What if all of the people in the world over the age of 16 died?

Cars need to run on something. And the only boats easy to manage are rowing boats, as far as I'm aware. It takes quite a bit of skill to be able to sail.

 

Hot damn! How come I didn't know export was so damn easy? Oh wait...It's not. I think you may have overlooked that a lot of the products you take for granted aren't even made or grown in the same continent as the one you buy them in.

 

Hm yea fuel would be a problem your right...but if we found a good resource we could use motor boats...which are easy to control...and alot of kids are being taught how to sail.

 

And they are of course all geniuses who'll successfully cross an ocean on their first try.
Seriously, in the Netherlands a girl was held back from going on a world trip by boat and becoming the youngest sailor ever. In the end even the girl herself was down-to-earth enough to admit that she should wait a little longer, even though she already had all the technical skills and some experience.

 

True but why was she crossing a sea on her own in the first place? purely because she can? And what if we NEEDED to cross the sea then wed be prety damn well screwed.

 

She was aiming for the Guinness Book of World Records.
Well, you'll need to cross the sea eventually because a bunch of products are imported. You'll have to reach other countries and continents, or re-organise your own.

 

That's what I'm saying, danger or not at least someone will have to be crossing the seas striking deals.

 

Life would be down the tubes with no guidance from those that are older and chaos would run free with no order most likely. Kids or teens look up to those who are older to help guide them and show them the way so if there was no one around older than them to do that then nothing would get accomplished and skills would not get achieved successfully.

 

Well I just turned 16 rather recently so I'd be alive...dammit.
However, I'm a little disappointed at the faith that everyone has in our youth. Yes most suck, but there is that specific few out there that if need be, would definitely rise to the occasion. That's my opinion. Things such as global trade and foreign affairs would become difficult, and come to mention it reproduction. Still, everyone would be young anyway so that could wait. Humans are an adaptable species. Just because you outgrew your immature years, doesn't make it necessary to dismiss all hope in latter generations. More to the point, I couldn't say what would become of mankind, I just don't think it would "go down the tubes".

 

I would hazard a guess at a scenario like that in AKIRA, minus the mental powers. It would be complete anarchy for the first bit, then we would move onto a Z for Zachariah style life. Finally we would progress to education and move back to where we were.

We would be reduced to the dark ages for quite a while. Those who are physically endowed would rule for a time, and I imagine the gangs would prosper merrily. First everything would be looted and fought over. The more stupid would go for televisions and electronics, while the intelligent would gather canned food. Once the supplies from the late generation ran out, we would begin to see progress because we would have to progress to survive. Farms may start up and we would indeed be reduced to living in a dark age for some time. However we would swiftly move out of the dark ages once literate people emerged, because with the educational resources left behind, we would be able to readily catch up to where we were before. We may be set back a good couple of centuries in terms of progress, but we would not have to start from scratch.

Once we started education back up, it would be a small matter of time before the political world would start to evolve. A system of law would come into the piece fairly early on, a generation or two after the farming starts. It would only be community run though. Coming back to the political world, it would evolve completely differently. It would start off communistic due to the necessity of supporting each other for survival, but it may move into a democracy due to tradition. In the worst case scenario it becomes a dictatorship, with the physically strong ruling over the working classes. Interracial relations would be easily forged, unless customs from the past are particularly dogged, as we now have racial interspersion over all countries. Countries wouldn't communicate for a long while, except perhaps at the beginning, where the cellphone and internet supplies are still running. We would start travel between countries again once effective travel is engineered. We would be able to use educational material to reverse engineer most of the travel equipment, but that would be late in the development.

Overall, we would survive, but we would be set back. Not with a clean slate, but the first few years would be a trial.