Netflix has a BBC series called "Survivors", and I think it is worth watching. It's a six-part series (at least the first installment is) and I've watched five of them.
The premise is this: A flu virus reduces the population of Europe (and, presumably, the world) by between 95 and 98%. The survivors are mainly those who showed a natural immunity to the virus, with a very (VERY) small percentage of actual virus survivors (those that contracted the disease but lived through it).
The show is good... better than good, perhaps, because it is BBC and is doing a damn fine job of contrasting the modern liberal European "collective" mindset against the "everyone for themselves" mentality that is more in line with what we see as the American tradition. The remnants of "government" in the story are being shown as "less-than-good" and the individualism and self determination of the survivors is being portrayed as the ideal.
It raises some interesting questions, though... aside from the obvious one about big government...
At what level of disaster does the "Rule of Law" cease to apply to the individual? Obviously, they have taken the far extreme... billions dead across the globe, and cities and metro areas like London, New York, Paris and Moscow out-of-bounds due to the mass of unburied dead and the cholera and typhoid that results. Survivors are forced into small, relatively cut-off villages and hamlets where agriculture and sparse populations have allowed havens to remain. When does the obligation to conduct one's self according to "society's" dictates dissolve in light of the end of society? When does "theft" become "foraging"? When does "equitable distribution" become "confiscation and seizure"? When does the need for resources outweigh the need for peaceful coexistence?
A good show... check it out.
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