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What will happen if I make a 14 year old pregnant and I’m 25 years old?

Updated Jun 8

Somehow, I suspect that, this has already happened in your life. Because people doing such behaviour generally fail to consider the consequences beforehand.

You have a few levels of issues.

You cannot force her to abort the foetus.

You will probably be legally responsible for paying money to support the child until they are the age of majority (like 18). This can be enforced by a government agency taking the money. Possibly out of your paycheques before you even receive them, and possibly with a criminal charge for failing to pay.

If your area (“jurisdiction”, meaning country and state/province) laws say that, she was under the legal “Age Of Consent”, then you could be criminally charged with statutory rape, and go to prison. This would be followed by a criminal record, and (depending on your location) being listed in a public sex offender registry. The pregnancy is evidence that the sex happened, and her age would be evidence that the sex was a crime.

If the 14-year-old legal minor consented, that doesn’t matter, in the eyes of the law. You would still be viewed as a criminal.

Becoming an adult is a trade-off. First, you get to make your own decisions (like who to have sex with). Second, you have responsibility (like to any sex that you have with minors, and to any children that you biologically parent).

Creating children (no matter how sloppy or regretful that was) means responsibility.

My parents didn’t “love” any of their kids, openly regretted having us, and their relationship was unstable.

But my father did the right thing, and financially supported us until the age of 18. Even at the time, I felt grateful for that, and knew that, many other teenagers had been “kicked to the curb”.

If my father had turned his back on that obligation, I would have made one of my life’s missions to make him suffer.

Regretting sex with a legal minor doesn’t change your legal risk of being charged with Statutory Rape. This risk is greater when there is a pregnancy, and when the age difference is 25 vs 14.

Regretting your child doesn’t change your obligations.

The girl (yes, teenage girl, not adult woman) will experience serious effects from all of this. She may be pulled into legal action against you. She may (or may not) undergo an abortion. She may have a severe derail of education, employment, and independence from her parents. She has very legitimate reason to distrust older people, and men in general.

When I was 25, I would never have even considered having sex with a 14-year-old. By now, I wouldn’t even consider having sex with a 30-year-old.

I strongly suggest that you may want to think about why you chose to have sex with someone with your age difference, whom you know is a minor. What does that say about you? You are already that person (at an age where you ought to know better), and now it is time to think about whether you want to continue being that person.

Can a teen lie about their age to have sex with adults? I’m 14 and I look like I’m 18. I’m 5’11 and have a big dick. Would it be illegal to lie about my age to go out with adults?

Answered May 10

You should be aware of three points of legality.

First, as other commenters have said, the adults would be committing a crime by having sex with you. Their real risk may be influenced by whether a court might accept that, they had reasonable belief that you were over 18.

Second, there is a concept called, “Rape By Deception”, in which a person lies to a partner, in order to obtain sexual consent that would not have been given if they knew the truth. There have been prosecutions, although I am not aware of any that involved your scenario.

Third, if you take a photograph of your “big” anatomy and send it to anyone, that could be illegal, with you as the perpetrator. Minors have actually been charged with producing child pornography (felony record, sex offender registry) for doing this:

Child Porn Laws Used Against Kids Who Photograph Themselves

Another issue is basic respect for your prospective partners.

How would you feel about someone lying to you in a way that could get you sent to prison?

How would you feel if someone lied to you, in order to obtain your sexual consent? When you would never have agreed, if you knew the truth?

How would you feel about being used by someone who didn’t care about the impact on you?

I (and most Quorans) have experience with being a teenager. I know about irrational desires. But there is a time for things, and 14 years old is not the time to be dating adults.

There is also never a time to be lying to people in order to have sex with them.

What are your predictions/theories for Season 2 of Westworld?

Updated Jun 8

As we have seen in the first two episodes of Season 2, there are a couple of structures established.

First, they are continuing with the multiple timeline idea. There are several.

