One of the great sci-fi authors (Clarke?) once classified various stages of catastrophe, in terms of population loss. Basically, a civilization could survive losing up to 90% of its population without significant technological or cultural regression. More than 98% and technology would take a back seat to the business of survival. Clearly, this is flawed. The global literacy rate is only 82%. Lose that segment of population, and just about all technology and history is gone. Maybe he meant from the population at random. |