The Walking Stupid

I've been kicking around a thought on why things go to hell if we lose about 40% of the population. If we lost this amount of people which is roughly the close to the death rate of the Spanish Flu in the early 1900's and less that the death toil of the black plague, this would be enough to cripple society and to bring it to a semi halt. This is the emergency situation that most emergency responders call the zombie factor. Not that the undead will rise up, but a deadly factor that will act as a pandemic that will take the lives of the majority of people without any chance to respond with a cure or simple solution such as an Ebola outbreak or a dirty bomb. A situation that the best outcome is preventing the continual loss of lives by taking drastic measures.

If this situation were to come to pass and we were left with 60% of the population within this nation alone how would we live our lives? Most people find the solution in dumbing down society, as in prepping for the end of the world which include survival planning, saving stores of food and emergency supplies and even weapon use since we are assuming the worst of humanity. A willingness to return to the savageness of an unevolved mind. I know these movies and tv shows are entertaining, yet I have to wonder why doesn't someone simply turn on the power? Why don't we turn on the water? Why don't we continue with society once more?

And yet, the solution is something that tax us today. How many people actually have a decent education? How many people are trained to not only not eat their own poop or even to wash their hands when leaving the restroom, but general micro that most nurses must know to be accepted in a nursing program. Why isn't there an understanding of physics, math, chemistry and other hard sciences? I'm in no way ignoring the other benefits of a well rounded education such as art, literature and music, but society is built on these hard sciences and culture built on the foundation of society. And yet, there is an elitism to education. There are only individuals trained to do one job and that is it and while that job is handled then everything is ok. While it is not we are screwed. If this assumed pandemic takes place, how soon can we regain society? How soon will Switzerland, England, and other nations with higher rate of education will return to society? What of those nations with funded universities and free healthcare? Will they recover just as fast or quicker? Are their pool of educated civilians able to be trained and replace those missing pieces of society or will they falter due to their requirements in education? Will they be taught how to move levers and make a machine work or will they understand the general ideals and principals to teach others?

So my question is this? Why must we dumb down society after a great catastrophic event instead of smarting it up? How prepared are our general population to return to our way of life once we lost our "brightest"? Are we prepared now? Why are we spending so many billions of dollars on a threat from the world when the greatest threat is our own ignorance? Who have to benefit when only a few individuals can return society to a first world economy instead of a third world?

I'm still grokking this. It keeps me up at night.