The earliest point is now, 2018, when the guy from the “Argos Initiative” (Ford and Arnold’s boss) pitches the idea to Logan Delos. Earlier in the evening, Arnold is frustrated that Dolores isn’t getting up to speed, and is still too robotic (she repeats the, “stars scattered on the ground” line, and moves in a somewhat mechanical manner).

This also shows that, Hosts have been taken outside the park, and will start remembering this, to understand where the Delos staff and the Guests come from, and the artificial nature of their own world in the park.

In the “next episode” teaser, we see young-William doing a couple of things. He has a private conversation with Dolores, in the same room where Arnold used to talk with her. He is still hurt and disappointed (“You’re just a thing”), but is learning that she is “a mirror” for Guests to learn about themselves. This version looks and acts a bit older than the original young-William, so maybe this is a progression to a further time-point in his development towards Man In Black.

Also (after his first visit to the park) he pitches Logan’s father (the CEO of Delos) to invest. This is a vital moment, because it reveals one mission of the park. They will lie to the Guests that, their behaviour will be confidential, but the Hosts are really recording everything that is done to them. Before their memories are erased, that video footage is stored elsewhere. Delos Corporation will then use this to blackmail the wealthy, powerful Guests. The intellectual property that the woodcutter was transmitting, and that Peter Abernathy has, includes this behavioural data (i.e. it wasn’t just programming source code).

Another time point is the night that the overt Host rebellion starts (we see a Guest in a tuxedo, running into a remote refurbishment lab, having just escaped from the party where Ford is killed). Then, Dolores (in Wyatt mode) and her posse walk in.

Also, just after this time point, Bernard and Charlotte escape to the remote facility that Charlotte knew about, but Bernard didn’t. Elsewhere, MIB is dealing with the gunshot that he received during the party, and feeling happy with the new situation.

Another time point is two weeks later, when Karl (representing Delos) arrives on the beach, and seeks Bernard’s assistance. Note that, Bernard has lost his eyeglasses, and is weak and confused.

The other basic structure is groups and leaders, with four of them.

There is Dolores. She has three personality-type facets. The naive, innocent, rancher’s daughter, ready to be victimised by Guests, and also confused in her old talks with Arnold. She is also Wyatt, (originally a separate character intended to be in a separate body, but now merged with her), whom we first saw in the last episode of Season 1, during the fight with MIB. (Or possibly during the original massacre that she did with Teddy?) The Wyatt persona is the one with the ammunition belt, gunning down Guests, and barking orders, and talking about revenge. The third personality is a separate person, which is self-directed, and she isn’t quite sure who she is yet.

Dolores leads Teddy, who isn’t yet conscious, and always has that panicked expression. When they walk into the control facility, you can see the zombie-like “Wyatt’s men” who, ironically, set upon and killed Teddy back in Season 1. Teddy’s consciousness is encouraged by Dolores, when she tells him to review his history of being shot and killed by Guests.

Maeve leads Hector, who isn’t yet conscious. She previously had the “Infiltrate Mainland” instruction on her file, and chose to disobey. I’m guessing that, we will get some idea of who made that instruction. She wants to rescue her daughter, and also rescue Clementine. She is less interested in revenge, compared to Dolores.

Dolores and Maeve will be enemies. I had already figured this out by the end of Season 1. Dolores wants more large-scale violence and change. Perhaps Maeve just wants to settle down to a peaceful farmhouse and family, and so feels threatened by Dolores.

There is Karl, who heads the Extraction Team at Delos Corp. His mission is to evacuate the Guests, to kill the malfunctioning Hosts, and to figure out what went wrong, while minimising the public relations disaster that could reduce business revenue. In talking with Stubbs, he implies that, there have been previous Guest fatalities, which may have involved misbehaving hosts, but nothing on this scale. The Delos Destinations contract denies any legal liability for injuries or death.

Lastly, old-William/Man-In-Black isn’t quite a leader, since he only has his long-time companion, Lawrence, and is rejected when attempting to recruit an army in Pariah (“This game is meant for you, William, but you must play it alone”).

