinds of products that require significant upfront set-up and capital investment. We have the means to produce the necessities needed to keep modern society running and even move production south as the northernmost parts of the continent begin to freeze. Furthermore, modern society massively overproduces as a consequence of our ideas of how a modern capitalist society should function. With them fundamentally based being based the idea of endless growth and the growth of consumption to match. The real killer is the risk of famine, but again our massive waste in this area could also be our savior given good management. Much perfectly edible food is thrown away at the supermarket level as supermarkets deliberately over purchase so that people buy their current stock. Then the fact that in the US more than 1/3 of groceries that are bought and in consumer hands later also goes to waste having never been put on the table. Another note: USDA food appearance standards don't actual affect edibility and can be thrown out the window if need be to better provide in a time of crisis. Again, I'm focusing super heavily on the US but it's what I have the most experience with. Should the first harvest go through strong leadership can stop the collapse of pre-transference governance and stop massive die-offs. You can kiss your current life-style goodbye if you're in the US and it may never recover in your lifetime but the world as the average person experiences it does not end. The real problem and its questionable whether it's actually a problem is the below replacement fertility rate of the US and Canada and Mexico's 2~ births on average per woman meaning that it can't help. Still a hard-demographic crash is unlikely but possible if fertility drops through the floor because of the transition.

 

[SwiftRosenthal]

The real killer is the risk of famine, but again our massive waste in this area could also be our savior given good management.
...
Should the first harvest go through strong leadership can stop the collapse of pre-transference governance and stop massive die-offs.

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...

The USA goes into this event with Donald Trump at the helm.

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GG. We're screwed.

 

[ironwar32]

Years.
No sea transport, remember?

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Ok i had my fun. I see your point. I don't see where it said we lost all of our ships and boats including the ones in port or just off the coast or in the oceans that are coming with us. I mean we would lose a decent chunk of our shipping power when this happens but we would still have a good portion of it with us.

 

[Byzantine]

Ok i had my fun. I see your point. I don't see where it said we lost all of our ships and boats including the ones in port or just off the coast or in the oceans that are coming with us. I mean we would lose a decent chunk of our shipping power when this happens but we would still have a good portion of it with us.

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The issue is the sea level dropped. A lot. So those ships are either grounded miles inland or just got dragged out to sea over a rapidly drying mud flat.

 

[ironwar32]

The issue is the sea level dropped. A lot. So those ships are either grounded miles inland or just got dragged out to sea over a rapidly drying mud flat.

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I get that but I would think that it wouldn't be that bad. From what I understand is that it's like everything in a radius is getting sent back in time so I believe that the ocean would as well come with. There would be a sea-level drop it wouldn't be as bad as you think due to our modern seas mixing in with the older sea... or is it younger in this case?

 

[Byzantine]

I get that but I would think that it wouldn't be that bad. From what I understand is that it's like everything in a radius is getting sent back in time so I believe that the ocean would as well come with. There would be a sea-level drop it wouldn't be as bad as you think due to our modern seas mixing in with the older sea... or is it younger in this case?

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You are vastly underestimating the sheer volume of water drop involved. All the extra water we bring wouldn't even offset the amount that vanished from the NA glaciers that no longer exist. It would affect global sea levels by centimeters, if that.

 

[Kellcat]

*cracks knuckles*

The immediate reaction from the president of the United States is his standard: Without any examination of what has happened or why, he immediately tweets about the rest of the world ignoring him. Other nations are blamed for having unilaterally cut off communications, and China is blamed for destroying all of the satellites in orbit. The sudden drop in sea level is used as "proof that climate change is a lie".

While the temperature has decreased several degrees from normal, this is not initially seen as anything more than "a cold snap" and is not immediately obvious as an overall climactic shift - there are far larger problems quickly on people's minds. Word of the wastelands outside the old coastline begins to spread. There's panic, possibly riots in some places, and a large number of people who deny everything as fake news. While the news media offers various wild conjecture of what has happened to the sea level and where all the satellites and planes and cargo ships disappeared to, the military begins quiet operations to look outside of the United States.

