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What is one job society would fall apart without?



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|u/Warm_Function6650 - 9 hours
|
|Waste disposal. Why is this tagged NSFW? It is exclusively about work


  |u/Moxi86 - 9 hours
  |
  |Waste disposal is a dirty job. A VERY dirty job


    |u/Specialist_Park2864 - 9 hours
    |
    |Wastewater Treatment Plant Operator. Sewage would be overflowing in
    |the streets if not for them.


      |u/Inthemiddle_ - 6 hours
      |
      |Isn’t there some quote saying modern sewage systems are
      |responsible for saving more lives then modern medicine?


        |u/Admirable_Impact5230 - 6 hours
        |
        |Not as far as I know. It's true though.


        |u/Eoganachta - 6 hours
        |
        |Prevention is quite hard to measure but most old cities had a
        |higher death rate than birth rate - with their increasing
        |population due to immigration from the more rural areas. The
        |reverse of cities becoming the population growth machines they
        |are now coincides with a bunch of other developments -
        |including modern sewage systems.


        |u/Temporala - 6 hours
        |
        |I would not be surprised if that was the case.  Vaccines and
        |clean water make life so much better. If you live in a
        |civilized nation, going into some place without those things is
        |quite a shock.


        |u/RawMeatAndColdTruth - 5 hours
        |
        |"Modern sewage systems are responsible for saving more lives
        |then modern medicine." There ya go. 


      |u/Inthemiddle_ - 6 hours
      |
      |Isn’t there some quote saying modern sewage systems are
      |responsible for saving more lives then modern medicine?


        |u/MadamLotion - 5 hours
        |
        |Yes. Dirty water kills like 80% of babies born before age 5–
        |it’s worse than malnutrition. And seriously lowers quality of
        |life. Dirty water means food can’t grow as well, livestock
        |suffers too, and the people who drink it as well.


      |u/Smiley_Dub - 2 hours
      |
      |Or the streams, rivers and bays...  Hang on thats *already*
      |happening


      |u/astro143 - 6 hours
      |
      |I feel like I have great job security at a wastewater equipment
      |manufacturer, lol


    |u/Warm_Function6650 - 9 hours
    |
    |One man's trash is another man's pleasure


      |u/Resident-Mortgage-85 - 8 hours
      |
      |One man's garbage is another man's good ungarbage 


        |u/ronchee1 - 8 hours
        |
        |It doesn't take rocket appliances


      |u/Moxi86 - 9 hours
      |
      |Rule 34


        |u/Unlikely-Egg104 - 7 hours
        |
        |I worked at a place where I was occasionally on call for alarms
        |from our security company.  I laughed when I was told the code
        |phrase was rule 34.. it was a hold over from a previous plant
        |manager and no one else in the meeting understood why I found
        |it funny


      |u/Early_News5696 - 6 hours
      |
      |Treasure, not pleasure, that’s just weird


      |u/swanspank - 6 hours
      |
      |Treasure, damnit!  Treasure not pleasure!  Pull your  damn pants
      |back up and get away from my trashcan!


      |u/BrilliantSilver5173 - 4 hours
      |
      |Hahaha  I thought it was treasure. Pleasure is nice too


    |u/mishthegreat - 7 hours
    |
    |Depending on where in the cycle you are,  I stay relatively clean
    |while my boss is clean with those above him gleam more and more the
    |higher you go.


    |u/nvn911 - 6 hours
    |
    |What are you doing step-waste-disposal-brother??


    |u/VonWiggle - 5 hours
    |
    |It’s a dirty job but someone’s gotta do it.


  |u/tc0n4 - 8 hours
  |
  |Plumbers and garbage men have saved more lives than most realize.


    |u/sushisection - 5 hours
    |
    |i was going to say plumbers. not having running water and sewage
    |drain would fuck modern society up


    |u/BrilliantSilver5173 - 4 hours
    |
    |Both make BIG $$$ too


  |u/wanted_to_upvote - 9 hours
  |
  |Yes, people had mastered feeding the masses long before they mastered
  |what to do with all the poop.


    |u/TobysGrundlee - 7 hours
    |
    |I was just reading something that was talking about how interesting
    |the *order* of mankind's accomplishments is. How we landed a moon
    |in 1969 and put wheels on luggage in 1970.


      |u/Admirable_Impact5230 - 6 hours
      |
      |Extra Credits mentioned in, in one of their episodes.


    |u/Crafty_Note_8686 - 8 hours
    |
    |That’s poetry right there


    |u/NotTheBizness - 6 hours
    |
    |In some magical equilibrium world, maybe in=out and the waste was
    |providing the fertilizer for the food growth  But we’ve been far
    |beyond that for centuries I suppose


  |u/MediocreGreatness333 - 8 hours
  |
  |Waste disposal has a very long, interesting and complex story in
  |humanity's race to modernity. It's so interesting how over time we
  |got better at it. The ability for us to consider waste foul enough to
  |dispose of is one of the things that makes us sapient.


    |u/starkel91 - 7 hours
    |
    |Do you have book recommendations on how humans evolved disposing of
    |sewage?


      |u/TobysGrundlee - 7 hours
      |
      |Your local waste treatment plant probably has regular tour hours.
      |I've done it with my kids class on a field trip. It's quite
      |interesting.


      |u/_Kit_Tyler_ - 7 hours
      |
      |I mean there’s probably only the one, right? How many people
      |could have possibly tackled this subject..?


        |u/Admirable_Impact5230 - 6 hours
        |
        |A shit ton


          |u/_Kit_Tyler_ - 6 hours
          |
          |Oh, you! 🫵🤠


      |u/derickj2020 - 7 hours
      |
      |During the Renaissance, civilization started recognizing that
      |lack of proper disposal was bringing pestilence. But it took till
      |the XXth C. for more serious improvements in some parts of the
      |world.


    |u/derickj2020 - 7 hours
    |
    |Some people and some parts of the world are not sapient yet.


      |u/rGuile - 5 hours
      |
      |like which?


  |u/shadow247 - 7 hours
  |
  |A plumber once told me "There's always money in Shit"  And it made me
  |never want to be a plumber!


    |u/highxv0ltage - 7 hours
    |
    |I don't think he meant that literally. You won't actually have to
    |go digging through shit to find a dollar. But you will have to
    |unclog pipes filled with shit.


  |u/meowmeow6770 - 8 hours
  |
  |He was looking for the answer of porn maker


    |u/highxv0ltage - 7 hours
    |
    |Okay. Porn maker.


  |u/FestiveWarCriminal - 8 hours
  |
  |So people will click the post


  |u/NotTheBizness - 6 hours
  |
  |Maybe OP assumed answer would be prostitution or drug dealing? Idk
  |why NSFW either…


  |u/c0nfu5i0N - 7 hours
  |
  |Sanitation in general.   How quickly do you think society will last
  |if we have to live in our own trash and shit all the time?


    |u/derickj2020 - 7 hours
    |
    |Much of Asia and Africa still does


  |u/Previous-Canary6671 - 7 hours
  |
  |Well maybe I was gonna say pornstar!


  |u/metalmelts - 7 hours
  |
  |But before waste we have the toilet paper maker


  |u/Admirable_Excuse_818 - 6 hours
  |
  |Pretty much any sanitation/water treatment jobs.   I love it when
  |they protest and it's usually solved fast.  Rich or Poor, y'all got
  |trash.


  |u/BrilliantSilver5173 - 4 hours
  |
  |Very big money business though


  |u/WrenTheEgg - 4 hours
  |
  |i am a janitor and the amount of new shit that accumulates in the
  |trash cans every day is crazy. Sometimes i see something weird in
  |there and keep it. I work at the airport and have found, good
  |lighter, 2 monkey wrenches, 2 sets of Hex keys, weed vape thing
  |(threw that out), key card to an exclusive area at a nearby 5star
  |hotel, damn good pocket knife, chargers. The amount of things just
  |thrown out is something i did not expect


  |u/Airportguy72 - 19 minutes
  |
  |The garbage man can!


|u/TheBerethian - 9 hours
|
|A modern city needs hundreds of jobs to remain functional - if a plague
|wiped out most people, cities would cease to function within days.  To
|pick one? Waste collectors. Even ancient cities needed those.


  |u/SatisfactionSenior65 - 8 hours
  |
  |It’s crazy that in many ancient societies, they were often the lowest
  |caste but ironically kept everything from going to shit (pun
  |intended)


    |u/Many_Patience5179 - 4 hours
    |
    |Always been that the most essential of the workforce were the most
    |alienated.


  |u/hbarSquared - 3 hours
  |
  |New York City consumes roughly 30 billion calories a day, and at the
  |end of the day it all has to go somewhere.


    |u/TheDevilsTaco - 1 hour
    |
    |Staten Island?


  |u/dopealope47 - 8 hours
  |
  |This. Our society is a complex machine. Take an automobile and, with
  |the exception of a few options like the sound system, if any part
  |breaks down, you ain’t goin’ nowhere. Some may ground you sooner than
  |others, but in the end they’re just about all ‘critical’.


