Changes in Human Society

Humans had a great deal of diversity in their social organizations. Indeed, our team of scientists feel that we may have only scratched the surface of the many ways that humans chose to live, work, and play together. For this section we will be dealing with a specific set of social norms and how they were affected by the hypothesized collapse.

A standard human would be raised by their parents until reaching adulthood, then enter the workforce in order to provide for themselves economically. At this same time they would choose a partner and begin to share finances and eventually begin having children in order to raise them and start the process over again. This is straightforward, repeatable, and predictable. It would not last forever though.

Towards the end of their civilization humans living in this kind of social structure began to experience economic burdens. Due to the changes noted in other sections it can be surmised that their financial systems began to fail. This can easily be seen in how many humans found themselves in need of money on short notice. A student may need to buy textbooks. A worker may need to repair a vehicle used to get to work. A renter may be facing eviction. A person in a relationship may need to post bail because their partner has been arrested. Sadly these occurrences became very common. Especially for young females. In some cases the same female was recorded several times within the span of a month facing these types of financial woes.

One way in which human sought to deal with this was via the exchange of sexual performance for money, goods, or services. There is a long history of sex being used to pay for food delivery, plumbing and home repair, or maintenance of swimming pools. As time went on this expanded. Eventually it was common for services like taxicabs to be paid for in sex rather than cash, or for real estate deals to be enticed into closing with the use of titillation. If it involved some transfer of wealth it could be replaced with a transfer of fluids, it seems.

Aside from the economics, however, there was one other major change. As populations declined it is theorized that human being became increasingly lonely and wanted to recreate the safety of the family unit. And so adults who were not related to one another would come together in what we term the “step-family”. An adult male and female would pair off and refer to each other as step-siblings. They often also found older adults (though not always that much older) who they would refer to as their step-parents.

While initially this may have staved off their isolation, our team believes that it in fact backfired. As every member of the family was an adult it became easy for them to become sexually involved. Having broken the initial taboo of sex within the home it was also a simple matter to expand these sexual relationships beyond a single pair. Thus a male might be engaged in sexual congress with his step-sister when they are discovered by the step-mother. Since the step-mother is not related to either of them she will also join the sexual acts. And once the male designated “step-father” arrives it is a forgone conclusion that he will also become a sexual partner to these other adults who are not related to him by anything other than a nominal title.

Confusingly, they was often a slight amount of resistance to these sexual activities. One or more members of the step-family would state that it was “wrong” or that they “shouldn’t be doing this”. That seems to have been little more than lip service as we have no evidence that it ever actually prevented sex from occurring.

Perhaps there is some solace in knowing that they gave each other comfort in those dying days. Though it does beggar the question of why they did not simply drop the step-family designations and adopt an open or polyamorous style of relationship.