In the S2, E2 “next episode” teaser, the elder Delos (Logan’s father) says, “There’s not a man in the world who would talk to me like you do”. Meaning that, he is impressed by the younger William seeming pushy and arrogant. This echos older-William/MIB admiring Lawrence in Season 1. This is part of the comedic relief that will continue (“Mutherfucker”… “Lawrence, you ingrate, grab the gun!”). On a more serious note, in Season 1, Lawrence said, “I’ll kill you”, and MIB calmly replied, “Maybe someday you will”.

Older-William/MIB’s view of the park is different from most Guests. They want to feel cool by subjugating defenseless Hosts. In contrast, MIB wants a fair fight, where he is engaging his basic “true” self, without the fakery and false-politeness, and pseudo-respect directed at his outside-world persona (“Titan of industry, philanthropist…”)

In S2, E2, older-William/MIB talks to Lawrence in the saloon (just after MIB retrieves the first-aid kit to treat his second gunshot wound, sustained when rescuing Lawrence). Note that, the camera angle on Ed Harris is exactly the same as in the Season 1 “Contrapasso”, when he talks with Ford.

In the Superbowl trailer, there is a shot of MIB, standing in the rain, looking grim, like something tragic has happened, and he is feeling bummed. Although Lawrence is alive and well in the background.

Old-William/MIB is central. In Season 1, he was misguided, thinking that The Maze was something he could find. However, Season 2 has the Child Ford Host, and also the current El Lazo, directly state that, finding “The Door” is a game personally designed for him. The S2 opening credits show a buffalo being produced, and then running wild and falling. They also show MIB’s hat falling, as he falls as a person, or maybe just falls down the rabbit hole. There is a comb going through a woman’s long blonde hair, and I’m not sure that is Dolores, but maybe someone new (or possibly Armistice?).

The S2, E2 saloon monologue tells us old-William/Man-In-Black’s agenda. He feels that, he has been judged unfairly. My guess is that, somebody in Delos management told his wife and daughter about his violent behaviour in the park. This inspired his wife’s suicide, and daughter’s estrangement. He now wants to dismiss that as being just an irrelevant game, which doesn’t really show his true nature. He want’s “Real stakes, real violence” so that, he can show himself to be the good, noble hero of the story, when it really matters.

When, a year prior, MIB killed settler-Maeve and her daughter (perhaps symbolic of his own wife’s death and daughter’s estranagement), he was testing himself, to see if he could express himself as truly evil. However, his actions revealed The Maze, which may have been the tipping point of suffering, which finally led to Maeve gaining consciousness and freedom. So on that level, he actually did something good.

MIB also told also directly Lawrence, “I’m here to set you free”. He feels guilty about all of the suffering that has been inflicted on the Hosts, and has been showing this from S1, E1, as he talked to Teddy (“It seemed cruel”).

He is also old, and feeling finished with life, and plans to destroy Westworld before dying.

“There’s another game here. Arnold’s game. And it cuts deep.” In S2, E2, Arnold and Dolores admire the beautiful city, but Arnold suggests that, humans don’t deserve that beauty, and that, his children (his son, Charlie, but also his children, the Hosts) do. My guess is that, the plan is for the Hosts to escape the park(s), infiltrate the mainland, kill all humans, and establish a new civilisation on Earth.

Younger-William showed Dolores the terraforming machinery. Perhaps this is what she later refers to as a “weapon”. Also, the terraforming recently resulted in creation of an unplanned lake, where many Hosts drowned, and Bernard feels responsible. Back in Season 1, Ford was restructuring large land areas with unknown details.

Bernard is vaguely aware that he is a Host, and is apparently dependent on injecting the milk-looking fluid. He needs to hide this from Charlotte and Karl.

Other issues:

Charlotte Hale represents the Delos Board, but she is now hostage to getting the collected data out (via Peter Abernathy) in order for Management to evacuate her. Perhaps Charlotte is somehow related to Charlie, Arnold’s dead son?

Lee Sizemore is now an underling to Maeve, and may become upset at living out the level of violence that he had previously pitched to Ford.