  |u/NetStaIker - 2 hours
  |
  |You’d be surprised, when we go looking for ancient cities (like the
  |real ancient ones in Mesopotamia) we look for weird out of place
  |mounds. Why? Because people would mix their waste with ashes/soil
  |(called nightsoil) and then dump their literal shit out of the
  |windows/doors. As society developed and more people could be spared
  |to the thankless and manpower intensive task of shit hauling, methods
  |became available to move some (not all) of the waste outside of
  |town/city boundaries. Some enclosed sewers existed, but they were
  |rare and often didn't provide coverage for the entirety of a city.
  |Cities were extremely haphazard affairs, which large sections of
  |cities being little more than shantytowns, prior to about 150 years
  |ago. Much more common were open gutters that would hopefully carry
  |waste away, or designated cesspits to dump specialized waste such as
  |the remains from butchers' shops (carcasses/intestines/etc.). It was
  |a pretty constant battle against waste, and we have examples of
  |legislation about where you could and couldn't dump waste dating all
  |the way back to the Middle Ages.  The first modern standardized sewer
  |systems are about 150 years old, originated in London and Paris,
  |which were absolutely foul places to live in before. Not all of the
  |waste in a city would actually be disposed of properly, and
  |oftentimes you can still see the remnants of this fact when you enter
  |the ground floor of a building in an old city in western Europe for
  |example, ever wonder why sometimes the ground floor is a bit under
  |the ground?


  |u/oozydoozy123 - 4 hours
  |
  |Manila somehow manages to function without them. /s


|u/Moist-Taro - 9 hours
|
|farmers


  |u/StarChaser_Tyger - 9 hours
  |
  |No city is more than three missed meals away from
  |chaos.(Misremembered quote from Robert Heinlein, actually much
  |earlier than that and more meals. I conflated 'three days' with
  |'number of meals')


    |u/Iron_Burnside - 9 hours
    |
    |Powerplant engineers.  Good luck in a dense city without them.


      |u/Christmas_Panda - 7 hours
      |
      |I think there's two trains of thought, 1) What have we come to
      |rely upon that would create chaos and 2) At the basic core of
      |what humans need to survive, what would be necessary.
      |If the 1st, then I agree. But humans survived most of history
      |without electricity, so it's not entirely necessary. People would
      |just need to adapt quickly.


        |u/uForgot_urFloaties - 7 hours
        |
        |A fuck ton of people would die, like, lots and lots. No way to
        |keep up with food and health demands without electricity! If we
        |are getting completely rid of all electricity, like no modern
        |cars nor using fuel to generate it.


        |u/Jimmy_Twotone - 5 hours
        |
        |Societal collapse and extinction are not the same.  We can't
        |even pump gas or get water for more than 3 days without
        |electricity.   After a week, people would start going hungry.
        |It gets hairy after that.


        |u/RegularJoe62 - 4 hours
        |
        |We did survive without electricity, but today's society would
        |rapidly descend into chaos workout now. Everything we do
        |depends on it. We would survive as a species, but billions
        |would die.


        |u/StarChaser_Tyger - 1 hour
        |
        |People survived without electricity, but once it was widely
        |available,it became cheap. Food storage, climate control in
        |places like Arizona and Florida, medical necessities. A *lot*
        |of people would die for various reasons before it stabilized if
        |electricity suddenly disappeared.


    |u/OhAces - 6 hours
    |
    |I was in a mountain town a few years ago for a snowboard trip and
    |we got snowed in. The highways closed down during heavy snow
    |season, meaning the small town was at max capacity with every hotel
    |room booked, it was a highway town with more fast food places and
    |gas stations than represent the normal population.   In less than
    |an hour of the highway closing the ATMs were out of cash. The first
    |night the restaurants were running out of most menu items. On the
    |first night the gas stations were out of regular gas with only the
    |high octane left.  The next day was chaos, we couldn't find food,
    |couldn't get cash, couldn't fuel up. The snow was cleared the
    |morning of the third day and people left en masse, but one or two
    |more days and we would have had to try and tackle an elk or
    |something.


      |u/StarChaser_Tyger - 2 hours
      |
      |Now imagine somewhere like New York, with millions of people
      |jammed in the relatively small area and little growing. I don't
      |think there are crops in Central Park to scavenge.


    |u/its_justme - 8 hours
    |
    |The quote is 9 meals away from anarchy actually maybe you’re 3
    |meals away!


      |u/mishthegreat - 7 hours
      |
      |9 meals or one coffee if you believe the hype.


    |u/ScarHand69 - 6 hours
    |
    |The quote is “9 meals away from anarchy” which people love to bring
    |up because it’s laconic.   It’s also wrong. Stalin & the Soviets
    |were responsible for a famine that led to 10-40+ million deaths
    |depending upon which historian you agree with. There was likely
    |some localized anarchy and chaos sure…but the Soviets reigned for
    |another 50+ years.


    |u/spookyhooch - 7 hours
    |
    |This needs to be higher up. Farmers and their workers are the
    |literal lifeblood of, well, everyone.


    |u/Jkay064 - 6 hours
    |
    |Just the cities, bro? Are you sure a town would be ok if they had
    |no food at all and 3 days passed? (9 meals)


      |u/StarChaser_Tyger - 2 hours
      |
      |Depends on the size and the location. A town near a game filled
      |forest will likely hold out longer than a tourist trap in a
      |desert. Cities are wastelands with little edible that isn't
      |brought in and barely anywhere to grow anything.   (Vague
      |memories from reading the Great Brain series, and other things in
      |various places) Aren't Mormons supposed to keep a year's worth of
      |supplies (food, water, essentials)? Utah would probably be ok for
      |a while. And the Amish wouldn't likely even notice.


  |u/Earnestappostate - 7 hours
  |
  |If I had to choose just one, it would be this.  If I had two it would
  |be farmers and waste disposal.


  |u/IAMA_Shark__AMA - 8 hours
  |
  |And the people who pick the produce. We're about to learn a hard
  |lesson about that, that already played out to awful but predictable
  |results in Georgia (who lost 140million in revenue after the migrant
  |crackdown). Americans don't want to pick produce. And those who do,
  |are slow. Shit dies on the fields.


  |u/MaesterCrow - 4 hours
  |
  |Why do you need farmers? You can just buy the food from the grocery
  |store. /s


|u/Autisticbutnotvirgin - 9 hours
|
|A good chunk of them.  -Grocery stores  -Garbage collection
|-Maintenance of power lines  -Plumbers  The list goes on.


  |u/moxso31 - 8 hours
  |
  |Yes plumbers. You like heating your house with natural gas or propane
  |? Say goodbye to that. You like sanitary drinking water on tap? Say
  |goodbye to that. You like sitting in your nice comfy bathroom taking
  |a shower or bath or a nice dump? Say bye to that you're now digging a
  |hole in your backyard and building a hut over it just to take a shit.
  |Most people forget how important we are because when done right
  |plumbing just works and isn't important, but when it stops working we
  |are expected to drop what we are doing , regardless time of day,
  |weekend or holiday, and fix your problem because it's that important.
  |Someone once asked a doctor who's saved more lives in the last 100
  |years doctors or plumbers? The doctor replied hands down plumbers by
  |a long shot, not even close.


    |u/ken830 - 7 hours
    |
    |Do you really sit down to take a shower?


      |u/EncanisUnbound - 5 hours
      |
      |My dude if you've never sat down in the shower you're just
      |letting the finest things in life pass you by.


      |u/moxso31 - 7 hours
      |
      |Actually many disabled people sit in the shower, so you're smart-
      |ass comments not as funny as you think


        |u/Pumpkinhead20 - 5 hours
        |
        |This is the most Reddit answer of all time lmao


        |u/4ce_YT - 6 hours
        |
        |You seem a little overly offended by that


          |u/frito123 - 6 hours
          |
          |Ken830's comment also sounded smart-ass to me. There was no
          |reason for it. It was just a snarky useless comment, or at
          |least that's the way it sounded to me. By the way I'm
          |disabled and have to use a shower chair.


            |u/LordMackie - 3 hours
            |
            |Isn't it also entirely possible he just simply forgot and
            |didn't mean it to be offensive? Like, it's obvious to you
            |but you live it. It's extremely easy to take things like
            |that for granted. Better to Assume ignorance than malice.


            |u/nathtendo - 2 hours
            |
            |Not really doing something odd gets a question, if I went
            |around with a purple waistcoat on I would expect people to
            |ask me about it.


      |u/tehpatriarch - 5 hours
      |
      |Only when I’m crying


  |u/whutupmydude - 4 hours
  |
  |Agreed. In densely populated areas - losing sanitation, food, energy
  |- things could would get pretty rough pretty fast


|u/free-toe-pie - 9 hours
|
|Anything having to do with getting rid of waste.


|u/Escape_the_PhaseXD - 9 hours
|
|The entire working class. Which is why their needs being met is
|important. If the 1% killed off the entire working class, they would
|not survive.


