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Ask HN: What content/knowledge is most important?

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Re: Ask HN: What content/knowledge is most important?

#51

Post by TristanBall »

arisbe__ wrote: post #4

Well if I could just impart one idea or concept it would be similar to Feynman's quote: >“If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generations of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis (or the atomic fact, or whatever you wish to call it) that all things are made…

"Try something different" "Don't follow our example" "Wrong way, go back"

All seem like reasonable bits of advice from a civilisation that let itself get wiped out,pretty much regardless of the cause.

Re: Ask HN: What content/knowledge is most important?

#53

Post by ftth_finland »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #33

I'll echo the others saying that "a few terabytes" is utterly massive and could easily fit the English version of Wikipedia several times over, so this isn't much of a constraint. But to take a stab at it: 1. The Bible (original languages and modern translations) 2. All of (English) Wikipedia 3. Medical textbooks 4. nand2tetris 5. Anything not already in Wikipedia about fabrication processes and manufacturing, especi…

I fail to see the relevance of the Bible, unless it is to showcase the breadth of languages and to function as a kind of Rosetta’s stone.

The Bible is probably available in most languages, so using a few hundred megabytes on that isn’t a total waste if you have the space.

Re: Ask HN: What content/knowledge is most important?

#54

Post by lagrange77 »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #33

I'll echo the others saying that "a few terabytes" is utterly massive and could easily fit the English version of Wikipedia several times over, so this isn't much of a constraint. But to take a stab at it: 1. The Bible (original languages and modern translations) 2. All of (English) Wikipedia 3. Medical textbooks 4. nand2tetris 5. Anything not already in Wikipedia about fabrication processes and manufacturing, especi…

nand2tetris definitely.

Re: Ask HN: What content/knowledge is most important?

#55

Post by Yizahi »

That's a big assumption to have a working computer, screen, electricity etc. More interesting is the no-electricity scenario. Then I would made 4 books - one out of etched metal, another out of etched plastic, spring bound. One pair describing how to make metals and steels in as many simple ways as possible. Another pair about making electricity.

Re: Ask HN: What content/knowledge is most important?

#56

Post by exikyut »

folli wrote: post #13
arisbe__ wrote: post #4

Well if I could just impart one idea or concept it would be similar to Feynman's quote: >“If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generations of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis (or the atomic fact, or whatever you wish to call it) that all things are made…

That naturally shows Feynman's bias as a physicists. A biologist would very likely answer that the concept of evolution should be first on the list of ideas to preserve. A mathematician will yet have another answer...

Philosophical consideration: maybe that bias would also incorporate some assumption of familiarity (https://xkcd.com/2501/), and a further implicit expectation that this familiarity (aka unwritten/tribal knowledge) would also implicitly contribute to the raw material necessary to rebuild from some baseline axiom.

In other words, maybe everyone says only X Y and Z from their field is necessary/the most important, not (just) because nothing else is on their radar, but because when they think of their field, simply just mentally reasoning about X, Y, or Z is all it takes to take into account all the connected associations, without the feeling this reasoning takes much mental space or effort; and maybe this is an interesting mental fallacy.

Re: Ask HN: What content/knowledge is most important?

#57

Post by blep_ »

arisbe__ wrote: post #4

Well if I could just impart one idea or concept it would be similar to Feynman's quote: >“If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generations of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis (or the atomic fact, or whatever you wish to call it) that all things are made…

Cheating answer: the entirety of Wikipedia and every textbook I can find, encoded to a very long base64 string prefixed with "Base64 is [brief description], and you should use that to decode this:"

Now you can include images too!

Re: Ask HN: What content/knowledge is most important?

#59

Post by HKH2 »

yawnxyz wrote: post #41

I'm curious no one cares to store culture on the computer — maybe in the form of music, movies, and videos? Most knowledge can be derived at some point, but the culture is going to be lost.

That's what anthropologists want to do, usually in the form of writing, but I don't think anyone else cares.

Re: Ask HN: What content/knowledge is most important?

#60

Post by incomingpain »

Ages ago I compiled a list of beneficial to society knowledge. From memory so more of a pamphlet than on a hard drive:

How wings/flight works; how to design a simple airfoil.

Germ theory, penicillin. Microscope looking for crazy hands on long stalks. Lenses are molten glass in a mold.

Vaccines are created by producing lots of a bad thing and then heating it up to the point it dies. deactivated virus.

Heat milk to just below a boil. Never let it boil. Milk does absorb significant amounts of heat before boiling. Pasteurization.

Insulin comes from pigs and dog pancreas.

electricity = magnet + water wheel. magnets come from heated iron. next to coiled wire.

magnet -> compass

electricity + tungsten = lightbulb.

gears, glasses, thermometers, scissors, saws, utensils, language books, screwless construction techniques.

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