I honestly would appreciate some points of it. I think we as a society have become too embroiled in our technological pursuits and have forgotten things that used to be vitally important to us; such as family and social interaction.
We've also become dumber with technology, i think. Plus many mentally handicapped or otherwise genetically defective humans have been permitted to survive despite their weakness and that has ruined natural selection, slowly creating a weaker species.
but in that situation many of the weak would die off pretty fast. It also depends on the extent of technology we lost, if you are speaking of going back to basically caveman days with 0 technological advancement, it'd probably be a repeat of history.
Most people these days are weak, overweight, unused to extreme work or operating in outside conditions for extended periods. Could you sleep in the woods all night long without modern amenities such as beds, air conditioning etc? Many couldn't. Citizens from wealthier countries would suffer the most under these circumstances i believe. Especially those in urban areas, they would die off pretty fast.
Even former soldiers with the exception of special forces wouldn't survive very long, they are trained to survive for a minimal period of time with issued kits, meaning their long-term survival, although greater than the general populace would still be bleak.
You would be left with a degrading infrastructure, any semblance of civility would disappear overnight and raving bandits would attack people who have stores of food or shelter, when things start getting scarce after the first 24-48 hours.
The military would collapse pretty much overnight without the ability to deploy or supply troops, individual units would probably band together to create small communities or become roving bandits themselves. They'd probably be stuck in their localities of wherever they were stationed when the event that resulted in the removal of technology occurred, American soldiers overseas would at best meak out a living but most would probably be slaughtered by the locals without support from the American homeland, as with all other deployed soldiers around the world.
The police would collapse pretty much instantaneously as well, they'd probably abandon their posts immediately to attend to their families. When the populace realizes that things are collapsing, they'll probably rush in and loot local stores for food. The scarce food they gather from these places won't last more than a month, however.
After most of the cities erupt in chaos, it would only be a matter of time before they begin to migrate to rural areas to escape the general anarchy in the populated cities, especially the cities with millions of citizens.
people who live in rural areas, such as myself, would end up dealing with a large influx of potentially armed migrants and squatters. I live at the moment with former special forces members and soldiers, we are well-armed with AR-15s, AKM-47s etc and well-stocked, We've lived off the land for a long time, but in spite of that i believe even we would eventually be killed or die off from disease or thousands of invading migrants, it'd be a rediculous stroke of luck to survive the initial chaos.
Whatever the case, our life expectancy would be reduced for the average populace to around 20-something years of age or lower, if we're lucky. Of course most of that will only be for the first few years when the initial huge population starts to die off because of lack of food. Most farmers these days rely on technological advancements to maintain and grow huge harvests despite the relatively small number of farmers. modern day farmers have little to nothing in common with the farmers and ranchers of previous ages before technology. They wouldn't know how to run a farm with no technology. I expect a huge food shortage would result in massive die-offs. Only God knows how many people would survive the chaos and anarchy.
I've farmed before, i didn't use any technology. It was rough for me to support our family on that and during winter without some technology it would be difficult to maintain enough stock to survive on, especially with previously mentioned squatters and migrants trashing everything. Obviously without transport and roads collapsing all around you, you'll pretty much be stuck within so many miles of your home... forever probably. Also, if you're on an island nation, plan to stick there. It's too risk to try anything else.
Politically, i see small units of families gathering together. Small towns and other communities may band together and create small political units. similar to the chiefs and villages of ages past. Assuming all we know from our experience as members of modern society, such as education and knowledge of modern technology, i see it slowly evolving back into modern technology as people become more organized and effective. Small communities would grow into large ones, people would improvise.
Humanity would rebuild, we'd eventually get back to where we are today or somewhere similar. I have no idea how long that would take, though. But the nature of humanity doesn't alter when technology is removed, we are still a brilliant, adaptive and manipulative species. It would only be a matter of time. The only real question is to how much damage would be done by the collapse and how long would it take for humanity to recover?
I live in exceptional circumstances for off-the-grid living in my opinion, but obviously all plans fail when they reach contact with the enemy. It could actually happen and i find out that i'm less prepared or capable of accomplishing the task than i expected, but it would be irrelevant. Even in the best of circumstances i'd be lucky to live to 40-something without modern medical amenities.
The only upsides i can think of is you'll be alot closer with any friends or family you are with when it occurs, and you'll get to have lots of sex in order to secure your retirement. Since it'll be pretty hard to farm and therefore live when you are 50-60 something, assuming you survive that long. Better be careful though, without medical assistance mothers dying during birth are quite common. Babies are also less healthy and tend to miscarriage a whole lot more, and even if they survive birth they are quite susceptible to disease and death.
It would be a horrifying experience for all of humanity except those who already live off-grid such as natives in isolated areas or mountains, They would probably be aversely effected as well, but it's impossible to know to what extent.
Everyone can talk about the distant past with wonderment, curiosity and intrigue. But let's face it, the past sucks for the most part, even if modernity has it's downsides.