  |u/arkofjoy - 9 hours
  |
  |I was watching a movie recently in which the plot revolves around the
  |plan to kill off everyone on the planet except for a small group of
  |people who are all from "the right families"  I got so distracted
  |from the film because all I could think about was the fact that these
  |people were going to be so fucked because they had no one who knew
  |how to do anything. All the survivors knew how to do was profit from
  |other people's work.


    |u/Different_Layer_784 - 9 hours
    |
    |karl marx has entered the chat


      |u/arkofjoy - 8 hours
      |
      |Damm. Why would you doxx me like that dude? Just because I have
      |been dead for over a hundred years doesn't mean that I am not
      |entitled to some privacy!!!


      |u/PalaSS9 - 7 hours
      |
      |Did you know his sister was a well known track athlete?


        |u/DrunkenOnzo - 6 hours
        |
        |Did you know that In countries where modern civilisation has
        |become fully developed, a new class of petty bourgeois has been
        |formed, fluctuating between proletariat and bourgeoisie, and
        |ever renewing itself as a supplementary part of bourgeois
        |society. The individual members of this class, however, are
        |being constantly hurled down into the proletariat by the action
        |of competition, and, as modern industry develops, they even see
        |the moment approaching when they will completely disappear as
        |an independent section of modern society, to be replaced in
        |manufactures, agriculture and commerce, by overlookers,
        |bailiffs and shopmen?


      |u/Ishidan01 - 6 hours
      |
      |Bob the Angry Flower has entered the chat.  [https://www.angryflo
      |wer.com/atlass.gif](https://www.angryflower.com/atlass.gif)


    |u/FabiusBill - 7 hours
    |
    |Name of the movie?


      |u/arkofjoy - 5 hours
      |
      |Kinsmen, the secret service.


        |u/MyStationIsAbandoned - 5 hours
        |
        |ah that movie. i honestly forgot the entire plot.  i think
        |something like that would only make sense in a world where
        |robots did everything including repaired themselves and stuff.
        |but even then, wanting to kill off everyone would be stupid.
        |you still need people to make the stuff you want to buy that AI
        |and robots can't make or do.


          |u/arkofjoy - 5 hours
          |
          |Exactly. It bothered me in the movie that no one asked "dude,
          |I get that you are a super genius and everything, but do you
          |know how to fix a blocked toilet"?


    |u/AlwaysForgetsPazverd - 8 hours
    |
    |This would work great in the other direction though, just saying.
    |They're going to be consolidating even more over the next 4 years.


      |u/arkofjoy - 7 hours
      |
      |You mean workers taking over? Yes, some. Like any group of
      |people, some make good leaders, and some couldn't organise a piss
      |up in a brewery.


    |u/PhildoFL - 6 hours
    |
    |Remember the name?


      |u/arkofjoy - 5 hours
      |
      |After considerable mind blanking, feebly attempts at describing
      |the film to my wife, I finally googled "action movies on Netflix.
      |It was" kinsmen, the secret service "  I deserve a gold star.


    |u/MyStationIsAbandoned - 5 hours
    |
    |what's the name of this movie?


      |u/arkofjoy - 5 hours
      |
      |Kinsmen, the secret service.


  |u/SavageIntoxication - 8 hours
  |
  |Of course, if the 1% killed off half of the working class, the rest
  |would just have to work even harder.


  |u/Known_Appeal_6370 - 4 hours
  |
  |I wish everyone making between $1 and $10 million ($10 million net
  |worth) would realize we are all working class and band together to
  |demand better.


  |u/chickswhorip - 8 hours
  |
  |This is the true answer. All of the pieces of the puzzle matter.


  |u/hihcadore - 7 hours
  |
  |Why do you think they’re trying to push AI development so hard? It
  |won’t be long till they don’t need the other 99%


|u/Independent-Gas7408 - 9 hours
|
|My guess would be delivery drivers. and I mean all types of delivery.
|For example Truckdrivers. Nobody would be able to get their stuff and
|food.


  |u/Vexonte - 8 hours
  |
  |I was going to say truckers, the supply chain is literally everything
  |for the economy, but nobody knows this because as far as subconscious
  |minds work, we assume that food and goods just spawn on shelves and
  |there isn't little pieces of Africa and Taiwan in our cell phones.


    |u/rooster6662 - 8 hours
    |
    |Literally everything you buy gets to where you buy it on a truck.
    |One of the reasons I think gas prices should be regulated. Because
    |even if you don't own a car you're still paying for gas. Of course
    |it'll never happen but that's what I think.


      |u/nameofcat - 8 hours
      |
      |Agreed completely. Like how they use to tax diesel  fuel
      |differently depending on what it was used for. The diesel was
      |dyed different colours to indicate what type it was.  Truckers
      |should get a flat rate fuel with fewer taxes and a set price for
      |a fixed term. With the price being set for a few months at least.


        |u/derickj2020 - 7 hours
        |
        |The price of diesel is fluctuating with market demands. When
        |trucks started getting better fuel mileage when the
        |manufacturing was being taken over by asian and european, the
        |price of diesel started jumping up in order for refiners and
        |distributors to maintain their profit margins.


      |u/Kytzer - 4 hours
      |
      |Artificially lowering prices below equilibrium leads to
      |shortages. This is basic supply and demand. It would make much
      |more sense to increase fuel production so that prices can fall
      |naturally without causing shortages.


      |u/ylamiyf - 8 hours
      |
      |You can't regulate oil prices when you don't produce it yourself.
      |Do you think other countries would give a shit if we set a cap on
      |gas prices.


  |u/Abject_Presentation8 - 6 hours
  |
  |I 100% feel as though they've got the most important job in the
  |world. Without those who move freight, hospitals couldn't function,
  |grocery stores would be empty, fire fighters wouldn't have the
  |equipment they needed, etc.


  |u/Ordovician - 8 hours
  |
  |For sure. With just in time shipping, most grocery stores are like a
  |day or two away from running out of stock of most common foods and
  |other goods. Shit would get real real real quick without truckers.


  |u/Nooooope - 8 hours
  |
  |Years ago I read Dies The Fire, a novel about an apocalypse where all
  |gunpowder and all electricity suddenly stop working for reasons that
  |weren't fully explained. The country gets into a famine within days
  |when all of the farming and trucking equipment stop working.  Cool
  |concept, mediocre book


    |u/MyStationIsAbandoned - 5 hours
    |
    |Man. There's so many books like this. Super cool concepts, but then
    |the author just makes a cringe self insert fan fic quality
    |story...usually involving them and a perfect cool love interest or
    |something where.  But then sometimes you find a gem or two. I
    |should probably get back into reading novels again..but i'm just
    |too spoiled by anime and manga. There's just so many good stories
    |and concepts that you'd never see in the west. They can literally
    |take a story about 4 regular dudes fishing and make it compelling.
    |I don't go fishing. i've only done it once and barely and didn't
    |even like it. But I can enjoy a manga about it. Same with that
    |anime Yuru camping. It's just about a group of girls who like to go
    |camping and that's it. yet it's one of the best things i've seen in
    |my life. Why is that more interesting than one of the last US
    |novels I read about a world where the world has basically entered
    |an apocalyptic state because every 24 hours everyone's memories
    |reset and years pass, but they wake up thinking it's still the same
    |day, month, and year. So you wake up thinking you're still 24 but
    |you hurt all over and you realize you're like 60 and there's dust
    |everywhere and, oh no a ton of people are dead because there's no
    |one doing anything so the world fell apart. but at some point you
    |figured out what's happening so you read the notes you left
    |yourself and now you gotta go out and find food and maybe some
    |other people who might still be alive and leave notes for them too.
    |That concept and world should be compelling. But nope. let's turn
    |it into a lame young adult love story and not explore anything
    |about this world.   i can't even remember the name of it...I recall
    |a movie having a similar premise of people losing their memories,
    |but i don't think it was the same story.


  |u/Way_2_Go_Donny - 8 hours
  |
  |The fate of the world rests on the shoulders of a dude making
  |$1.15/mile.


  |u/FriendshipEvery5198 - 7 hours
  |
  |Not only drivers but seafarers especially merchant marine shipping.
  |Truckers are good and all but that shipment you ordered from across
  |the globe wont be in those trucks if not for those ships. And that’s
  |not counting all the fuel and other important cargoes like coal,
  |grains, salt, etc. which they carry all over the world.


  |u/derickj2020 - 7 hours
  |
  |Without an overly extensive distribution system, society would return
  |to local production, small farms, neighborhood stores, backyard
  |gardens without the array of worldwide supply and shipping.


  |u/Blue_Rosebuds - 7 hours
  |
  |This is pretty much the main idea behind the game Death Stranding


  |u/Jameszhang73 - 6 hours
  |
  |Deliveries are already trending towards automation or using drones


  |u/3vil-monkey - 6 hours
  |
  |There would be a lot of short term pain but we got by without the
  |modern supply chain. Nearly every area of the U.S.  can grow cattle
  |and basic staples.   Modern society would be fucked but depending on
  |the reason these jobs became extinct, society would recover.


  |u/Mechanic_of_railcars - 5 hours
  |
  |You should see how much we actually move on the railroad....