We have already seen the training facility for Samurai World. The original film also had Medieval World and Roman world. We will get at least a glimpse of these. The revolution might be contained only to Westworld at the moment. Although the tiger on the beach must have come from another park. Perhaps there is an “Africa”-themed park?

Dolores needs some Delos staff kept alive to rejuvenate killed hosts. Maeve also still has Felix and Sylvester.

Stubbs and Elsie appear in the dune buggy with Bernard in the +2-weeks timeline, so we will have flashbacks to their escapes.

The host being rendered in Ford’s secret outpost lab will be revealed. It might be a copy of a person (Ford?), or it might be a new character. The Delos Destinations contract asserts the right to collect biological information (body fluid samples, DNA) from Guests, and there is already the precedent of making Bernard as a copy of Arnold.

Season 1 showed replays of various situations. The train rides (the one arriving in Sweetwater, and the one going to the front with El Lazo). Hector and his gang stealing the safe. Dolores seeing her previous self face-down in the river. Old-William/MIB rescuing Lawrence (with two slightly different scenarios). Teddy being killed many times. Season 2 will continue this general idea.

So far, the only two conscious hosts are Dolores and Maeve. Bernard is working on it. A vital part of consciousness is knowing that they are Hosts, and that, they and their environment were manufactured.

Lastly, the point in S1, E1 which got a lot of press attention, was the moment during the “Attack On The Ranch” scenario, when MIB arrived, killed Teddy, and dragged Dolores into the barn, slamming the door. The obvious implication was that, he raped her (and that would be the usual actions of Guests). My prediction is that, he didn’t do that, and that, we will see what actually happened. Maybe he cut her body open, to find some hidden clue (similar to later cutting open Kissy’s head). Or maybe there was some effort to connect with the voice messages left behind by Arnold (e.g. the, “Kill him” that Dolores hears in another replay of the barn incident, when she pulls the gun out of the haystack, and shoots a Host, violating her programming that is supposed to prevent her from firing guns).

ETA (after further thought, and reading other comments):

I agree that, Dolores probably isn’t really conscious yet, and is playing Wyatt, as scripted by Ford. Killing Ford was a replay of her killing Arnold, and she was doing programmed actions both times.

I also agree that, Maeve is the only Host that we have clearly seen make a decision to contradict their programming, when she got back off the train (didn’t she leave her handbag (with data) on the seat?)

In “Contrapasso”, old-William/MIB talks about, how Westworld needed a villain, and that was what he contributed, in a fictional way. But he was interested in Wyatt, as a worthy adversary.

Currently (I haven’t seen S2,E3 yet, so don’t spoiler me!), it looks like, Ford decided to make a villain, in the form of Wyatt, who was originally an individual character. Merging Wyatt with Dolores makes her into the villain of the story.

Perhaps a persistent problem was, young-William falling in love with Dolores, and struggling to be free from his disappointment of how that turned out. Even as MIB, he is sincere when picking up the milk can – “Sweet, but not as sweet as you”.He returns to the park over and over, hoping to rekindle that first romance on the train.

Perhaps old-William/MIB can get over this, when Dolores is transformed into an enemy (Wyatt).

There are guilty feelings all around. Arnold, 35 years ago, and recent Ford, ordering their own executions. The shame of Guests who fear that their vacations were recorded for blackmail. Sizemore, and the other Delos staff. Maybe Logan will get in on that? Old-William/MIB feeling that, pitching Delos to invest in the park, made him responsible for the suffering of the Hosts (including his beloved Dolores).

Old-William/MIB has exactly one friend in WestWorld, or the world in general. As with the, “Do you believe in God?” talk, he is very interested in inspiring Lawrence to be the second truly conscious Host.

Can virus and bacteria survive in salt water?

Updated May 11

The keyword is “halophile”. Like other types of extremophiles, most of these are in the domain Archaea, which are kind of like bacteria, but kind of different.

The issue with salt water is that, a high concentration of sodium chloride in the surrounding water environment, might suck out the water that is inside the cell. That is called “osmosis”.