Over the course of the next few days, the military confirms that what can be seen of the rest of the world is empty of civilization and pushes for a crash launch of some manner of surveillance satellite. No overseas military forces nor distant naval forces can be contacted, and given what can be seen, the military suspects that they have vanished with the rest of the world. This is kept as quiet as it can be, which naturally means that the disappearance of the rest of the world and all deployed military personnel is the top story on the nightly news. This results in significant unrest and several riots as people panic.

As this is going on, astronomers and scientists manage to piece together at least some of what happened, if not why or how, and determine (very) roughly what year it is from shifts in the night sky. Many disbelieve their own calculations, but at least a few report what is going on to both government agencies and the news media. CNN, NPR, and various other news organizations report the change in the night sky and what year it roughly indicates, and wonder if this has really happened and how. Given the changes being seen, strategic thinkers begin to worry about the loss of trade - finished goods, raw materials, foods, etc -- mainstream media isn't focusing on that sort of problem, yet, but forward thinkers are beginning to get worried. Fox News reports on the general insanity and stupidity of liberals for being gullible enough to believe it is now 24000 years before God Created The World, and dismisses the entire thing as Fake News.

As days pass, and planes and cargo shipments do not arrive, people begin to become even more worried and begin demanding of politicians how to deal with the situation. The military continues to scout further outwards and continues to find no signs of modern civilization. News organizations begin reporting on the possible consequences of the disappearance of the rest of the world, and lack of trade; some commentators begin calling for factories to be repurposed and for new construction to begin - America will need the tools to make the tools. And fast. The number of panicked demonstrations and riots begins to tick upwards.

Fox News reports on shortages of the Nintendo Switch and other electronics goods and reassures viewers that as China no longer exists, the USA is most certainly the Bestest Nation In The World.

Experts come to the consensus that "we're all alone, now" and that outside of the North American continent, there's no civilization worth mention, and can be no meaningful trade. While there are tribes of humans scattered across the globe, there is nothing approaching modern civilization, and the North American continent's reliance on goods and raw materials imported from China is going to cause a critical problem in the very near future - calls for factory conversion and construction become louder. Donald Trump appears on camera to reassure Americans that nothing is wrong: "Trade will be back before you know it. It's going to be a miracle - it'll be back." Having been informed of the difference in climate in 30,000 BC, leaders in Canada are trying to come to grips with the effect on agriculture in the near future and quietly panicking.

By the time February kicks into gear, the USA is heavily divided in expectations - many people are quietly (or not so quietly) panicking and there are frantic efforts in some corners to prepare for the upcoming crash, while Fox News pushes a narrative of "nothing is wrong" and begins to blame liberals and immigrants for "making the rest of the world disappear". How, precisely, this was accomplished is left to the viewers' imagination. Donald Trump begins making noises about law and order and sending federal troops to quell riots in addition to reassuring Americans that trade will miraculously return to normal. This does not calm the panic.

On February 6, in Santa Clara county, California, a patient passes away from an unknown respiratory disease to no fanfare or significant concern.

(edit: removed a piece of foreshadowing)

 

[Alias_the_J]

(edit: removed a piece of foreshadowing)

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awww... now I want to see it...

On February 6, in Santa Clara county, California, a patient passes away from an unknown respiratory disease to no fanfare or significant concern.

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Hooo boy... if Corona makes it over, even if it isn't in ConUS, it might the be the mouse that sinks the boat. At least the lack of trade should help slow it down.

 

[Kellcat]

awww... now I want to see it...

Hooo boy... if Corona makes it over, even if it isn't in ConUS, it might the be the mouse that sinks the boat. At least the lack of trade should help slow it down.