    |u/TruckerBiscuit - 3 hours
    |
    |Thing is there aren't rails to the grocery store. Just-In-Time
    |warehousing policies and final mile will necessitate trucking on
    |some level.


  |u/MyStationIsAbandoned - 5 hours
  |
  |That's kinda sort what Death Stranding is. or at least part of it.


|u/bigwhitecocktail - 9 hours
|
|Farmers


|u/broady712 - 9 hours
|
|Water plant, garbage disposal, and farmers.


  |u/Ask_bout_PaterNoster - 8 hours
  |
  |First comment to mention water operators, which is by far the most
  |impactful and immediately important job in terms of human health


    |u/broady712 - 7 hours
    |
    |Truth.


  |u/alphawolf29 - 4 hours
  |
  |Water plants are pretty automated. As long as the powers on I bet it
  |would take up to a week before people noticed and possibly as long as
  |a month before water started running out  source: water man.


|u/AgitatedPatience5729 - 9 hours
|
|Garbageman.


|u/roxasx12 - 9 hours
|
|Truck drivers


  |u/JesMan74 - 6 hours
  |
  |These folks (except for Swift and CR England)! ☝🏻


|u/Christopher135MPS - 8 hours
|
|Power plants.   Without electricity, modern society wouldn’t last a
|week.   There’s no way to contact people, we’re wildly dependant
|digital devices.   Unless you had a bunch of canned food and preserved
|meats, you probably have a few days of food before it perishes and
|you’re hungry.   Without electricity your car will run out of fuel in a
|week.   No power = literal apocalypse


  |u/JesMan74 - 6 hours
  |
  |Without truck drivers power plants don't get necessary materials and
  |equipment to operate. Without trucks delivering fuel, gas stations
  |would run out of fuel within 48 hours max at the slowest gas
  |stations, 6 hours at the busiest. They can operate without
  |electricity if they absolutely had to by using hand pumps. Without
  |truck drivers, everything in America shuts down.


|u/PvtSherlockObvious - 8 hours
|
|Telephone sanitizers.


  |u/cigr - 8 hours
  |
  |I knew someone would make this reference.


  |u/No_Pomelo_1708 - 7 hours
  |
  |u/PvtSherlockObvious is one cool and froody dude. There's a frood who
  |really knows where his towel is


|u/TheDarkRabbit - 9 hours
|
|Agriculture and transportation. Without those two jobs - society as we
|know it today ceases to exist.


  |u/dopealope47 - 8 hours
  |
  |Very important and I’m not arguing that, but how are they more
  |important than oil workers to fuel the tractors and semis, picking
  |just a couple? Or the highway maintenance workers and the folks
  |putting the food on the shelves? At our level of societal
  |sophistication, we’re all important.


|u/X-RAGE94 - 7 hours
|
|Justice and law system


  |u/BrilliantSilver5173 - 3 hours
  |
  |Have to get Truth and Honesty sorted out before the Justice part


|u/-SamSparks- - 7 hours
|
|Truckers.


|u/Environmental-Zone59 - 9 hours
|
|Farmers/ ranchers


  |u/mange555 - 4 hours
  |
  |John Dutton liked this comment


|u/The7footr - 9 hours
|
|Who ever maintains the servers the internet runs on. Shut down the
|internet, we get chaos.


  |u/xGravityCat - 8 hours
  |
  |Or peace, depending on how you look at it.


  |u/tnstaafsb - 8 hours
  |
  |Can you imagine a world without [~~lawyers~~ the
  |Internet?](https://youtu.be/uG3uea-Hvy4?si=4qXPiRk-DVOv51ou)


    |u/The7footr - 8 hours
    |
    |lol, made me swallow wrong haha


    |u/MyStationIsAbandoned - 5 hours
    |
    |Without the internet most of us would probably lose our
    |livelihoods. like...i'd literally have no way to make money as an
    |artist lol


    |u/BrilliantSilver5173 - 3 hours
    |
    |I believe prostitution is the oldest profession and then 2nd its
    |lawyers. But hey, a world with no internet might be quiet relaxing.
    |Sorry quite relaxing ❗ I haven't mastered the cross out way yet 🤪


  |u/GrilledCheeser - 6 hours
  |
  |Whoever makes the cloud happen


|u/1whiskeyneat - 7 hours
|
|Cops


|u/walktheground - 7 hours
|
|Sanitation and waste disposal


|u/tryinandsurvivin - 5 hours
|
|Sanitation. Cities would be filthy and full of disease


|u/WhosAfraidOf_138 - 9 hours
|
|Whom the essential workers are during COVID


|u/gregarioussparrow - 7 hours
|
|Law enforcement. Things would be so much worse with 0 law enforcement;
|contrary to what people think.


|u/hartshornd - 9 hours
|
|Plumbing or farming


|u/inthep - 8 hours
|
|Karens, without them, we’d never know where the manager was…


|u/Glad_Bluebird3813 - 8 hours
|
|Cops


|u/vyperbc - 8 hours
|
|Electricians. As a society, most everything runs on electricity


|u/Notmyredditaccount00 - 8 hours
|
|Telephone sanitizers


|u/Reasonable-Badger129 - 9 hours
|
|Police


|u/Royal-Bluez - 9 hours
|
|Plumbing.


|u/EternalInflation - 9 hours
|
|farming.


|u/MattDLD - 9 hours
|
|Electricians and line workers


|u/alienlifeform819 - 9 hours
|
|Farmers without we'd be in a world of 💩


|u/Educational_Truth132 - 9 hours
|
|Truck drivers


|u/BudgetBallerBrand - 9 hours
|
|Ditch diggers


|u/iLuvFrootLoopz - 8 hours
|
|In todays context, you'd be surprised at how quickly shit hits the fan
|without tech support


|u/SaraaaayRaaay - 8 hours
|
|Energy food and water


|u/Raptor05121 - 8 hours
|
|Powerplant/Electrical workers. The entire world would literally be cast
|into the dark ages without electricity. Everything would be affected


|u/PinkAurora985 - 8 hours
|
|Theres a tv show called Dirty Jobs and those guys really make the life
|easy for all of us.


|u/shaidyn - 7 hours
|
|Sanitation. You want to see a city fall apart, turn off the internal
|plumbing.


|u/Shoddy-Conference-43 - 7 hours
|
|Sanitation and Electric (Grid Upkeep)


|u/CarpoLarpo - 7 hours
|
|Society is held together mostly by jobs that don't pay very well.
|We've got teachers and garbage men educating future generations and
|keeping people from drowning in their own waste while needing
|roommates.  Then you have investment bankers and facebook software
|engineers trading securities funded by other people's money and
|gamifying the human psyche for profit.  Turns out the highest paid
|people often do the least to aid society. It's easier to make a lot of
|money by being a parasite on society instead of contributing to it.


|u/ahreaper5 - 5 hours
|
|Truckers


|u/MountainNegotiation - 9 hours
|
|police, doctors, farmers, firefighter and cats


  |u/Moxi86 - 9 hours
  |
  |Cats do a very important job. Who else could lift our spirits without
  |lifting a single paw?


    |u/MountainNegotiation - 6 hours
    |
    |Exactly few things in this world beats having a cat sleep on your
    |lap curled up in a tight little ball breathing softly


|u/curmudgeondoug - 9 hours
|
|Any job that is not professional politician


|u/synonymous12 - 6 hours
|
|Police officers.  It would be chaos.


|u/Public_Beef - 9 hours
|
|Sanitation workers 


|u/Hot_Magician_9751 - 9 hours
|
|Teachers


  |u/ABA20011 - 9 hours
  |
  |We will find out soon enough.


    |u/cseymour24 - 9 hours
    |
    |Yeah, I'm kind of super interested how the state-by-state thing
    |will work. My kids' school district was rated top 100 in the
    |country last year so I'm hoping our local efforts already exceed
    |what the DOE is doing.


|u/Johndoefun - 8 hours
|
|Police


|u/Otherwise_Trust_6369 - 9 hours
|
|Honestly, some HEALTHCARE WORKERS should be close to number one. Almost
|everyone can learn to do some things in a few days/weeks/months but you
|can't watch YouTube videos and teach yourself to be a physician amongst
|other significant healthcare workers.


|u/Big-Carpenter7921 - 9 hours
|
|Plumbers. Take them all away and you have a week at best


  |u/Different-Term-2250 - 9 hours
  |
  |Society will be a real shitshow after they disappear.


    |u/CoralPrincess - 9 hours
    |
    |… No pun intended


|u/vonjamin - 9 hours
|
|Mail carriers.


|u/wanted_to_upvote - 9 hours
|
|Waste Management.  It is the backbone of any type of quality of life.


|u/Tasty-Helicopter3340 - 8 hours
|
|I’m sure it doesn’t feel as valid as other comments already but
|janitorial/maintenance positions. Most people seem to take it for
|granted a place will be cleaned. I get there’s a reasonable part of
|“well that’s isn’t my job” but, the job is time and effort no matter
|what. To give up on that always seems like a state of “well if it’s
|gonna get dirty again, why make effort”.