A way to avoid this is to have a compensating solute inside the cell, which does not have to be sodium, and can be a range of other things. Those substances keep the water inside the cell from being sucked out. It takes energy and certain genetic information to do this.

It isn’t exactly a matter of just “surviving”. They are adapted to their environment, and actually need it.

If you took them out of their normal high-salt water environment, and put them into distilled water (theoretically zero salt) they would die. A similar issue exists for hyperthermophiles, which would freeze to death at room temperature. These are some reasons why culturing and studying extremophiles is a major hassle.

As for viruses, they don’t “survive” anything, because they aren’t technically alive in the first place.

A virus may have a protein coat (capsid), which might be disrupted by a high-salt environment. However, as with bacteria, some species may be quite happy with it.

Some other viruses are “enveloped”, and are coated with part of the membrane of the host cell that they had infected and escaped from. Those are a lot more fragile, and may be deactivated just by sitting around exposed to the air for awhile (e.g. that cold/flu virus that sat on the elevator button for a couple of days). So I would expect those to be vulnerable to every threat, including high salt.

Fun Fact #1: “Salt” doesn’t just mean sodium chloride table salt. It really relates to ionic compounds, like a metal and a non-metal.

Fun Fact #2: The most abundant biological unit on Earth is bacteriophages. They are viruses that infect bacteria, and the oceans (salt-water) are full of them. I only really know a lot about one (1, n=1, a single, solitary one) virus, and it is one of these, and apparently quite durable in many environments.

Why is it so taboo to support eugenics?

Updated May 4

The taboo is overtly around the issue of coercion.

If you use the word “eugenics”, some people (as seen in this discussion) have a knee-jerk reaction, and automatically think “Nazis”. They think about targeting whole ethnic groups, or killing people, or forcible sterilisation.

However, I think some of the discomfort is really about the issue of people being encouraged to make their own rational choices, and exercise thought-out, responsible control over our lives and our bodies. That doesn’t sit too well with the majority, who view having children as something that just automatically and randomly “happens” to everyone.

The truth is, humans and other animals engage in large-scale selective breeding for fitness (including intelligence) all the time. It’s perfectly normal.

Some people get nervous when there is new technology involved, and explicitly stated selection:

Genetic Counselor: “Well, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, we have tested your (alleles, single nucleotide polymorphisms, scary scientific sounding stuff, etc), and I have some bad news. If you were to have a child, there would be a 50% chance of a devastating genetic disease, with nothing but misery and pain for said child, and for you.”

Couple (in unison): ”Bummer. We better not have any kids.”

Or it can go the other way:

Crackly Voice From Speaker: “Hi! Welcome to Jolly Jism Drive-Through Sperm Bank! May I take your order?”

Customer: “Yes, I’d like the Rocket Scientist with Olympic Champion… Healthy, tall, blond… Clean family history for cancer or mental illness.”

Crackly Voice From Speaker: “Excellent choice! Would you like a side order of artistic talent?”

Customer: “I’ll take the classical piano playing.”

Crackly Voice From Speaker: “Great, I’m whipping up your fresh hot sample right now! Please drive forward to the pickup window.”

And people do it in a more casual way constantly:

“Ewww, that person is stupid (or has any characteristic that repulses me), and I can barely stand to interact with them, so I certainly would never consent to having any kids with them.”

Some individuals are already pushed entirely out of the breeding pool, simply because they have characteristics which lead to being persistently rejected for sexual opportunities. They don’t have any “right” to produce children when they can’t find any willing mates.

Government force is already used to some extent, via the criminal justice system. One effect of imprisoning criminals is that it removes them from the breeding pool, either temporarily or permanently.

In the book, “Freakonomics”, the authors talked about the impact of abortion (specifically legalisation in the US) on subsequent crime rates. Maybe the reason why you weren’t mugged and killed in 1995, is because your assailant was aborted back in 1975.

I would also expect that the benefits expand, because he also won’t be using law enforcement or prison resources, or fathering another generation of low-functioning street criminals. And his sister, who was aborted a few years later, also won’t be contributing to the current generation of criminals, or to multi-generational poverty and welfare dependence, recycled by low-functioning people.

