Post-Apocalyptic Programming • Hacker News Board

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Programming

#61

Post by andsoitis » Mon, Aug 08, 2022, 2:18 PM UTC

manofmanysmiles wrote: post #54

ljw1001 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing superstitious about government, money, organizations, etc. This is a fantasy. If you really want to exist as a society of strong individuals (assuming that’s not already a contradiction in terms) in the absence of these constructs, you have to accept the very real likelihood that stronger individuals will be trying to rob and murder you. And organizing themselves into groups to do that more successfu…

Show me a government, and I’ll believe you that it’s not a superstition. I only see people. People organizing and working together is great. People feeling they have a right to use violence to achieve their goals, not so much. Edit: https://xkcd.com/386/ I will take this opportunity to to try to express myself a bit more clearly. I don't really expect to convince anyone of anything, but rather I would like to reach t…

First you deride organizations: "externalization our power in organizations,"

but now you say: "People organizing and working together is great."

Which is it?

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Programming

#62

Post by andsoitis » Mon, Aug 08, 2022, 2:22 PM UTC

hunterb123 wrote: post #11

teddyh wrote: post #2

Note: This is fun and all, but beware of taking the “Post-apocalyptic” premise too seriously. Down that road lies only hard drive hoarding and becoming a prepper.

I can't think of anything more useful than becoming a "prepper" and hoarding data on hard drives these days. There's hardly any difference than prepping and camping, you just take your gear with you every now and then, practice with your gear, use your rations and replace. Prepping is usually pretty ecological as well, it leads to coops, greenhouses, chicken coops, water recycling, composting, solar, repairing skills…

You do you, but for me, orienting my entire life around potential catastrophe would be unbearable.

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Programming

#63

Post by ralphc » Mon, Aug 08, 2022, 2:30 PM UTC

Back in the '80s I bought a HP 9100 calculator. It weighed 60 pounds and had core memory. I even remember turning it on for the first time and a program stored started running. Anyway, I thought that if the Soviets attacked and wiped out the modern PCs with their EM pulses then I would still have a programming job with my core-memory, no IC's programmable calculator.

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Programming

#64

Post by jollyllama » Mon, Aug 08, 2022, 2:32 PM UTC

wokwokwok wrote: post #51

> what if you are the only survivor with some programming skills sitting in front of a computer you’ve never heard of, with some hex pad to enter machine codes, with maybe some pen and paper. What will you do? Leave it on the ground and forage around until I find a computer that runs windows. It's not great, but, it'll do. Failing that, a phone and a solar charger. Charming as it is to build yourself toys 'from scrat…

Agreed, all of this "build from the ground up" post-apoc stuff is fantasy.

It would be scavenge and cobble together. If there was time to do any of this, you'd be trading a bit of your clan's goods for a disk with some rare library on it for calculating dates and times based on the planets and stars.

I think that scavenging old libraries and installers is going to become more of a thing as they disappear from the internet over time anyway.

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Programming

#65

Post by manofmanysmiles » Mon, Aug 08, 2022, 2:34 PM UTC

blamestross wrote: post #60

manofmanysmiles wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Show me a government, and I’ll believe you that it’s not a superstition. I only see people. People organizing and working together is great. People feeling they have a right to use violence to achieve their goals, not so much. Edit: https://xkcd.com/386/ I will take this opportunity to to try to express myself a bit more clearly. I don't really expect to convince anyone of anything, but rather I would like to reach t…

> I only see people. I only see atoms dancing around. That doesn't make it a useful abstraction at the scale we are discussing. Government is just an abstraction over a group of people self organizing. > People feeling they have a right to use violence to achieve their goals, not so much. Agreed, but government monopoly on violence is the only system that seems to have stuck. I would prefer a system of anarchy where…

> Libertarian presumption that people, removed from the system of control, would all act better"

My premise is more: "If people act better, and then perhaps we won't need a system of external control."

I will admit I dream of a world that may not be possible. However, I will continue dreaming, and act to see this dream come to fruition.

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Programming

#66

Post by atoav » Mon, Aug 08, 2022, 2:37 PM UTC

teddyh wrote: post #2

Note: This is fun and all, but beware of taking the “Post-apocalyptic” premise too seriously. Down that road lies only hard drive hoarding and becoming a prepper.

Actual prepping as in "preparing for the afternath of some catastrophic event that breaks civilization" is something else than the usual "cosplaying for the zombie apocalypse"-type of prepping you can observe so often.