|u/HeartonSleeve1989 - 8 hours
|
|Plumbing, really any trade disappearing will screw people badly.


|u/Shazule - 8 hours
|
|I can gaurentee you -industrial HVAC/Refrigeretion. No this has nothing
|at all to do with your residential air conditioner , by any means.
|Majority of people in the world have no clue about this profession ,
|but this side of the air conditioning trade is what keeps everything
|people need in life going such as hospitals , grocery stores , FOOOODDD
|emphasis on food and nutrition, blood plasma storage , industrial
|medicinal storage and manufacturing .  the list goes on into categories
|no one would expect . I work in this field , it’s dangerous , lot of
|late night and on call work and PAYS like as if I’m a doctor or
|engineer .


|u/chickswhorip - 8 hours
|
|Electrical workers


|u/CRO553R - 8 hours
|
|Farmers


|u/Parking-Power-1311 - 8 hours
|
|Hot Air Ballon filler.


|u/Munkeyman18290 - 8 hours
|
|I can tell you some we could easily do without:  CEO and board member.


|u/BoilerSlave - 8 hours
|
|Plant Operators. Power plant, oil and gas plant, pulp and paper plant,
|food processing plant, etc.. 🫡


|u/McDoom--- - 7 hours
|
|Apparently railroaders. Wouldn't allow a strike by the workers, the
|entire elected federal government legislated against a strike.


|u/polydrummer97 - 7 hours
|
|Water Treatment Operators


|u/Rough_Papaya9577 - 7 hours
|
|Apparently salons. Anyone else remember 2020?


|u/Artcar_Lady32 - 7 hours
|
|Plumber


|u/BoredAnarchist - 7 hours
|
|Mail/delivery service: FedEx, usps, ups, etc…


|u/youhateme34 - 7 hours
|
|Any medical care


|u/Northmech - 7 hours
|
|Truck drivers. Can't have everything made or disposed of locally.
|Without truck drivers the world would be screwed.


|u/HypnoticFx - 7 hours
|
|Nursing. Even patients own families don't want to care for them, would
|be a literal shit show. P.S. I'm not even a nurse.


|u/Raul5666 - 6 hours
|
|Farmer...


|u/fly4fun2014 - 6 hours
|
|Plumber


|u/lothow - 6 hours
|
|Farming and truck divers


  |u/CreationStepper - 4 hours
  |
  |And truck farmers!


|u/newb_44 - 6 hours
|
|Probably jobs that have to do with wastage disposal. Funny how they
|arent getting paid much though


|u/CutieBoBootie - 5 hours
|
|City Water Resource Employees and Trash Collectors specifically.


|u/confusious_need_stfu - 5 hours
|
|Bridge work.  Literally every job relating to them keeps them working
|and us functioning  Same with rail


|u/choppingboardham - 5 hours
|
|Every job mentioned is at the beginning, middle, or end of the supply
|chain. Plumbers can't plumb without supplies. Waste management can't
|treat water. Doctors cant provide medicines. Groceries, even local,
|would be empty.  Sure, vast distribution networks can fail and society
|would live on in a more local environment.... but that's a smaller
|supply chain. Me growing my own tomatoes is just vertical integration
|of a portion of my food supply chain. My pantry and canned goods would
|be my inventory and it would have a demand that would need to be met.


|u/tolegr - 5 hours
|
|Truckers.


|u/Petty_Paw_Printz - 5 hours
|
|Truck driver


|u/Daflehrer1 - 5 hours
|
|Sanitation.


|u/Mistercorey1976 - 5 hours
|
|Plumbers. We can not live with out water and we do not want to live
|with poop.


|u/Xtroll_guruX - 5 hours
|
|teachers


|u/SolaceInRainbows - 5 hours
|
|I am shocked no one has added Air Traffic Controllers. A few years
|back. They helped end the government shut down in U.S. when 10 stayed
|home, impacting major travel.


|u/Sewo959 - 5 hours
|
|Blue collar men. Period, take any of them away and it all falls down


|u/Mar_Reddit - 5 hours
|
|Truck driving   How is anyone going to work without their product?


|u/Sacu-Shi - 4 hours
|
|Elderly care assistant.


|u/pents1 - 4 hours
|
|Many might not think but the government administrators, without them
|all taxes, benefits and other goverment payments would stop. So
|immediatly everyone whos pay would stop would stop working, meaning the
|total collapse of everything from law enforcement to waste mamagement
|to public healthcare.


|u/Visual-Device-8741 - 3 hours
|
|Farmers


|u/SwePolygyny - 3 hours
|
|Farmers would be on top of that list.    Without farmers very few would
|survive. No other profession is as essential.


|u/kappamolo - 2 hours
|
|Those that takes care of garbage and cleaning( sewers , road , … etc )
|and doctors , firefighters . One week without them and we will start
|getting very weird illnesses .


|u/confidentchic02 - 9 hours
|
|The job of "mom" or "dad" - someone's gotta keep the household running
|and make sure everyone's fed and happy.


|u/Few-Scholar-3261 - 9 hours
|
|Custodians


|u/Shed_57 - 9 hours
|
|Truck drivers


  |u/JesMan74 - 6 hours
  |
  |Nobody gets anything without at least one truck driver being
  |involved.


|u/c-papi - 9 hours
|
|Truckers, recently tried to be one and I don't know how they do it


|u/Mikebjackson - 9 hours
|
|Truckers, 110%. Most grocery stores have around 3 days of food on hand
|at any given time. They rely on constant daily shipments to keep
|stocked up. Once the trucks stop, the food stops. You think it was bad
|when people bought all the toilet paper? Imagine when they take every
|crumb off the shelf because if they don’t the next guy will. And most
|people only have a few days to a week of food in their pantry.


|u/DominicPalladino - 8 hours
|
|Engineers.   Lawyers.  Politicians / Legislators.  Truck Drivers.
|Computer Scientists.  Judges.   Electricians.   Police Officers / Law
|Enforcement.  Oil Refinery Operators.  Capitalists / Business People /
|Investors.  Miners.   Soldiers.   Home Builders.  Writers.


|u/Classic-Hearing7963 - 8 hours
|
|Police. Whether you want to believe it or not from your comfortable air
|chairs behind a television set watching CNN.


|u/kpn315 - 9 hours
|
|Police


|u/Front_Committee4993 - 9 hours
|
|For modern society, IT and jobs in tech


  |u/nachojackson - 9 hours
  |
  |The cynical reply to this is “well we’d just go back to using cash
  |and pen and paper” - but society is so far past that, it would indeed
  |lead to societal collapse.


|u/North_Firefighter205 - 9 hours
|
|Agricultural jobs, although I suppose cannibalism would replace food.


|u/Favicool - 9 hours
|
|Politicians


  |u/LinuxUserpamacapt - 8 hours
  |
  |Sometimes they are the worst and get in the way of fixing problems


  |u/BrilliantSilver5173 - 3 hours
  |
  |Hahaha, funny


|u/Kev2daB - 9 hours
|
|Telecoms


|u/Any-Scallion-4256 - 9 hours
|
|Nurses


|u/PurpleIsALady1798 - 8 hours
|
|Way more than one. Even if you pick a really really good one, if all
|the *other* jobs stopped, society would too. It’s a matter of all of
|them working together that keeps things going for us all.


|u/CameraHot2504 - 8 hours
|
|for everything and anything to exist we need engineers. who creates the
|garbage trucks? who creates the power lines? who creates farming
|equipment? engineers. the answer is always engineers.


|u/Educational_Law_4330 - 8 hours
|
|Damn near every job down to your local grocery store cashier is
|preventing some sort of collapse in society or a very massive issue at
|the very least.  Doctors - People die from simple & bad emergencies
|Electricians - Anything powered by it is now useless   Cashiers -
|nobody can by anything in store for years  Welders - oil and
|infrastructure industry is fucked


|u/AlternateAccount1210 - 8 hours
|
|cops for sure


|u/Confused-Cactus - 6 hours
|
|Police


|u/Dean403 - 9 hours
|
|Military


|u/No-Regret5022 - 8 hours
|
|Soldiers


|u/Wonderful_Relief_693 - 8 hours
|
|Covid thought us that the worst paying jobs are the ones that are
|essential.


|u/Skazzyskills - 8 hours
|
|Teachers


|u/Trimere - 8 hours
|
|Farmers


|u/surveyor2004 - 8 hours
|
|Mortician.


|u/koadey - 8 hours
|
|Teacher


|u/sredd007 - 8 hours
|
|Family setup


|u/Rodville - 8 hours
|
|Retail workers. We learned that during 2020.


|u/Troncross - 8 hours
|
|Typist


|u/Dark_Fury45 - 8 hours
|
|IT support


|u/SallySpaghetti - 8 hours
|
|Doctor. And why is the NSFW?


|u/Bort7654 - 8 hours
|
|HR


|u/dahliadaydreamer - 8 hours
|
|Mothers.


|u/DrTriage - 8 hours
|
|Things would rapidly go to sh$t without garbage collectors.


