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It's funny that people think the Yellowstone volcano is a myth, though. The scary thing is that it's one of the most realistic "apocalypse" level events that can happen on Earth. Of course, when it could happen is all up in the air and speculative.

But it would be horribly bad for the people living in that time period, for absolute sure.

Good thing that were still really interested in space exploration so that we can mitigate these events... oh...

Experiment 626 wrote:

Toba was during the time of our early ancestors however, and mankind as a race still managed to survive with nothing but furs, flint weapons & caves with a fire pit.
While a super eruption at Yellowstone would be a civilization altering event, with our current level of technology it would in no way be an ELE type scenario. Sure North America is pretty much fethed, as they've found fragments & volcanic deposits from Yellowstone as far away as the Gulf of Mexico! But mankind would easily survive this time.

Of course it might be argued that they were able to survive because they knew how to survive primitively. Would the vast majority today be able to do that?

I'd argue more people would know how to survive today than back then. Maybe a smaller percentage of the total population overall, but more

 LordofHats wrote:
I'd argue more people would know how to survive today than back then. Maybe a smaller percentage of the total population overall, but more

Yeah, I don't think it would be the end of the human race. Just the end for a lot of us...

Well we can't every well have an apocalypse without at least a few billion deaths. That just wouldn't make for good drama when the movie deal comes through

 LordofHats wrote:
Well we can't every well have an apocalypse without at least a few billion deaths. That just wouldn't make for good drama when the movie deal comes through

As long as Ewan McGregor plays me I am cool with it.

Deleted.

Uh, I've known that Yellowstone was going to erupt any day now and cause a volcanic winter for the last fifteen years, and that's just from watching National Geographic...

If something as bug as Yellowstone blows it wont matter too much where you are.

The last supervolcano at Kobe c80,000 years ago reduced the human race to five hundred breeding pairs. Admittedly we aren't cavemen anymore but in there lies the problem, with seven billion people (minus a few million extra-crispy Americans) struggling to survive after an apocalypse toes will be trodden on...

The main point is that now we know of mega-tsunami, the media wants us to fear them; now we know of super--volcanoes, we worrit over them, now we know of large asteroid impacts we wonder when the next will be; and all these things are a when not an if.
However each occur only once every hundred of thousands to tens of millions of years and there is no due date. Unless we find a way to trigger one we will be waiting thousands of years in all probability before any natural apocalypse occurs and be long dead of a catastrophe of our own making.

Worrying over supervolcanoes is like being told you have HIV when in the terminal cancer ward on life support. Yes one day Yellowstone will blow, but those are not the explosions from America people should be concerned over. Humans are the real disaster, I will be surprised if we survive the next two centuries outside of bunkers.

Can we do anything about it? No? They go on with life. Otherwise its a First World problem.

It's not a first world problem. It's like worrying about the government infringing on your rights. 1. They probably already have. 2. No you can't do anything to stop it. 3. Stop worrying about it, its done and we're all dead anyway

/end cynicism

I'd argue more people would know how to survive today than back then. Maybe a smaller percentage of the total population overall, but more

Pfft. Not once the bottled water runs out. Go camping someday and see what we think "going simple" is.

 LordofHats wrote:
I'd argue more people would know how to survive today than back then. Maybe a smaller percentage of the total population overall, but more

Only based on the fact that the worlds population today is 6 billion as opposed to maybe 4 million back then.

But yes, within the US alone, I can guarantee that if they survived the actual eruption, then there would be more then 75,000 people who'd know how to survive in a post apocalyptic world. Most of the third world, like Africa and SE Asia would probably actually come out better then we would.