iPhone

And usually just take pictures of things at work as a note taking method.

I don’t know the physics behind it, or if it’s even true (could just be a placebo effect), but if you scrunch the paper there is less streaking on the clean up.

I’d estimate that 90%+ of us would be dead in a matter of months if not weeks.

Consider the significant lack of food available. Think about how much food the average person has in their house. Probably a week, maybe two. Perhaps a month if you’re wise and start rationing immediately. But most won’t. Most people would be in denial at the start and assume someone or something would rescue us.

Now consider how much food there is available at your local grocery store. And how many people that store could feed. Compare that to the population of the geographic area that store supports and you’ll see that for the most part we would be out of food in a matter of months.

Sure we could scavenge and perhaps hunt small game, but that’s limited and not something most people could do. But to get to a point where we’re actually able to do some level of substance farming, that could take up to a year to complete depending on the season society collapses. Before we get there most of us would have staved to death. Probably too many would die and there wouldn’t be enough labour to work the farms either.

And that’s just considering food. There’s still the issue of clean potable water, and infections or other health issues that turn deadly quickly without modern medical intervention.

And these issues are all compounded if you live in a high density urban environment. Which many do.

TLDR: if society collapses, it might be wise to just bow out before things get really bad.

I don’t think that’s entirely accurate. There were other paths to citizenship (iirc something akin to the peace corps and perhaps even business success? It’s been a while since I read it). But it wasn’t just military. It’s just that military was the easiest for most people.

As a metaphysical solipsist, I haven’t decided yet.