|u/Getafix69 - 8 hours
|
|Most obvious in my mind is Farmer


|u/BisonLower1337 - 8 hours
|
|Logicstics


|u/miz_mantis - 8 hours
|
|Nurses.


|u/Excellent_Pin_8057 - 8 hours
|
|Farmers


|u/ylamiyf - 8 hours
|
|Plumbers.


|u/YearZeroPersona - 8 hours
|
|Brains that function


|u/Sorbet-Same - 8 hours
|
|Sadly, politicians


|u/Shake_and_bake33 - 8 hours
|
|Credit score bureaus. How, I ask you, HOW could we function as a
|society without each person having a number arbitrarily assigned to
|them that decides how expensive it’s going to be to exist?


|u/Upset_Requirement267 - 8 hours
|
|Healthcare


|u/iwaskosher - 8 hours
|
|Welders


|u/Protection_Rude - 7 hours
|
|Accountants


|u/Difficult_Worker_672 - 7 hours
|
|Welding, I’d say a lot of shit would fall apart


|u/Theddt2005 - 7 hours
|
|Anyone who prepares food wether it be chefs or fast food


|u/zendragon888 - 7 hours
|
|The guy who changes the tp


|u/Teddybomber87 - 7 hours
|
|Retail itself. From the truck driver to the sales.


|u/iles_dogetr - 7 hours
|
|if ur talking truly fall apart without technical aspects, the people
|who work at xbox or playstation


|u/KellenRH - 7 hours
|
|Electrical, plumbing ...


|u/djr41463 - 7 hours
|
|Rocket scientist


|u/bacon177 - 7 hours
|
|Farmer


|u/Saucy_Baconator - 7 hours
|
|Garbage Collection


|u/ArachnidGuilty218 - 7 hours
|
|I know a guy who owns a septic tank cleaning company. At one time he
|had painted on his trucks, “Your shit IS my business.” City Council
|made him remove his slogan.


|u/meglobob - 7 hours
|
|If it was possible, I would love it if men & women could be completely
|separated and put on 2 different Earths for a year and see how they are
|faring after 1 year.  One thing for sure after the year and they are
|reunited, men would love women a lot more then now and women would love
|men a lot more then now.  All the 'hate' between the sexes would
|disappear.


|u/cjop - 7 hours
|
|Sanitation Workers


|u/Wayfinity - 7 hours
|
|Garbage collectors


|u/eldestdaughtersunion - 7 hours
|
|Midwives and Obstetricians - people who deliver babies. Without them,
|we would literally go extinct. Our big-ass heads and narrow bipedal
|hips make birth too dangerous. We have to have some help. There's an
|argument that it's actually the oldest human profession, possibly
|dating back to before we were humans - birth assistance has been
|observed in bonobos, some of our closest evolutionary relatives.


|u/theczarofhappiness - 7 hours
|
|Phone Sanitizers


|u/screwedupinaz - 7 hours
|
|Politicians.  At least that what they think!!


|u/IDoesThis1 - 7 hours
|
|Electrician


|u/MystycKnyght - 7 hours
|
|Teachers.   After attacking them for the last 6-10 years, look how the
|ignorant are quick to vote for fascism and against their own interests.
|If only learning, intelligence, and critical thinking took a bigger
|role.


|u/Outrageous_Recover75 - 7 hours
|
|Electricians.


|u/StayProsty - 7 hours
|
|Handjob.


|u/SpecialistWestern941 - 7 hours
|
|Real estate agents, car salesmen, the old person in the left lane
|refusing to move over every weekday morning. All very important to our
|society


|u/Muted_Performance924 - 7 hours
|
|I don’t know why truckers isn’t the number one answer.


|u/highxv0ltage - 7 hours
|
|Far m workers. Who's gonna pick your produce?


|u/ThrowAway67269 - 7 hours
|
|Semi-Truck drivers. Virtually nothing would get anyone without them.


|u/Funny_Ad8904 - 7 hours
|
|Nuclear technicians


|u/Captain_Pink_Pants - 7 hours
|
|CEO, obviously...  🙄


|u/Few-Information7570 - 7 hours
|
|Not my bosses


|u/AnIdiotAmongstUs - 7 hours
|
|Cashiers. It wasnt that long ago we didn't have things like grocery
|stores


|u/kclark1980 - 7 hours
|
|Garbage collection


|u/DoffanShadowshiv - 7 hours
|
|There are so many jobs that we cannot do without, just to maintain what
|we have, at least in developed areas. I suspect that as the population
|contracts, that these roles that we take for granted will become
|painfully obvious.


|u/MichiganMafia - 7 hours
|
|Wastewater treatment plant employees  Garbage men


|u/dvpPwnz1928 - 7 hours
|
|People who control mass(people)


|u/thetruthhurts2016 - 7 hours
|
|Waste disposal, plumbing and accounting, in no particular order.


|u/mishthegreat - 7 hours
|
|Just look at who had to remain working during the covid lockdown for a
|short list.


|u/Cosmos_P_Astronomer - 7 hours
|
|Farmers. Ain't got no society if you ain't got no food lol.


|u/somevice - 7 hours
|
|Wtf is this question? Sorting the top 50 by importance might be more
|interesting.


|u/fatLOKO4 - 7 hours
|
|Lawyers


|u/Liam_M - 6 hours
|
|Sewer utility workers, pipe fitters or electricians


|u/nikglt - 6 hours
|
|Farmers


|u/BandNerd776 - 6 hours
|
|Teachers!


|u/Narf234 - 6 hours
|
|Education. Good luck keeping your kids alive while you’re at work.


|u/Midnight5un - 6 hours
|
|Long haul truckers


|u/Heroic-Forger - 6 hours
|
|Food safety regulations.


|u/Dragonfire400 - 6 hours
|
|Truck drivers. You will commit economic suicide if you got rid of them.
|My sister was told a story about a senator who had an issue with them.
|Kept having cops go after truckers and bypass car drivers. Trucking
|companies told officials to back off, but they didn’t listen, so they
|banded together and boycotted the entire state. No one would deliver
|anywhere into the state and if routes took them through it, they
|changed them and went around it, avoiding the tolls and eating the
|extra delivery costs. The boycott lasted two days before a state of
|emergency was declared because they ran out of goods, and officials had
|no choice but to leave truckers alone


|u/Jameszhang73 - 6 hours
|
|Doctors. Getting prescription meds would be an entire ordeal too


|u/uV_Kilo11 - 6 hours
|
|Water & Sewer workers; you cant live longer than a few days without
|water nor without a way to remove that waste water.


|u/IAm2Legit2Sit - 6 hours
|
|Delivery


  |u/GrilledCheeser - 6 hours
  |
  |Receiving


|u/swingjiujits - 6 hours
|
|Trucking


|u/ChangeForsaken7675 - 6 hours
|
|Boilermaker


|u/omgyuleh - 6 hours
|
|Real Estate Agents  Lawyers  Marketers  Influencers  Used Car Salesmen


|u/ycelpt - 6 hours
|
|There are a few things which underpin majority of the world currently,
|but shipping is probably the most important. Without oil drilling, you
|can revert to electric powered vehicles and steam engines via coal.
|Without shipping there is no oil either, and it impacts metal and
|chemical shipments, which takes out waste water treatment. Mineral and
|ore transport is almost entirely by boat, so mining and metal work
|ceases up, so no renewable energy sources either.


|u/digitalmatrix - 6 hours
|
|Broadband companies.


|u/TeaVinylGod - 6 hours
|
|Linemen


|u/RoadToFreedom-90 - 6 hours
|
|This probably seems stupid, acting and the entertainment industry is
|one job that would break society if it stops. It’s so important to
|culture and life because it inspires so many, makes us want to get up
|and do things with our lives and gives up that motivation when we need
|it the most. Example is The X-Files inspired so many people to become
|doctors, etc. It’s not just escapism but motivation and inspiration for
|a better life.


|u/waler620 - 6 hours
|
|Pretty much any job TBH.  Everyone likes to think that their job is the
|most important, but in the real world everything works together to form
|a whole.  It's far more complicated than ONE job.


|u/ImyForgotName - 6 hours
|
|Trash men. Look I studied Political Science in school, if the trash men
|have stopped collecting, your society has done collapsed bro.  Jobs in
|order of importance in a modern city society, assuming no immediate
|crises. If a building is on fire, fire men really move up the list.
|1.Anyone who works in making sure you get clean water into your home.
|2. Anyone who works to make sure your toilets and sewage works right.
|3. Trash men.  4. Electricity services. Line men, Power plant engineers
|etc.  5. Transportation, getting people and goods from place to place
|is important. Bus drivers, gas station employees, mechanics, road work
|guys. Other public transit employees.  6. Food- Food keeps people alive
|and happy and content. You'd be surprised how quickly crime rates go up
|when there's no food. Grocers, farmers, stockboys, delivery men,
|ranchers, FDA inspectors etc.  7. Health care- people get sick, you
|need to be able to heal them to stop outbreaks. Nurses, Doctors,
|orderlies, EMTs etc.  8. Emergency Services- Police and Firefighters
|respond to crises that keep shit from getting out of hand, the kind of
|shit that gets out of hand REALLY fast. This one can shoot up the list
|if the crisis is significant.  9. The court system- People need to
|believe that the laws are implemented well. Also the local jail is only
|so big. Civil disagreements need to be ajudicated.  10. Banks and
|financial institutions provide a back bone for business. They enable
|the flow of capital. They are necessary.  11. Schools- School educates
|people and creates skilled labor. It is basically the whole point of
|this society thing.  12. Parks - They're at the bottom for a reason but
|people need clean air and places to go that aren't going to charge them
|an arm and a leg. Also they make great staging grounds for crisis
|response.


