If Modern Comforts Vanished, Would We Survive or Fall

You’re sitting on the balcony, fiddling with your phone, when suddenly, everything around you starts to turn to dust. Gaping, you put your phone down. You see cars, bicycles, sidewalks, street and traffic lights disappear right in front of your eyes!

People in the street are panicking and running in different directions. You glance at your watch, and it vanishes too. You turn to look at your room through the balcony door and see that all your furniture is turning to dust.

You look back at the street and see nothing but a dust storm. Your house starts shaking. You run downstairs and stand in the middle of the road. You’re just in time to see the buildings in your neighborhood fade away.

You try to get into your car, but in the next moment, there’s nothing in the place where it was standing just a second ago. You check your phone and see several notifications about the world going on a full reset. Everything humans have ever created is now disappearing!

You’re still holding your phone when it gets lighter and lighter...until it’s completely gone. The same process is happening all around the world. The Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids of Giza — they have all vanished. You try to find somewhere to hide until this disaster ends.

[2 years later] You wake up in a cave together with other people. Everything humans have produced throughout the centuries of hard work has disappeared from the face of the earth. Everything that’s left behind is people, animals, and nature. Your city is now a massive plain of barren land with a few trees scattered here and there.

Your community consists of your former barber, a comic book store manager, the local baker, and your neighbors and friends. You head out of the cave to pick up some crops you planted earlier in the season. There’s not a building in sight that would obstruct your view. You can see the mountains miles away — that’s where the nearest town used to be. And over there — that’s the ocean where you once went jogging by the bay!

The land is swarming with wildlife. Plenty of raccoons, badgers, opossums, and wild cats roam the neighborhood. Next to your tiny garden, there’s a large bonfire where you cook food and have your night gatherings. Not too far away, you can see a well.

Once, there was an old piping network down there. But when the world reset, it disappeared. The only thing that remained underground was the water that you now use for drinking. Your local police officer is the leader of the community. He stands on a log and says you’ve got only a week left before the water runs out completely.

You’ll need to move to another location with a new source of water. You finish your work and take a quick nap because you’re on night duty. You walk around the perimeter. There’s no light pollution anymore, and stars are gleaming above your head.

Two other people are also patrolling the area. Suddenly, you see something running in the distance. You look closely and spot a fox. It’s heading to your chicken coop. You run toward the animal and shoo it off.

Finally, it’s the moving day. Everyone packs their stuff in bags made of rope and begins walking. You’ve got only one horse carrying supplies and water for everyone. It’s going to take around a week on foot to reach the lakes. You make your way through the plain, which used to be the highway leading to the next state. It’s scorching-hot, and your group is moving very slowly.

Along the way, you meet other nomadic caravans that trade goods with you. At night, you set up camp next to an old gas station. The building is gone, but the foundation is still there. A week later, you finally make it to the mountains near the lake and enter the forest. You have to walk uphill almost all the way.

Soon, it gets too dark. You have to make camp under the cover of old trees. It’s a cold night, and the members of your group gather around a campfire. You’re back to your night duty when everyone falls asleep. You scout the area and hear some growling sounds. You look around and spot a bear! You duck down and try not to make any noise.

Suddenly, you notice that next to you, there’s a little bear cub. It’s curiously sniffing the air just a dozen of feet away from you! The mama bear roars, calling its kid. You back up slowly. Everything is fine until you accidentally step on a branch.

The cub starts wailing, its mom leaps out from behind the trees... and spots you! The massive creature stands up on its hind legs and roars. People in the camp wake up in a panic. You run back with the bear right behind you. The leader and the rest of the night patrol manage to scare the furious animal off.

You’ve got tons of experience with foxes and raccoons. But bears are a whole new thing. You realize that you’re not at the top of the food chain anymore. The next day, you proceed with extreme caution. Lots of wild animals, like mountain lions and bobcats, are lurking around. You finally make it to the other side of the mountain and see the lake.

It’s a large area that used to be a public camping spot. Now, there are a couple of settlements built near the water. Your community isn’t that big. That’s why you settle near the river flowing out of the lake. You build a hut next to the waterfall and continue to work as a farmer.

You meet amazing people from other settlements. They used to be scientists, engineers, musicians, doctors. The scientists are trying to figure out a way to rebuild the society based on technology. But it’s likely to take decades. They’ve made the first step by creating a clay oven, pots, and pans. They’ve also built a dock on the lake and canoes for fishing and transportation.

A couple of months pass. You’ve constructed an irrigation system that uses lake water. The engineers in the settlement have even made a piping system. It delivers fresh water to every house. Now, these specialists are constructing a small dam to generate electricity. But that might take months to do.

The settlement is growing bigger with each next week. New huts are being built all the time. A carpenter has created a workshop to make furniture and tools. You no longer have to be on night duty and can focus entirely on your crops. Ever since everything humans had created vanished, people have been much healthier and stronger than before. No one sits in their hut with their eyes on the phone or TV screen.

The smog that used to cover cities has disappeared. Marine life is thriving. There’s no pollution. And trees are now growing in places that were once deforested. Everyone travels on foot or by horses and donkeys. People have been breeding these animals for transportation. So there are plenty of them around.

And the economy has changed, with everyone offering their labor in return for food or other things they need. All people have to contribute if they want to live in settlements. There are some nomads who stay alone. But it’s not easy to survive in the wild without help. That’s why these people mainly work as merchants. They deliver goods between settlements that are too far away from one another.

To entertain themselves, people role-play parts of old classic movies in front of an audience. Someone managed to make guitars, flutes, and percussion instruments from scratch. Now, you can listen to concerts at night. You find a beautiful spot to do some drawing. You use natural ink and leaves instead of paper.

Suddenly, you spot something sticking out of the ground. You pick it up and examine the familiar, almost perfect shape. In a moment, you’re already rushing back to your hut to wash off the dirt. Someone tries to check what you’re doing, but you make sure no one sees your find.

Finally, it’s clean. Your suspicion is confirmed — it’s a smartphone. It’s the first evidence of the past technological progress which hasn’t disappeared. You try to get it to work, and the gadget actually does turn on. You read a text on the phone. And it reveals the truth behind everything created by people turning to dust...