I think people expect the worst in some situations because they watch the worst in such situations on TV and at the cinema. I'm not so much talking about the radiation or the zombies or whatever, but the people themselves. I think the society would in many cases pull through. If it comes down to it and some people flip their trout, I honestly think that they will be outnumbered by the more sensible people in the world. Whenever things get bad on Earth, I see people doing things for their fellow humans, not kicking them while they're down. I think it says a lot that when the Boston bombs went off that people ran to help out, and that when the Boxing Day tsunami struck that the world answered with huge amounts of aid of all kinds.

In the end, things won't be as good as they were before whatever disaster kicked in, but I don't think they will be as bad as they are in the movies where every person you speak to is a psychopathic murderer.

I think so long as I had my health (ie, I wasn't doomed the moment the nukes/asteroid/whatever hit), I'd stand a fighting chance of survival.