|u/Mcboomsauce - 6 hours
|
|maintenance


|u/throwitfarawayfromm3 - 6 hours
|
|Grave diggers


|u/8675201 - 6 hours
|
|Plumber. I’m a retired plumber so I have an advantage should our
|country get bad.


|u/thewalkingellie - 6 hours
|
|Healthcare workers.


|u/dylandynamite - 6 hours
|
|In today's lazy society, I will say Uber/Lyft drivers ie Uber eats ;
|door dash


|u/Tacticalbiscit - 6 hours
|
|Farmers, plumbers, electricians, doctors, EMTs, cops, vets, roofers,
|linemen, miners, road workers, etc etc etc. Honestly, there are so many
|jobs we take for granted that if they just all quit, things would go to
|hell quick.


|u/Sea-Combination-6655 - 6 hours
|
|Water treatment plants


|u/Anxious_Camel_6693 - 6 hours
|
|Politicians… as much as we all hate them, the role they fill is
|necessary for society to remain functional for an extended period of
|time.


|u/askurselfY - 6 hours
|
|Trucking


|u/azrolexguy - 6 hours
|
|Garbage man


|u/Quirky_Week7045 - 6 hours
|
|Nurses


|u/Anabuis - 6 hours
|
|Lineman


|u/EnergyAltruistic2911 - 6 hours
|
|Most jobs your parents/teachers told you to never become/you will
|become if you fail  Such as  1)Garbage men    2)Farmers    3)Truckers
|4)maintenance


|u/Sparrow1639 - 6 hours
|
|Big rig truck drivers


|u/Pandalungs - 6 hours
|
|Nice try, Elon


|u/mfburntpistachio - 6 hours
|
|I feel like masonry is up there


|u/BigBalledLucy - 6 hours
|
|truckers. whats the use of having product if theres no way to transport
|it?


|u/ghost_shark_619 - 6 hours
|
|Waste disposal, all the construction trades, whoever monitors power and
|water systems.


|u/ecstatic_charlatan - 6 hours
|
|Prostitutes. No joke


|u/austinrunaway - 6 hours
|
|Nurses


|u/alldaeallnight - 6 hours
|
|Train drivers


|u/WelshKellyy - 6 hours
|
|Without garbage collectors, society would quickly fall apart. When
|there was a garbage collectors' strike in my city, in just a few days
|the streets were in chaos:


|u/willem78 - 6 hours
|
|Sanitation


|u/wispyhurr - 6 hours
|
|Truck drivers, obvs


|u/Flaky-Ad-4467 - 6 hours
|
|maccas employees


|u/ireadthingsliterally - 6 hours
|
|IT.   Society *as we know it* would fall apart pretty fast if no one
|could access the internet.   It wouldn't completely fall apart, but it
|certainly won't stay the way it is now.


|u/Jane_Austen11 - 6 hours
|
|Kindergarten teachers


|u/Mumbleocity - 6 hours
|
|Farming, people who work at the power plants, all the 'little' jobs
|that keeps our infrastructure going.


|u/exploding_pancake - 6 hours
|
|Plumber


|u/alec777x - 6 hours
|
|Delivery workers like FedEx UPS


|u/AggravatingAir9020 - 6 hours
|
|Industry


|u/DegreeOffWhite - 6 hours
|
|I don’t see celebrities, athletes, or any other of THOSE types of
|entertainment jobs on here… hmmmm


|u/smegmaface69 - 6 hours
|
|There’s lots but one I can think of as I used to do it is security. Due
|to laws and regulations in the UK most bars and clubs couldn’t open
|without door staff (bouncers) and most retailers wouldn’t have
|insurance or get a fair quote if they didn’t employ security to be in
|store as a safety measure.  It’s all very silly but places like
|supermarkets where all the stock is insured; most companies wouldn’t
|provide insurance if the supermarket/retailer couldn’t provide proof
|that they had taken preventive measures to prevent shoplifting. Such as
|security guards etc


|u/frogofribbit - 6 hours
|
|Doctors the military and also waste disposal.  A world without waste
|disposal is like brittan in the 17 hundreds


|u/Deamon_Targeryon - 6 hours
|
|Power line workers


|u/birdman133 - 6 hours
|
|Scrolled for a bit and didn't see IT and systems engineers. Say what
|you want, you'd all be absolutely fucked without us. Who do you think
|keeps all your favorite shit running....


|u/Low_Computer_6542 - 6 hours
|
|Plumbers and Air conditioning/heating repair men.


|u/Rushmore9 - 5 hours
|
|Plumbers


|u/RAFFLUTE - 5 hours
|
|Electricians especially in this day and age the world would plunge into
|chaos


|u/Worth_Box_8932 - 5 hours
|
|The Crowdstrike event last summer shows that without IT techs, society
|is fucked.


|u/No_Salad_68 - 5 hours
|
|Plumbers


|u/nutlesscats - 5 hours
|
|Modern life, absolutely would have to be internet service providers
|(maintance, literally every job is relevent)


|u/Bigfred12 - 5 hours
|
|Teachers


|u/jswissle - 5 hours
|
|Obviously software sales


|u/I_Miss_the_Old_Hanzo - 5 hours
|
|If we’re talking America, fast food workers.


|u/FUThead2016 - 5 hours
|
|I don’t know but I bet RFK wants to dismantle it


|u/6d9chickens - 5 hours
|
|Sterile processing. It’s the heart of infection control


|u/peterdeg - 5 hours
|
|Telephone sanitisers and hairdressers


|u/bophed - 5 hours
|
|Truck driving


|u/Dizzy-King6090 - 5 hours
|
|Social media influencers /s


|u/goishen - 5 hours
|
|Slaughterhouse.


|u/CommercialLynx9954 - 5 hours
|
|Janitors, I'm tired of buying new shoes!


|u/picador10 - 5 hours
|
|transportation.   The people that make shit move from point A to B, all
|day everyday without us even noticing.  We just assume that the grocery
|store will be magically restocked with fresh food everytime we visit.


|u/SnooPears754 - 5 hours
|
|Farming


|u/paeandros - 5 hours
|
|You’d be very surprised how impactful librarianship is and the
|repercussions of not having access to information.


|u/CaptainMagnets - 5 hours
|
|Most of them honestly


|u/KungFuKenDawg - 5 hours
|
|Shareholders of course!


|u/ringrangbananaphone - 5 hours
|
|Music conductor


|u/Data2Logic - 4 hours
|
|Farmer !


|u/Working_Ad762 - 4 hours
|
|Bartenders lol


|u/Lumpy_Introduction65 - 4 hours
|
|Agriculture in general


|u/brambleburry1002 - 4 hours
|
|Truck drivers


|u/AnonKing - 4 hours
|
|logistics. literally keeps society running


|u/CreationStepper - 4 hours
|
|The Electoral College!


|u/Junkpunch44 - 4 hours
|
|Power generation/distribution workers


|u/PeakedAtConception - 4 hours
|
|Teachers.


|u/Theycallmeahmed_ - 4 hours
|
|That's not how the nsfw tag works buddy...


|u/PuzzleheadedArt8678 - 4 hours
|
|Water, sevage, trash, healthcare, truckers, power plant workers.
|Practically everyone


|u/Mad_Moodin - 4 hours
|
|Much better question would be. What job wouldn't society fall apart
|without?  Society would fall apart from a great many jobs missing. Be
|it electrician, plumber, truck driver, IT, healthcare, farmer,
|politician, police, etc.  If any of those jobs was completely missing.
|Society would fall apart in weeks.


|u/DonutTerrific - 4 hours
|
|Truck drivers.


|u/Ok_Simple6936 - 4 hours
|
|Police


|u/CaptainPunisher - 4 hours
|
|Electrical workers would likely be number one on the list, but
|infrastructure jobs in general. If all the electrical workers were
|gone, we'd grind to a halt very quickly for a long while. Then water
|distribution, both supply and waste. Agriculture would likely be next,
|followed by truckers to deliver that produce, and road maintenance to
|allow for that.


|u/Whysenberg - 4 hours
|
|Electricians. If no one can figure out how to make the power work then
|alot of people will die.


|u/jorick92 - 4 hours
|
|Nurses, teachers.