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For a minute or so, I had another sentence higher up about nobody really noticing the December 31st report in China about people dying of an unknown respiratory virus, but... from what poking around I did, I couldn't find anything about any real international concern or reports of it until early January...that December 31 report was in China, which.. North American News Media probably wouldn't have really seen, and leaving that sentence out made for a more dramatic final sentence. So I went back and yanked that sentence.

Pair that together with current best guesses that the earliest Covid death in the US was as stated in the snippet, and was from community spread...that hints that it was probably present and spreading (if barely) by the turn of the year. And yeah, Covid on top of the panic and incompetence and...?

I would expect we would still see significant spread in North American continent. There would still be trade across the various North American borders - it would be even more important, with the rest of the world no longer available - and while there wouldn't be as much international travel (there being far less nationals to inter), I would expect there would still be significant travel in what was left. Probably even more travel than normal between the remaining countries in the name of coordination and trying to pick up the pieces and get ahead and so forth.

Just to make things even more "fun", even when Covid gets noticed in this suggested timeline, there's not much that can be done about it. Consider: no imports of raw or finished goods means that even basic PPE is far harder to acquire than OTL. On top of that, if there's any chance of staving off a total collapse, then a lot of manual labor is necessary. North America would very badly need factories to tool up before things totally crashed, and would very badly need those factories manned. That would mean a lot of people needing to work in close quarters.

And a lot of people dying.

The casualty rate could easily jump to what we saw in Italy - 7+%, wasn't it? Or even higher. And even so, it would be necessary to tool up or the death toll would be even higher. OTL, we're relying on a lot of imports...but in this scenario that wouldn't be possible. Add to that the Republican insistence that people should be proud to sacrifice themselves to Covid even OTL where it's not necessary, and their apparent desire to see more and more people die and... yeah. Lots of bodies.

I'm not sure how that would play out, but it would put a lot of stressors into place, and I would expect current society to shatter in some way. How? I have no idea. Riots in the streets going after Republican politicians for murder? Maybe. Grim acceptance of death and bodies rotting in the streets? Also maybe. Panic and riots and complete chaos? Seems possible to me. But whichever case, if 5-10% of the population keeled over to a pandemic as things were crashing because of the ISoT? I can't imagine "stability" would be an outcome - especially not with the idiots in charge. And that makes it a lot harder to do any sort of longer term prediction.

I wouldn't be surprised if Christopher Columbus sailed over in 1492 to...well. Probably not the "Indians" (not actually India, dude) from OTL, but to some fragmentary leftover primitives with vague legends of the gods and peoples of the past. Maybe the occasional artifact, but probably not - we don't build to last thirty thousand years - we use stuff that rots and rusts.

Any sort of long term societal survival would rely on the weather and enough technology remaining to keep high tech farms running, and between the total incompetence of the US leadership, the panic and rioting caused by the uncertainties exacerbated by said incompetence, the lack of ability to import machinery, the lack of capability to produce machinery... farming could have serious trouble producing enough food. The seed problems other posters have mentioned wouldn't help either.

So you end up with major food shortages. Armed gangs protecting their food. Armed gangs being perfectly willing to kill to eat, and probably killing the people who know how to farm and destroying their equipment while doing so. America has a stupid amount of guns. Get a lot of stupid people a stupid number of guns and a lot of panic, and... well.

Canada and Mexico would have problems, too, I assume - I would expect a 5-10 deg cooler climate to smash food production. Maybe something could grow everywhere, but would the same things grow? Things the locals knew how to grow and had seed stock for? Would anything grow in the places where the farms existed? What would happen to weather patterns with the world of 30k years ago compared to the weather patterns of today?

Maybe some fragments would survive and rebuild, but... I'd be shocked if there was anything recognizable after.

 

[Byzantine]

You're overestimating how difficult it is to keep industrial-level tech going, Kellcat.

It would be bad but not anywhere near "regress past the 19th century" bad. Even if 80% of people died.

