[Cdnwolf]

I was thinking... does there knowledge outweigh the amount of resources that would be required to keep them around. Although the younger generation is incapable of processing with out an electronic device in their hand they could be retrained as in the Max Brooks book World War Z.

To be perfectly candid, our supply of talent was at a critical low. Ours was a postindustrial or service-based economy, so complex and highly specialized that each individual could only function within the confines of its narrow, compartmentalized structure. You should have seen some of the ‘careers’ listed on our first employment census; everyone was some version of an ‘executive,’ a ‘representative,’ an ‘analyst,’ or a ‘consultant,’ all perfectly suited to the prewar world, but all totally inadequate for the present crisis. We need carpenters, masons, machinists, gunsmiths…We needed to get a lot of white collars dirty.”

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/0...m-world-war-z/