Actual prepping would involve a ton of community networking, trying to be in good terms with your neighbours, creating lasting and decentralized infrastructure for a d with them etc.

The prepping most preppers do is just trying to be less fucked than others when the shit hits the fan. Living the ultimate rugged individualist delusion: that you somehow can survive alone if you just buy the right gear to make it through the first week and that you will have to shoot the looters who were too stupid to prepare.

The problem with all of this is typically that those rugged individuals have to depend on the work and expertise of other people in some way or another. I mean you might need electrical engineering, a doctor, someone who is good with plants and animals, whatever. Unless you are already live 100% self sustained whatever you are doing is not going to cut it without other people also getting through this.

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Programming

#67

Post by manofmanysmiles » Mon, Aug 08, 2022, 2:37 PM UTC

andsoitis wrote: post #61

manofmanysmiles wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Show me a government, and I’ll believe you that it’s not a superstition. I only see people. People organizing and working together is great. People feeling they have a right to use violence to achieve their goals, not so much. Edit: https://xkcd.com/386/ I will take this opportunity to to try to express myself a bit more clearly. I don't really expect to convince anyone of anything, but rather I would like to reach t…

First you deride organizations: "externalization our power in organizations," but now you say: "People organizing and working together is great." Which is it?

If you look carefully at the sentences, one is using nouns, the other verbs.

"Organization" vs "organizing"

I am not nitpicking. I am saying that as conscious entities, we act. We "verb". It's the labeling that I see as creating trouble.

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Programming

#68

Post by manofmanysmiles » Mon, Aug 08, 2022, 2:41 PM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #45

luxuryballs wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whooosh you totally didn’t get the point, the government is also just a bunch of individuals.

The point that governments and money are superstitions and that people need to "grow emotionally and take responsibility" rather than believing in such things? No, I'm pretty sure I got the point there. I agree, government is just a bunch of individuals, and collectively we empower them to take action on our behalf, and they achieve things that without such cooperation would be hard to impossible. I don't believe the…

If you're talking about me, I believe that when people are ready for it, "governments" as such will cease to be relevant.

To put this another way, I am NOT advocating for getting rid of governments, because a) they already don't exist, and b) right now, if we "got rid of government", let's say by somehow stopping all political, police, military and other activity, there most likely would be chaos, as many people like being told what to do, and maybe do need a imaginary father figure to make decisions for them and punish them if they do "bad" things.

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Programming

#69

Post by alehlopeh » Mon, Aug 08, 2022, 2:42 PM UTC

manofmanysmiles wrote: post #65

blamestross wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I only see people. I only see atoms dancing around. That doesn't make it a useful abstraction at the scale we are discussing. Government is just an abstraction over a group of people self organizing. > People feeling they have a right to use violence to achieve their goals, not so much. Agreed, but government monopoly on violence is the only system that seems to have stuck. I would prefer a system of anarchy where…

> Libertarian presumption that people, removed from the system of control, would all act better" My premise is more: "If people act better, and then perhaps we won't need a system of external control." I will admit I dream of a world that may not be possible. However, I will continue dreaming, and act to see this dream come to fruition.

What actions are you taking that could potentially cause billions of individuals to suddenly act as though the concept of scarcity doesn’t exist? If the only path forward you see is for every single human to start acting differently, then you don’t see any path forward.

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Programming

#70

Post by badpun » Mon, Aug 08, 2022, 2:46 PM UTC

manofmanysmiles wrote: post #57

Nursie wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me know when libertarianism achieves any more than attracting bears - https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-... Personally I enjoy my government roads, schools, fire service and all the rest. Perhaps when you’ve grown emotionally, you’ll understand that government is people working together to achieve a common good. It’s flawed and easy to get wrong, it oversteps and overspends, but I’ll tak…

Show me a common good, and I’ll listen to you. I only see people. Every time we generalize it results in violence and conflict. I am 100% supportive of people working together.

With your people-working-together model, modern civilization would not be possible. There would just be too much friction in a world where every interaction and every boundary must be voluntary and previously agreed upon. It would sorta work fine for sparsely populated pre-modern times, like the XIX century American West [1], which I believe is the origin source for a lot of such fantasies.

[1] Except for the fact that the West rugged self-sufficiency was only possible because the pioneers could call in cavalry to exterminate groups of people who posed a threat they couldn't handle themselves.