Set in the present day every human beings on Earth suddenly becomes invisible to the visible and ultraviolet spectrum and loss their voices due to some unforeseen circumstances in just over a couple of seconds. That's means most of the population turn blind instantly and the consequences only gets worst because this changes is irreversible. Would the civilization crumble and never recover to what it once was? Note that clothing and tatoo are opaque and the entire vocal cord missing.
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4$\begingroup$ If clothing is opaque, this means that people can see each other if they wear clothes? I don't know where you come from, but here in the UK, people wear clothes most of the time. $\endgroup$– user10945Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 9:06
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2$\begingroup$ Nowadays civilization is so connected with electronics and mobiles, so vast majority would be still looking into them, communicating via them, so a lot of them would not even notice the change :D $\endgroup$– Antoine HejlíkCommented Dec 14, 2016 at 9:09
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2$\begingroup$ @Pete: everyone is blind remember... $\endgroup$– user6760Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 9:10
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2$\begingroup$ @user6760 - You said that everyone becomes invisible. That's entirely different to everyone being blind. Can you please make your question more clear in this respect? $\endgroup$– user10945Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 9:14
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2$\begingroup$ Becoming invisible is largely irrelevant if everyone is also blind. See Day of the Triffids for further details $\endgroup$– SeparatrixCommented Dec 14, 2016 at 9:43
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5 Answers
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Makin people invisible and mute is not a problem. How can you tell? Let me explain it by this method of communication called writing. I'm doing it right now to communicate with person I don't see without using my mouth.
Making all people go blind and mute is totally different problem. But, again, you give us a upper hand with "present day". I may be mute but that don't mean I'm deaf. And my phone is still working. So for a few day we could communicate using different methods and came up with different methods for times to come when we have power, water or food. Then people would probably die in large numbers. But as you stated that the cause last only a few second every person born after would see.
So to summarize - blind and mute world would go through the same process as Europe during black death. I think we would be set back to technology circa XIX century.
answered Dec 14, 2016 at 10:49
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As you stated that vocal cord will be missing in everyone, that would mean that they would need at least some way to communicate to survive, opaque clothing can be used to make hand signs visible but with most of population blind, that would not do much good either. So without even as basic thing as communication, this scenario can definitely result in diminishing of civilization. Save a few who can see.
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Civilisation as we know it would collapse, but it would quickly rebuild itself after the lootings etc. I'm not sure how we would breed and repopulate if we cannot see each other or call, maybe by writing stuff down society could communicate, but it probably wouldn't survive very long... BUT if some people survived, the few survivors would quickly overcome the weaker and start again, and in that scenario where there are a few survivors then civilisation wouldn't fall but just become smaller and perhaps more violent. Perhaps people would split into clans etc and advancement would go back a few decades?
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Would the civilization crumble and never recover
I think that quite the opposite. It would almost annihilate civilization and then recover as there is found some good practices on how to deal with that and some new systems are built.
Security now relies on people being able to see the perpetrator. There is no way to identify each other. Maybe some identification tattoos would be required from the people and the humans without would be deemed outlaws and eliminated automatically. Communication would probably be done by hands with gloves/writing etc.
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I'm pretty certain humanity would be nearly wiped off the face of the planet in a few years time because we'd be unable to eat, drink, and protect ourselves from the elements/animals once our machines break down.
As well, there would be very few ways communicate such as by writing words on hands, making childish sounds that only use the tongue and lips (popping, snapping, clicking, etc), or banging things together. Yes, there are blind people who have adapted so that they can use something similar to echolocation, however, this wouldn't help people hunt or gather once our pre-processed food runs out meaning death for nearly all. Really I imagine the only people who could survive awhile would be the preppers, but even they would run out of food eventually and humanity would cease to exist.