 

[Alias_the_J]

The casualty rate could easily jump to what we saw in Italy - 7+%, wasn't it?

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Hard to tell. The number cited involved an older population with poorer respiratory systems and involved a selection bias in favor of those visiting hospitals. The actual infection rate was probably much higher and thus, the death rate lower. Then again, assuming that the virus both made it over and was able to spread (which, assuming a business traveler brought it back, may not be the case if he/she no longer had a job), may find that the medical services are unable to easily prepare and are unable to produce the medicines needed for chronic conditions- which, in combination with the difficulties in tracking the disease and locking down, could easily produce a higher death rate. Highly dependent on the US being unable to increase the manufacture of its own medical supplies.

and their apparent desire to see more and more people die and... yeah.

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That's... not really relevant to this thread, and is technically an strawman attack. Since current politics and people are involved, please try to criticize specific actions and goals, rather than entire groups. "Republican insistence on reopening will kill people," is okay, "Republicans are trying to kill people," is not. The impacts after the current administration are going to me more interesting, anyway- things like whether Mexico will become significantly powerful and wealthy.

Grim acceptance of death and bodies rotting in the streets?

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The former likely, but not the latter. COVID seems to be less noticeable than the flu in most people- hence why it spreads so undetectably- so isn't going to leave bodies everywhere. It's real threat is that it's immediately very dangerous to several minorities of the population, one large enough to overwhelm hospitals if the virus spreads fast enough, and that it may have long-term health consequences. A disease like dysentery is more likely to have that kind of effect.

Any sort of long term societal survival would rely on the weather and enough technology remaining to keep high tech farms running, and between the total incompetence of the US leadership, the panic and rioting caused by the uncertainties exacerbated by said incompetence, the lack of ability to import machinery, the lack of capability to produce machinery

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Looking at maps linked earlier in the thread, large parts of the US would still be agriculturally-friendly at this time. Lots of Mexico and Central America would also be productive. The US also still is involved with manufacturing large quantities of industrial machinery (i.e. the US has the tools that makes the tools) and large quantities of resources for her own consumption- enough to survive, albeit uncomfortable, on it's own inertia for a few months with the rest of North America. Industrial society will likely survive in some form; the question is whether we're looking at information age or 1930s... and who's leading it.

 

[Kellcat]

[...]strawman attack [...]"Republican insistence on reopening will kill people," is okay, "Republicans are trying to kill people," is not.

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I could spend a few paragraphs pointing out evidence for why that's not a straw-man attack, but this isn't a debate thread, and the objective here isn't to convince the other guy, but instead lay out possibilities for the stated ISoT, so I'll pass in hopes of not generating more hostility. (shrug) Regardless, the point I'm aiming for is - it would highly unlikely for there to be any manner of protections to be implemented which would in any way interfere with target economic activity. Whether you're talking about either crowding people into a small area for construction purposes or crowding people into a small area for factory work or farming or whatever else, you're still talking about crowding people together with minimal (if any) protections. This would result in significant spread and lots of bodies. We're at somewhere around 150k after several months in the USA right now (spot check says ~210k in North America) with the ability to ship in PPE and/or raw materials from China/Europe/etc... not sure how the other countries would react, but just having USA go from "at least taking some precautions and having almost adequate PPE" to "not taking precautions and not having PPE or medical supplies" would make those number skyrocket. Other countries would likewise be harder pressed without the ability to import from anywhere other than North America and would likewise have higher death rates... the current deaths are already causing friction in at least some quarters...with higher death rates, you've got more friction, more panic, more chaos causing problems with any of the nations in question holding together.

The impacts after the current administration are going to me more interesting, anyway

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I have a hard time accepting that this scenario can result in anything resembling a United States actually surviving long enough for there to be a 'next administration'. With all the factors involved, there's not going to be a USA for very long. In a way, you might be able to consider that "more interesting", but it also means there are so few threads left in the tapestry to figure out the shape to come.

