The world has been ravaged by a deadly virus taking down 90% - 95% of the people living on it. The virus is gone and now very, very few people are left on the earth. It's probably one of the most hellish pictures conjured by Sci-Fi, but, at that very moment, you begin to realize...not having so many people around isn't as bad as you thought. I know this conjures up the theme of world overpopulation and, no, this is not a sinister scheme to get you to unconsciously endorse such a thing, but I did feel that when I was thinking about the subject- no matter the scale of the horror- there were certain undeniable advantages to such a world so utterly relieved of human life. It's a little dark, but a bit of a mind exercise. What would such a world be like for you and, even considering the event leading up to it, do you think you would be better off in that world or not?
The world itself, everything that isn't part of human civilization, would most definitely be better off. Whether or not humanity itself would be better off is hard to say. You'd have to go through it to see that since it would depend entirely on how human societies reformed and expressed themselves. If we could take the lessons of history and reshape a new future intelligently, than perhaps it would be. But if devolve back to middle age style feudal societies and religions, probably not.
This reminds me of a Rod Serling 'Twilight Zone' episode where everyone on the earth was destroyed except one guy who was an avid bookworm who escaped being killed because he was reading in the basement bowels of a library. At first he was elated....free food, free everything....he would read to his heart's content but then......He tripped and broke his glasses....
Burgess Meredith was the actor in that episode. He's most known for his role as Rocky's trainer, though he's probably been a character actor in dozens of films.
The sudden loss of 90% of the human population would be disastrous. We'd probably recover but there'd be a long period of disruption first and after that, I'm not sure life in general would be all that much better or worse than it is now.
I think that world would be hellish. There is no way our post industrial society could recover from that, unless the 90% death was uniform. If, as realistically would happen, tehre are pockets of 100% death, as well as pockets of lower percentages, there is no practical way that all the knowledge of industry could recover in less than a century. We live in a world of specialists, and if too many specialists die, their knowledge is gone.
One must assume they and theirs would be survivors, unlikely. There is also the small point of what happens when oil tanks begin leaking not to mention Nuclear Power Planets melting down and spewing their radiation into the environment so who knows how bad it would get. In the long run the Planet would be far better off with most of us but in the short term it would be hell on earth.
Then in the end the Nazi's came to get him (if I remember correctly)... He thought he was the last man on earth but in reality it was just an Orwellian society... Then he ended up like blowing himself up with his books?? or killing himself?? It was a great metaphor....
Personally, I'd be thrilled. Those of us remaining could then pollute, drive our cars all we want, use all the fresh water we want - everything would be abundant. Plus if most liberals and democrats went, I'd be even happier. Worst case scenario would be 10,000 people left; me and 9,999 leftwing democrats/arab muslims.
