31–40 of 79 posts
If multiple terabytes, you can store a lot of information. All Wikipedia is only 21.23 GB compressed as of 21 September 2022. The English Books from Gutenberg Library are around 40GB. With 1TB, you have already a pretty solid base to rebuild civilization. Then you can go deeper: As of last year, all Library Genesis for nonfiction is 40 TB and Scientific Papers are 78.5 TB. Total Library Genesis seems to be 220TB. Fin…
> We have named this collection the Manual for Civilization, and it will include the roughly 3500 books most essential to sustain or rebuild civilization.
https://longnow.org/ideas/02014/02/06/manual-for-civilizatio...
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, especially the more "exotic" stuff - exactly how transistors work, photo-lithography, that kind of thing
I'm a little uncertain about the ordering of 4 and 5; building computer hardware is hard, but the mental models to use it are also unintuitive. On the other other hand, it only took us ~60 years to invent modern software the first time once we had the hardware, and Wikipedia hopefully already covered the mathematical background, so worst case we could probably reinvent everything else if we could preserve knowledge of how to fab transistors and simple microprocessors.
EDIT: I'm blanking on the name, but isn't there a set of textbooks that's basically "here's how to bootstrap a modern industrial civilization"? That seems tailor-made to this question, without needing to make people wander through wikipedia to stumble on little things like "levers" and "engines".
We take words for granted, but so much of the shared experience of humanity is embedded in words themselves.
If multiple terabytes, you can store a lot of information. All Wikipedia is only 21.23 GB compressed as of 21 September 2022. The English Books from Gutenberg Library are around 40GB. With 1TB, you have already a pretty solid base to rebuild civilization. Then you can go deeper: As of last year, all Library Genesis for nonfiction is 40 TB and Scientific Papers are 78.5 TB. Total Library Genesis seems to be 220TB. Fin…
Quoted post unavailable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good list. Reminds me of the plot from The Foundation book where Hari Seldon wants to build a library of all the knowledge that can help build a civilization from scratch.
Absolutely! Loved the series, probably good to add them if there was space. I’d probably skip over Religion thinking about it. No religious books and such and just a pretty formal description of the worlds religions that existed. Instead adding a book on Ethics :) Not sure I know a good starter book on Ethics actually.
King Fuzi's The Analects
Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
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'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…
Collar in the first place!