|u/Duhcisive - 4 hours
|
|Electricians, so help you god if you have a first-year apprentice who
|just doesn't care and drags his wire along whatever he pleases..
|regardless of the razor-sharp plumbing grates and etc that could slice
|the wire & cause a fire in a family's home while they're asleep.  They
|have to work with a ton of ancient equipment that was put up in the
|pre-historic era, crawl under your house that's absolutely wrecked with
|the spiders you keep discovering in your house; and being shocked is no
|fun. :)


|u/shelldon_conch - 4 hours
|
|We are about to find out... (the ones worked by immigrants is what i am
|referring to)


|u/BrilliantSilver5173 - 4 hours
|
|I guess the oldest profession of prostitution would be somewhere at the
|top of the list


|u/AllSpicNoSpan - 4 hours
|
|Plumbers.


|u/Emotional-Pirate-928 - 4 hours
|
|Most of the low paying ones


|u/themitch22 - 3 hours
|
|Reddit developer.


|u/christipede - 3 hours
|
|Farmers. No crops, no food.


|u/GirlMayXXXX - 3 hours
|
|Penetration testers. They reduce the likelihood that threat actors will
|succeed in physically or digitally hacking a business.


|u/Ok_Roof_5806 - 3 hours
|
|Teachers


|u/N0Satisfaction - 3 hours
|
|Nurses and doctors.


|u/metarinka - 3 hours
|
|going a little on the specialized side. Power plant operators. It's not
|just a job anyone can do from reading a manual, if there was something
|that knocked out a good percentage of the population, there's a good
|chance we would be short on people who could operate nuke, gas and coal
|plants.


|u/meenarstotzka - 3 hours
|
|Department of Government Efficiency.


|u/wheretheroadtakesyou - 3 hours
|
|Plumbers


|u/TheFlaccidChode - 3 hours
|
|Just look at who was deemed "essential workers" during the pandemic


|u/Golden-Blitz - 3 hours
|
|Bin men, Emergency services/health services and utilities services.
|Those go and we’re done for.


|u/KonkeyDongPrime - 3 hours
|
|Bureaucrats.


|u/theybae_mp3 - 3 hours
|
|Power grid people


|u/ComprehensiveYam - 2 hours
|
|Net ops


|u/G-I-T-M-E - 2 hours
|
|Telephone sanitizers


|u/Sideshow_Bob_Ross - 2 hours
|
|Farmers.  By definition, the ability to have excess food to store,
|sell, or distribute makes civilization possible.  Without farmers we
|are hunter gatherers.


|u/Karma_2_Spare - 2 hours
|
|Bankers


|u/Big_Brewster - 2 hours
|
|Truckers


|u/ArgumentLost9383 - 2 hours
|
|Surveyors quite literally! Without them, no one would know where to
|build anything and even if it was wrong, no one would know why!


|u/Navandis_Gaming - 2 hours
|
|IT engineers/admins. Literally every single job mentioned here already
|heavily relies on IT systems - commerce? every cash register, POS, ATM,
|bank, warehouse, supplier, etc. needs tens if not hundreds of IT
|systems to run.  Transport of any kind, be it passengers (local or long
|distance), or goods shipping massively relies on IT systems  Healthcare
|systems would grind to a halt without the backend IT systems. Power
|generation & grid management, water supply management are also heavily
|digitalized nowadays.  Sure you could argue the IT systems are just
|extra efficiency, but they are such an integral part of every single
|aspect of modern society (beyond just social media.....) that plucking
|out the jobs that build and maintain them would lead to near instant
|collapse.


|u/psaux_grep - 2 hours
|
|Telephone cleaners.


|u/Gwtheyrn - 2 hours
|
|A public telephone earpiece sanitizer. Duh.


|u/Notmypasswordle - 2 hours
|
|Electricians are pretty necessary.


|u/Joseph9877 - 2 hours
|
|Pretty much every shit paying job out there. Waste and sewage
|management, food producers, every tradesmen that deal with building and
|infrastructure repair and upkeep, etc etc.   And it'd happen in hours.
|For example, my company has a sparky that does some limited handyman
|jobs. He was off for like a day. In that time, the entrance gates
|stopped working, several bulbs went out, a breaker popped taking half
|the sockets we use out of use, and none of us are allowed to do the
|repairs.


|u/LionOfWise - 2 hours
|
|Drivers underpin everything, from construction to operation to
|destruction, drivers make things move. Literally.


|u/a_engie - 2 hours
|
|police officers, despite what anyone says, they are required to prevent
|crime through intimidation


|u/SetReal1429 - 2 hours
|
|Childcare.


|u/Kadium - 1 hour
|
|Water treatment and water distribution. No safe drinking water no water
|delivery system


|u/AGuyIdk - 1 hour
|
|Engineers


|u/Visible_Actuator_250 - 1 hour
|
|Farmer, no food no society


|u/OkBuddyRetardSS - 1 hour
|
|Farmer i guess


|u/buddyreacher - 1 hour
|
|Teacher, doctor, farmer


|u/underwater-sunlight - 1 hour
|
|Most of the low paid ones unfortunately


|u/Resident_Lychee_3319 - 1 hour
|
|Whoever is keeping the internet up and running….


|u/unityofsaints - 1 hour
|
|Real estate agents, we definitely can't do without those.


|u/ThickCheesecake3691 - 1 hour
|
|Truck drivers.


|u/Aggressive-Nothing71 - 1 hour
|
|Influencer   /s


|u/rabbithappygolucky - 1 hour
|
|Leader (e.g. President). There will be chaos if no one's leading.


|u/TheNinjaPixie - 1 hour
|
|Industrial technician, running electrical stations, water processing
|plants, oil rigs, nuclear power stations, network systems etc


|u/Snow0912ak - 1 hour
|
|Paramedics/Firefighters/First responders. I know sometimes they seem
|useless, but honestly what happens when stuff hits the fan. Who else is
|gonna run in a burning building, restart someones heart, or save
|someone in a car crash?   Without them, 1 accident can turn into a
|catastrophe.


|u/Lumpy_Rhubarb2736 - 1 hour
|
|Engineers.  Literally every single object made by man and mass produced
|is engineered.


|u/Hickory_Dick - 1 hour
|
|Truck Driver


|u/Special_North1535 - 1 hour
|
|Parenthood


|u/Former_Wang_owner - 1 hour
|
|Basically, any job that pays less than £80k a year. The bulk of higher
|paid jobs are pretty much unnecessary.


|u/Jumper_5455 - 1 hour
|
|Waste management and disposal. Quality of life will plummet in days and
|dwellings will become uninhabitable and unhealthy along with it giving
|rise to disease and disease carrying rats and vermin.


|u/ForeignZombie7731 - 1 hour
|
|Bum cleaners


|u/TrueDeadBling - 1 hour
|
|Screw production


|u/curlyquinn02 - 59 minutes
|
|Farmers


|u/StealthOdyssey - 54 minutes
|
|It's been said already but play the game Ready or Not and tell me we
|don't need waste disposal workers.


|u/RoseWould - 52 minutes
|
|Logistics. Imagine if everyone had to go get everything themselves.
|Like you broke a piece of equipment at work, and it was the only one.
|You would have to go pick up a new one in person, which would mean
|calling around, seeing if one is in stock. Then eventually if you find
|one, who knows how far away it is? Could be local could be somewhere
|across the country, all the while your department is getting nothing
|done, and you're the only ones that know how to do your job correctly.


|u/burried-to-deep - 50 minutes
|
|Cleaners


|u/Glass_Excitement_538 - 49 minutes
|
|People have been saying waste disposal but there’s one that is just so
|vital to modern cities that most people won’t even consider them
|without thinking hard about it. I mean genuinely these guys are super
|heroes in there own right, who am I referring too? Urban gods and
|legends called…. I forgot.


|u/BillWeld - 40 minutes
|
|Imagine all the jobs involved in making a truck roll down the highway,
|everything from oilfield roughneck to engine designer to road
|construction crew. An economy is truly a marvelous thing and way too
|complex for top-down control.


|u/Nice-Stuff-5711 - 36 minutes
|
|Illegal workers worldwide providing service jobs.


|u/mrsschwingin - 25 minutes
|
|Garbage men


|u/Musclecar123 - 15 minutes
|
|Grocery clerks


|u/Excusemytootie - 13 minutes
|
|Nurse


|u/Dmunman - 9 minutes
|
|Farmers. Most don’t have a clue what it takes to feed you all.


|u/Vanarene - 6 minutes
|
|Cleaners and bin men


|u/SumptuousRageBait1 - 9 hours
|
|Influencers


|u/CommunicationLive708 - 9 hours
|
|Onlyfans models


|u/ratraceinsurgent - 9 hours
|
|Electrician


|u/DCA805 - 9 hours
|
|Logistics


|u/xqsonraroslosnombres - 9 hours
|
|Structural engineers


|u/Copacetic4 - 9 hours
|
|Politicians, as shitty as they may be sometimes, normal people can’t
|exactly sit for half the year listening to some of the dullest words
|imaginable in legislation and actually needing to offer changes and
|readings.


|u/fromwhichofthisoak - 9 hours
|
|Educators.  Can't fix or maintain shit if no one can teach it.


|u/orka648 - 9 hours
|
|Maintenance.