Edit: We survived an ice age and we’re very highly adaptable. Plus, we will hold on to some percentage of technical knowledge that will help us adapt faster.
Edit: We survived an ice age and we’re very highly adaptable. Plus, we will hold on to some percentage of technical knowledge that will help us adapt faster.
And stem professionals are also violence professionals (i.e. military and cops)? STEM tends to be very specific in their knowledge base these days. Yeah, they know how to make solar panels, but do they know where to get those materials, how to mine them? Even 80 years ago, it took several teams of hundreds of scientists to figure out nuclear energy. Lose half that team of specified individuals working together and you just have an idea. And those smart individuals gained their knowledge from smart individuals before them, and same for those individuals.
Look at Greek fire or the pyramids for examples of lost technology that 2000 years later, we still can’t figure out. Losing a scientist here or there is generally not that big of a deal, but when you can’t control how many or who goes, you lose control of the knowledge.