> To restate that: what precise type of disaster would destroy "technological civilization"—presumably, all traces of it, because it's pretty easy to bootstrap back up†—but not the human species itself? Because that's the only case where humans not being capable of non-technologically-assisted reproduction would matter.
In this case, any disaster that prevents the regular maintenance and operation of something like an advanced hospital for at least a few decades. This includes various types of war, energy crises, or the classic SF theme of a society stagnating to point where it can no longer build certain necessary technologies but only operate them.
There's also the related threat to societies/nations that require technology to reproduce. If they get in a war with rivals that can reproduce unassisted, they have extra weak points that can be attacked.
> † See the book The Knowledge, and then consider a world where you have access to not only that, but also hard copies of the US Patent filing database, and 6 billion people to parallelize the bootstrapping process across.
Any scenario where you have to reconstruct knowledge like that will likely be accompanied by strife that will prevent the reconstruction for a time (of decades or more).
In this case, any disaster that prevents the regular maintenance and operation of something like an advanced hospital for at least a few decades. This includes various types of war, energy crises, or the classic SF theme of a society stagnating to point where it can no longer build certain necessary technologies but only operate them.
There's also the related threat to societies/nations that require technology to reproduce. If they get in a war with rivals that can reproduce unassisted, they have extra weak points that can be attacked.
> † See the book The Knowledge, and then consider a world where you have access to not only that, but also hard copies of the US Patent filing database, and 6 billion people to parallelize the bootstrapping process across.
Any scenario where you have to reconstruct knowledge like that will likely be accompanied by strife that will prevent the reconstruction for a time (of decades or more).
Have you ever read A Canticle for Leibowitz?