Thinking about it more, though, I wasn't really thinking in terms of nations other than maybe Canada, USA, and Mexico. If the smaller, further nations got enough warning, I wonder if they could close off, and protect themselves.

The former likely, but not the latter. COVID seems to be less noticeable than the flu in most people- hence why it spreads so undetectably- so isn't going to leave bodies everywhere

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I would dispute "most". The highest estimate I've heard of asymptomatic carriers was among the crew of that aircraft carrier, theoretically all not-horribly-old and not-horrible-health (because military). Even in that case, with mostly young healthy people, the estimate was around 50% asymptomatic. That said, I agree that any amount of asymptomatic carriers is a nasty problem in trying to detect spread, and the higher that percentage, the harder things get.

Even in Italy, there were reports of bodies ending up all over the place. Including one rather public story about ...some Italy-famous Italian actor who ended up with his girlfriend's body sitting and decomposing in his apartment for multiple days because the appropriate public services would not come and retrieve said body. That was with a working government and active efforts from said government to control the spread, instead of a determination to let fall who may. So...no, I'd stand on the assumption of bodies in the streets, if only because survivors (or landlords) might want the rotting corpses out of their homes.

Looking at maps linked earlier in the thread, large parts of the US would still be agriculturally-friendly at this time. Lots of Mexico and Central America would also be productive. The US also still is involved with manufacturing large quantities of industrial machinery (i.e. the US has the tools that makes the tools) and large quantities of resources for her own consumption- enough to survive, albeit uncomfortable, on it's own inertia for a few months with the rest of North America. Industrial society will likely survive in some form; the question is whether we're looking at information age or 1930s... and who's leading it.

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Will the climate be agriculturally friendly where the farms are specifically for what the farms have equipment and seeds to work with? A drop of 5-10 degrees and possibly different precipitation patterns mean that while there is still going to be arable land, it may not be prepared, there may not be appropriate seeds, there may not be equipment or knowledge or... Keeping food production up even in such a situation might be possible, but would take careful consideration of changing conditions (SCIENCE!), a willingness to ensure resources are appropriately allocated (even if capitalism wouldn't have that happen), sufficient competence to consider these factors in the first place, etc.

I ...would not expect any of the above to be likely in 2020 USA. I would expect denial of the problem, a desire to let those farms which have insufficient resources to deal with the problem on their own fail, hoarding, rampant mismanagement of any attempts to touch the situation beyond raw capitalism, etc. I would expect crops to be planted at a time or location they can't survive - because that's what worked last year. I would expect empty assurances that everything will be fine instead of effort to determine what would work best in the current conditions. I would expect those able to hoard food like crazy, thus cutting available supplies for others and increasing the likelihood of shortages (and possible riots because of). Frankly, I'd expect every little stupid problem that could possibly be foreseen and dealt with to be ignored and allowed to explode. :/

Tools in the short short term might not be a problem, depending what's in show rooms and dealerships and so forth - but USA does little of her own production, these days, so in anything other than the short term, there's a significant problem, there, too, for supplying the farmers. That would exacerbate the "succeed on your own or fail" problem, as shortages would cause price spikes and price gouging. And if there's enough of a shortage that people begin attacking the supply chain so as not to starve...that starts adding even more supply, equipment, and stability problems on top. And the higher those piles get, the more chaos you get out of them in a vicious cycle. Transportation just makes things worse. It's been so cheap for so long to ship something across the country that you're not likely to have any sort of tool production near where it's needed, nor are you likely to have the supply necessary to create those tools anywhere near where the tools are being created, etc. Things start falling apart into smaller pieces, and even if you have an appropriate tool-shop (tractor factory, what have you), you don't have anything to supply it with, and you still don't have the tool in question.

 

[Neruz]

A lot of Information Age tech is going to be at least temporarily lost because the extremely complex manufacturing chains for it no longer exists, or only exists in minimum.

