181–190 of 250 posts
Also, the most important invention would be the printing press including typesets, ink and paper, as there is no way you can do everything in one generation.
I think the more interesting question than how to reinvent some technological gizmos is how to reinstate governance. It's handy to know how to build a solar panel but it isn't worth much if someone hits me on the head with a club five minutes later. It's kind of funny to me that so much post apocalyptic writing is so overly concerned with technology when technology without much wisdom was what likely caused the apoca…
> It's handy to know how to build a solar panel but it isn't worth much if someone hits me on the head with a club five minutes later. Most people will quickly assemble in groups/tribes/families. People can realize danger, and even independents will know when it's time. Chaos will be transitory and most people will be unaffected; however, supply lines will be limited to neighboring friendly tribes/villages. As a resu…
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Just looking through the table of contents [1] - this is not just for cars. It's basically a textbook on mechanical engineering, applied to something that will be common and very scavengable in a post-apocalyptic world. The first 159 pages is basically a quick-reference for applied physics; the next 50 pages is mathematics; the next 100 pages is material science. They don't get to anything car-specific until page 460…
Why was this published? Bosch does not even make cars
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just looking through the table of contents [1] - this is not just for cars. It's basically a textbook on mechanical engineering, applied to something that will be common and very scavengable in a post-apocalyptic world. The first 159 pages is basically a quick-reference for applied physics; the next 50 pages is mathematics; the next 100 pages is material science. They don't get to anything car-specific until page 460…
Why was this published? Bosch does not even make cars
Simple things we take for granted are a tremendous bootstrap: the germ theory of disease; the staff system of organization; education of the young; reading and writing; arithmetic; agriculture; static analysis. It's not all about gadgets and electricity.
Also, it seems like just knowing some of the dead ends would be a huge step up. Like maybe we don't waste a ton of time and resources trying to turn lead into gold, or teaching left-handed kids to be right-handed, or trying to figure out which ritual to perform to which deity to make the crops grow.
Total apocalipse is not possible (Earth is so large that it's impossible nuke EVERYTHING and EVERYWHERE. But if this is just experiment "what if" those are thing that I would suggest to do: - Forget about computers and programming and gadgets - DO NOT STAY IN BUNKER, INSTEAD FIND FRIENDS! - Focus on FARMING as team - Scavending for potatoes, grain etc - for seeds! - FARMING - FARMING - FARMING - FARMING - FARMING - H…
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You can also allocate all this effort into preventing whatever apocalyptic scenario is likely to happen, but that's a lot less self-centered and forces you to accept uncomfortable truths about yourself and your place in society. It's much easier to daydream about being constrained by technical problems alone, and if you are realistic that's not going to be the biggest problem in any post-apocalyptic scenario. We'll s…
I'm always entertained by the optimism of people that think they can prevent whatever apocalyptic scenario is likely to happen, but that'd force you to accept uncomfortable truths about yourself and your place in society. Collapse is inherent in any system that undergoes unchecked exponential growth, and is more a function of ecology, population, game theory, and millions of years of human evolution. If it's going to…
> If it's going to happen, there's nothing that you as one of the 7+ billion humans alive on earth today can do to prevent it.
I'm one of the unreasonable people that is planning to do something about that. I consider ancient Egypt to be proof that the problem is neither ecology, population, game theory and millions of years of human evolution.
What I find particularly entertaining is that it would require me to develop "everything" from scratch in a destitute country. It ought to be impossible yet the amount of money needed to kick-start this development is something a person from silicon valley would laugh at.
Time and again, techno-utopians tend to forget that, for most of humanity's existence, knowledge was passed on orally and was not "scientific", but it allowed us to survive and flourish. It is not solar concentrators what will allow us to survive, but knowledge of the earth, soil and awareness of the place that we occupy on the web of life. And that knowledge cannot always be registered, but has to be learned from pr…
To me, your comment sounds more like an argument for picking books with different topics rather than not using books but relying on oral retelling to "allow us to survive and flourish". And I agree this potato farming type of info sounds more broadly useful than the books I saw shared above about metal alloys and other automotive-related tech.
Then again, the title of the post is bouncing back, which would go beyond just farming and survival knowledge. I suppose we need both and your survival in the wild info is fundamental to allow their tech info to be useful.
If I were to take one book with me "down into the bunker," as Dartnell puts it, I'd hands-down take with me the Bosch Automotive Handbook[0], a phenomenally dense and thorough text covering not just cars, but their constituent parts--and their constituent parts' constituent parts--all the way down to the materials. It has wonderful tables of data on the properties of various materials (from advanced plastics and allo…