Some individuals may have an honest self-assessment that, “Me having children wouldn’t benefit anyone. It would be stupid and irresponsible, and a general, long-term disaster. So therefore, I won’t have any children.” This could range from medical history, to lacking financial resources, to simply having other priorities in life.

People who are considered conventionally “attractive” are really displaying good reproductive fitness. This can range from wide hips to get a large baby’s head through, all the way to financial status symbols. People with those characteristics will receive more attention and opportunities for mating, including with other people of high reproductive fitness.

People who get upset about all of this may just be worshipping fertility. Without caring about the suffering caused by low-functioning people producing children whom they are not equipped (mentally, behaviourally, financially) to raise in a decent manner. This includes some of those low-functioning parents actively inflicting the biological disaster by using alcohol and other drugs while pregnant.

A large portion of the people who are pumping out kids do so with exactly zero rational decision-making, self-control, or actions→consequences thinking.

And that is why the film, “Idiocracy” is gradually coming true. Mass collective bad behaviour leads to mass collective bad results, including on those of us who are not engaged in that bad behaviour. The alternative to eugenics is a default to dysgenics.

Where and when did writing language originate?

Answered Apr 26

My guess is that, it was probably invented by some illiterate person.

Are you a person who lives a minimalist lifestyle? How do you maintain this way of living?

Updated Apr 25

Maintaining this level is fairly easy.

My initial impetus for minimalism (as a teenager) was housing-based pressure. This meant, living in a small space, and relocating numerous times (both short and long distances). This has continued for a long time as an adult, and I foresee it continuing.

My basic value system (again, developed at an early age) is towards experiences and freedom. Objects are simply tools for those real pursuits.

Maintaining can come from a few angles.

First, there is the simple point of thinking carefully before you buy a new object. Do I really need it? How is it going to impact my daily life (e.g. helping efficiency and time-saving)? How is it going to further my overall medium/long term goals?

Second, some purchases are replacements. New item comes in, and old item goes out.

Nearly all of my physical possessions have practical use, and actually get used on a relatively frequent basis. It can be a good idea to keep track of usage (e.g. have I used this item in the past year?) I avoid keeping “just in case” items.

I used to be burdened with paper (old bank statements, letters, articles, printed information, university manuals, etc, etc). Scanning years of backlogged paper is time-consuming and tedious, but it only needs to be done once. Now, a lot of that starts as digital, and never takes paper form. Also, new paper can be immediately scanned, and so never builds up. Some paper (calendars, lists, notes, articles, work or university stuff, etc) is only around for a short time period and then tossed.

While I love physical books, I only own a small number, which are all for scientific reference. Otherwise, I rely on a large quantity of PDF format books, plus borrowing from libraries.

Some large/heavy items in my daily life don’t even belong to me, due to renting furnished rooms for the last few years. I have usage without the burdens of ownership (i.e. moving to a new room is quick and easy).

The last time I owned furniture, it was cheap second-hand stuff, which I donated back when moving.

I view most of my possessions as being temporary, disposable, consumable, and replaceable. This is in my mind from the moment I contemplate buying something, so my investment (both financial and emotional) will be relatively low from the start.

Disposability relates to mobility. If I moved across town, I would take a single taxicab trip to carry all of my stuff. However, the next time I move to a new city, I plan to downsize to an amount that would work for a long-distance bus/train/plane trip. Upon arrival, I would buy a few replacement items, but those would also be ultimately disposable.

Maintenance of this lifestyle is based on having a low financial and emotional investment, both when contemplating a purchase, and also when downsizing.

Why are post apocalyptic survivors often portrayed as being more preoccupied in killing each other rather than picking up the pieces and building a self sufficient civilization?

Updated Apr 5

It depends. Like most questions on Quora.

First, if you are asking about fictional movies and television series, they like violence and “action”. That is what sells movie tickets and television subscriptions. The public will pay for depictions of post-apocalyptic survivors shooting and whacking each other.