Barring a complete and total breakdown of society at every conceivable level and a regression to the old European days of burning all the libraries for funsies, the basic information and knowledge will be still be retained. Once things have settled down a bit, after a decade or two (maybe longer, depending on the scale of the breakdown), reclaiming the Information Age will be relatively simple, though sufficiently expensive that the actual recreation of things like the satellite network may take even longer.
(On the bright side, SpaceX came along for the ride, so re-establishing a basic satellite network for important things like GPS and communications will be much cheaper and easier than it would be otherwise.)

 

[Kellcat]

I wouldn't be shocked in the least at a total breakdown. People are always so impressed with civilization (I know I am), but people don't usually think in terms of: what happens when the food stops? When people start doing anything to get food for themselves and their family? Civilization only works while it works. What happens when the food stops? When there's almost nothing to eat. It's not that there's 12.3% of the population that is hungry and having trouble finding enough food and relying on food banks and so forth - it's that there's maybe enough food for 10% of the population, and suddenly everyone is frantic to get it and a food bank is a fond dream that got burned to the ground by looters two weeks ago because there was nothing in it.

Everything in our current civilization is shipped. Almost everything is shipped for stupidly long distances. If something - anything - happens to significantly disrupt the shipping of those supplies (even ignoring the production of same), things are going to get ugly fast. Lose electrical capability? That fancy just-in-time shipment network is toast and you have problems. Lose sufficient fuel for your trucks and trains? Lose oversea supply of some random critical component you just don't produce locally? In this situation without Covid-19, I can see a lot of things going wrong, but... maybe. Maybe.

But throw a pandemic into the situation that's killing 5% of people who catch it, and there's nothing doctors can do because they can't get supplies, and the doctors are dying and everyone knows someone who's dying and your family is sick now and you just started coughing and... now you've added a massive chaotic problem that's both short term and isn't going away to the theoretically longer term problem of just keeping the nation running. So now you've got even more panic on top of panic, and you can't get supplies you need from China (and everything comes from China), and..

I would expect a massive amount of panic, chaos, rioting, and just general breakdown of everything. And since nothing gets made near where it's used that means a lot of places don't have what they need to survive.

But they've got guns.

And that... well. Desperate people with guns tends not to be a good recipe for social stability, let's say. So people who have stuff are going to get shot, and some of the people doing the shooting will learn that shooting works, and that's certainly not going to reduce the problems and chaos.

Call me a pessimist, but I don't see it ending without circling the drain.

 

[Byzantine]

I wouldn't be shocked in the least at a total breakdown. People are always so impressed with civilization (I know I am), but people don't usually think in terms of: what happens when the food stops? When people start doing anything to get food for themselves and their family? Civilization only works while it works. What happens when the food stops? When there's almost nothing to eat. It's not that there's 12.3% of the population that is hungry and having trouble finding enough food and relying on food banks and so forth - it's that there's maybe enough food for 10% of the population, and suddenly everyone is frantic to get it and a food bank is a fond dream that got burned to the ground by looters two weeks ago because there was nothing in it.

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You are dramatically overestimating the amount of food shortage there will be. It will be bad, but nowhere near "we can only feed 10% of people" bad. The US produces far more food than it needed to feed everyone that lives in it. Particularly given a lot of feeder corn would likely be replaced by human-edible crops in this scenario out of sheer need. The primary reason for starvation would be due to mistiming the winter and colder weather causing more crop failures than we can handle for the early years.

Amusingly due to the event the pandemic would likely end within a few months if it came along at all - decreased travel would be... dramatic. Most businesses would simply be unable to operate for some time after events, which would cause an immediate and confusing pseudo-quarantine far more effective than anything that happened in the real world.

So now you've got even more panic on top of panic, and you can't get supplies you need from China (and everything comes from China), and..

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it really doesn't. The US has a massive amount of manufacturing. Everything coming from China is a myth.