How many dead would it take for a situation X to occur?

I was thinking about this the other day and the question I have is how many dead would it take for a situation X to occur.

By Situation X, I mean a complete break down of civilization for an extended period of time. (Not covering short term anarchy such as followed hurricane Katrina in New Orleans)

For instance if there was a nuclear terrorist attack on say New York it would be bad on the ground but hopefully the government would still be able to keep control of the country. However what if 5 cities were hit or ten or twenty? What if Washington DC was one of those hit?

Conversely estimates for dieses such as bird flu vary from minor around 5%, which should be controllable by a government, all the way to 50% and 66% deaths out of the total population, in which case it would be difficult for any government to retain control and anarchy would likely ensue.

So how many deaths does it take for a situation X to occur?

I wouldn't see it as number of deaths so much as threat analysis. Either me and mine are under threat or not. The degree of said threat would determine the degree of my response.

[edit on 26-9-2007 by SemperParatus]

I thought about this too but death count was not part of the adgenda more like how would people react, guess a bit like how they would react like the aftermarth of Katrina.

Katrina times 100? Probably 100 times worse. It probably gets exponential at some point.

My belief is that whatever situation X occures; there will be technically two of them. The first one will be larger and the results longer lasting from something such as a terrorist attack or dread disease wiping most of man out.
The second one however will occur in days and weeks and months after the first one due to a lot of different causes. Things like suicides (inability to cope with major disasters), and murders (lack of law enforcement), medical related deaths like heart attacks and cancers (lack of healthcare available). I could go on but you get the idea.

It's hard to speculate on true numbers but I bet some government dwerb with a calculator and a clip board somewhere has already figured these numbers and stats ahead of us.
Jules

I like the rest cant put a number to it. I could be 1 to 100000 give or take
It in my opinion would be what caused the death and how far and wide and quickly did the news of the death(s) spread. Sometimes People will do stupid things for the littlest reasons and not react at all to the biggest things. as long ass there are humans there will be decision made that just don't make sense.