Those viewers get vicarious thrills from imagining themselves behaving like the violent characters. They justify this as “noble” violence.

Mad Max defends women and children from sadistic gangs. Eli is a righteous man, preserving religion as a part of civilisation, and helping his younger friend. The Will Smith version of Robert Neville is a scientist, trying to cure the disease (although the Charlton Heston and Vincent Price versions were mainly oriented to personal survival). Various zombie apocalypse survivors defend their group of people from de-individualised, subhuman hordes of monsters.

But the viewers’ basic (get it?) interest is the vicarious emotional feeling of being “badass”.

An exception is the 1964 film, “The Last Man on Earth”, with Vincent Price (and apparently is more clear in the 1954 novel, “I am Legend”). The novel was also the inspiration for the film of that name, and also for, “Omega Man”. In the first film, it turns out that, the infected people were alive and conscious, and, from their perspective, the protagonist was the evil monster killing them when they were vulnerable. There is also an alternate ending to the Will Smith version of “I Am Legend”, which has a similar message. The original book’s title meant that, the new society of infected people would remember Neville as being the boogieman who would stab innocent victims while they sleep.

If it was an “I Am Legend” zombie apocalypse type of deal, I imagine that, if I were confident of being immune to the disease, I might also stay in a large city, in order to used left-over resources. However, I probably wouldn’t try to save the zombies, so they would only represent constant danger.

The real-life prospect of a post-apocalypse situation is different. I envision two different versions:

Medium to large-scale nuclear war. More than half the population of the US, Russia, Canada, Mexico, China, Japan, and/or Europe could be killed from the initial event, plus long-term disease, shortages, and social breakdown. The severity depends on who is shooting at who, with how many missiles.
Biological disaster. This could be deliberate, accidental, or just evolution. No movie-type zombies, but, rather, a lot of fatalities, plus sick, starving, desperate people. It could be so bad that, most of humanity could be dead in a few months. The medieval plagues will replay even worse. It might infect people directly, or it might infect plants used for food, leading to worldwide famine. Against people, my guess is a 50/50 chance that it will be either be a virus or a bacteria. Against plants, my guess is a fungus.

I have zero desire to kill anyone, but I don’t want anyone attacking me, either. So one would have to get one’s priorities very clear, in a situation and frame of mind that is totally different to regular life as it is now.

Post-apocalypse, I might just get away from everybody, and be a self-sufficient farmer. I would be armed, but only for intruders.

The nuclear scenario would necessitate getting as far away from bombed/radioactive areas as possible. Those will be major cities, but also areas downwind of them.

The biological scenario would mean isolating away from large cities and infected (or non-infected but starving and desperate) population. This was apparently how a lot of Europeans survived the actual plagues, either due to already living in small towns, or by deliberate evacuation.

In either case, one would want to get away from highways and roads where they may travel.

Any full-scale apocalypse scenario will tend to involve one or more of certain factors:

A large portion of the population is killed within a fairly short time frame (ranging from a few days to a few years). Cities will lose many people. Possibly due to being bomb targets. Or due to a disease that spreads fast through the dense population. There may have been mass evacuations, if the disaster was anticipated or was relatively slow. Survivors may be geographically spread out.
Many survivors may be chronically ill and/or dying over an extended period.
Large geographic areas may be contaminated, so many survivors may be totally focused on traveling to find someplace better, while scavenging (and competing with other scavengers) along the way.
Civilisation is largely about ongoing food production for a large group. A pastoral style is a problem, because the livestock animals may be dead/sick/contaminated, and/or the area is a problem (e.g. no grass to feed to the cattle). A settled farming style is a problem, such as radiation, or a crop-killing fungus, or marauding gangs targeting you.
A lot of modern technology may be destroyed, or rendered useless, or will deteriorate, without any replacements available. Vehicles and communications systems are particularly an issue, but also anything involving food production.
There will generally be a much more “here-and-now” short-term mentality. This favours devoting one’s energy and attention towards violence for existing resources. A much slower process of rebuilding would be greatly delayed. Today’s starvation cannot be solved by staying in place, and planting crops that take months to yield. But it can be solved by moving along down the road and killing someone who possesses a tin of beans.

Organised people with resources may “circle the wagons” into small, isolated, armed city-states, which may be extremely oppressive to most of the people inside. I expect that, women and beta-males will have a very bad time in these places.

You could have three choices. Either living in an established micro-civilisation where you are a chained, beaten slave, or becoming an isolated hermit farmer, or wandering as a nomadic scavenger.

If I had some kind of mission, like “The Book Of Eli” or “The Road”, then I can imagine myself becoming corrupted by it. That would be an adaptation to the aggressive environment. But I’m not an, “on a mission” type of person, and probably wouldn’t become one.

As far as situational adaptation, “The Road Warrior” (a.k.a. “Mad Max 2”) implies that, Mad Max and Lord Humungus had similar backgrounds (e.g. establishment/government employees, traumatised by the deaths of their families), but adapted differently.

Historically and presently, there have been plenty of people in localised situations approaching post-apocalypse. Cambodia in the 1970s. Rwanda in the 1990s. Somalia, Sudan, etc., etc. Lots of looting, violence, slavery, etc.

Even short-term situations, like natural disasters, can get very ugly, very quickly. People can get extremely aggressive after missing enough meals, or just a going a couple of days without water. They will attack each other in competition. They will even attack a helicopter that is trying to drop off food and supplies to them.

The other major issue in a post-apocalypse situation is the, “getting away with it”factor.

Plenty of people are very aggressive behind closed doors, towards people close to them. Child abuse, spouse/partner abuse, date/acquaintance sexual assault, and even being exploitive, abusive and violent in platonic “friendships”. The reason they don’t go out and attack strangers on the street, is simply fear of consequences.

In cases of public violence, an isolated, low-resource individual usually has relatively low impact. They are much easier to contain, and likely to be captured or killed by police. A semi-organised street gang will present a more chronic issue, and they will have more confidence with their numbers. Multiple gangs create chronic crossfire and paranoia.

A large mob (or worse, multiple mobs) of rioters (whether motivated by starvation, racial resentment, or just plain greed) can have a relatively large impact. This can happen in a developed country, in relative peacetime, such as in Los Angeles, in 1992.

Individuals may fear consequences as a sole perpetrator, smashing into a store to grab merchandise, or beating a stranger on the street. But, as a member of a large, rampaging mob, they may feel much more confident to join in.

They might feel like mob-versus-police was simply an issue of who outnumbered whom. Although there would a difference in location and circumstances.

A few hundred rioters in present-situation America or Britain, may expect that, the less-numerous police will respond with nightsticks and tear gas. Consequences may range from low-level bashing, to fines/probation (and criminal record), to county jail.

A similar sized mob in a more chaotic country (or in the early stage of an apocalypse) might fear being mowed down by a couple of dozen police with automatic firearms. There are also mob-control tools being developed, using sticky foam, microwaves, and sound. You can already buy a rather goofy-looking vehicle carrying a huge metal wall, so you could use four of them to push and contain the mob into the middle of a street intersection. This may be followed by torture, prison/slavery, or execution.

A large number of people have simering senses of entitlement, resentment, power fantasies, etc. Many lack empathy, and have serious cognitive deficits. An apocalypse would reduce/eliminate police control, and also reduce other social controls. And thus would change the, “getting away with it” factor for those people.

A parallel point for other people, is investment in their current situation. A person with a stable place to live, food, medical care, a job, and friends/family whom they value, has incentive to stay cooperative and peaceful. But, someone (including a previously decent person), who has lost all of that, is a greater risk of violence. Either competing for resources, or just lashing out.

Both of the preceding issues relate to something sometimes called, “the veneer of civilisation”. An apocalypse would subject large masses of people into either (or both) of those situational changes.

I’m already not particularly impressed by civilisation or society as it is, so I wouldn’t be too eager to put it back together. This would especially apply if the apocalypse is brought about by human stupidity (either deliberate or negligent).