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Getting humanity to bounce back faster in a post-apocalyptic world

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Re: Getting humanity to bounce back faster in a post-apocalyptic world

#191

Post by PostOnce »

greenpresident wrote: post #175
PostOnce wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know of a book that similarly impressed me, though I've not yet seen the one you refer to, although it won't be quite so deep: The reprinted-under-many names book from Germany in the 70s? called variously: "How Things Work", "The Way Things Work", and more and published by Simon & Schuster, Paladin Press, and others Searching for C Van Amerongen will bring it up, although I think it is by multiple authors. https://…

„Wie funktioniert das?“ and it’s various versions are amazing books for teenagers interested in tinkering too.

Yes! That's it. That's the same book, that's the German name (which I couldn't remember). I know there are at least 2 of them, maybe more, and they are wonderful, it's so concise, they don't bullshit around at all. Hundreds of machines (and other things?) all explained with shocking clarity.

How did punch card readers work before optical reading was possible? They've got you covered. Want to know how tank gun stabilization works? Also covered. It really has everything.

Re: Getting humanity to bounce back faster in a post-apocalyptic world

#192

Post by nonrandomstring »

occz wrote: post #154
gavmor wrote: post #9

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…

For how long would cars really be practical in a "down in the bunker"-scenario, though? There wouldn't be any more fuel produced, probably, and cars require a fairly high standard of roads which also would be lost after not too long. Personally, I would probably bring the equivalent book on bicycles, which I speculate would be the vehicle of choice for the end of the world. If anyone knows the name of such a book, I…

Engines can be modified to run on a lot of thing you can grow and process on a small farm. Maintenance would be an ongoing skill needed, so the role of mechanics and electro-mechanical knowledge would be highly valued again.

A harder challenge would be stripping out all the ECUs, computers and security crap to make things "just work" again.

All civilisations have been able to maintain their technology, but I think we are in an unusual and tremendously precarious point in history in the early 21st century. It seems far more likely that a loss of control over our technology will cause an apocalypse than that an apocalypse will cause us to lose technology.

Re: Getting humanity to bounce back faster in a post-apocalyptic world

#193

Post by narrator »

There's always "A World Made By Hand" by Kunstler if you want a picture of what life might be like after the world runs out of oil. It's more of the "dying not with a bang, but with a whimper" variety of post-apocalyptic book. It's bad, but not horrible. Life just sort of slides back into the 18th century in a disorderly, messy and ungracious sort of way.

Re: Getting humanity to bounce back faster in a post-apocalyptic world

#194

Post by jaggs »

gavmor wrote: post #9

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…

Alcohol Can Be A Gas is also worth a look.

Re: Getting humanity to bounce back faster in a post-apocalyptic world

#195

Post by jaggs »

spekcular wrote: post #18
alasdair_ wrote: post #3

I bought The Knowledge several years ago. It's a fantastic book, with just the right amount of detail. One thing I particularly liked was the focus on how to get certain materials in a likely post-apocolyptic world - for example, instead of just telling you how to mine iron, the book explains that there is likely cast iron all over the place in things like cookware and even if it's heavily rusted, it can be cleaned a…

The top review on Amazon is devastating: "The author purports to provide a blueprint to restoring a technological economy after a TEOTWAWKI event, but some his listed sources are from the realm of science fiction. Not an encouraging start. He goes on to pretend that he knows more than he actually does. It's as if he skimmed a few sources but only superficially understood them. How else can he suggest that a collapsed…

Yep I bought it and was very unimpressed. Very weak.

Re: Getting humanity to bounce back faster in a post-apocalyptic world

#196

Post by csomar »

to1y wrote: post #182
csomar wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Its likely there will be mass violence in the beginning and pretty much everyone will be affected imo. Criminal types will flourish taking what they will. Most will die from starvation pretty soon though. Those who have some sort of food source will become huge targets very quickly. Your only real hope is to have some tucked away huge bit of land with water and food already growing. Even then that wont be enough.

> Its likely there will be mass violence in the beginning and pretty much everyone will be affected imo.

No. Cities will be affected disproportionately but that's it. The crime rate is too low. Even if it x10, it'll be roughly the same as Brazil or El Salvador (which still has people and communities living there!).

> Criminal types will flourish taking what they will.

Corporations and large enterprises will likely be targeted more.

> Most will die from starvation pretty soon though.

No.

> Those who have some sort of food source will become huge targets very quickly.

People will trade with farmers; like they did before? Just food will become more expensive. There is massive food waste (especially in the US), and even places like Africa will be fine.

A post-Apocalyptic world is more about the collapse about the current order (current government, corporations, current powers) than the death of the people. Unless a nuclear winter sets, most people will be fine.

Re: Getting humanity to bounce back faster in a post-apocalyptic world

#197

Post by julian55 »

datavirtue wrote: post #82

"bounce back faster" Why is that a concern to the survivors? Perhaps they decide that "bouncing back faster" is the last thing they want?

I agree, if it's a man-made apocalypse then "bouncing back" seems like repeating a failed experiment.

Re: Getting humanity to bounce back faster in a post-apocalyptic world

#198

Post by flembat »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #36
hguant wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you started from scratch, there isn't really any easily accessible coal left. I don't think this is strictly speaking true - certainly not for the US. I believe the majority of US coal production (according to wikipedia at any rate) is surface level mining, not the traditional underground mines people think about. I know that's true for parts of the Appalachian basin, I'm unclear as to whether that's true for the…

Wyoming coal is very much surface coal (at least in the Powder River Basin). The problem is that it's in the wrong place. It's not near iron deposits... well, there was a large iron mining operation near South Pass, but it ended decades ago. I don't know if it ended because it was played out, or just no longer economical.

Trade moves goods where needed. Cornish tin was used by people that had no idea Cornwall existed. It is even possible that ancient Egypt had access to cocaine and tobacco.

Re: Getting humanity to bounce back faster in a post-apocalyptic world

#199

Post by vertnerd »

salgernon wrote: post #137

From the fiction side, Walter Miller's 1959 _A Canticle for Leibowitz_ [1] was written from the perspective of Benedictine Monks preserving knowledge - without truly understanding it - post apocalypse. In _Earth Abides_[2] by George R. Stewart, the protagonist eventually gives up on his attempt to provide for the future, eventually deciding that the best he can do for his clan is to teach them to fend for themselves…

In my sixty years on this planet, Earth Abides remains the most devastating, encouraging, and thought-provoking fictional work I have ever read. Though written in the 40's, its conclusions are no less valid today: humanity and its technology-based society are not one and the same.

Re: Getting humanity to bounce back faster in a post-apocalyptic world

#200

Post by imtringued »

avgcorrection wrote: post #106
throwaway892238 wrote: post #27

Weird take. Sure, you could try to re-build what you had before the apocalypse. Or you could build a new world that isn't the one that just plunged everything into chaos. If our technology wasn't so good, the world wouldn't be as populated, we wouldn't need so many resources, there wouldn't be so many ways to poison the earth, and the earth would be habitable and sustainable for millennia. After the apocalypse, I wan…

What a weird gymnastic split this comment is. Yeah, let’s go back to pre-industrial technology. But let’s do it with “government”. You really think that you’re gonna have some kind of cross between a hippy commune and modern centralization of force/taxation? A world were all of us now-middle class folks can just go to work on the permaculture farm 8–6 and relax with our organic root beers afterwards? Welcome back to…

Yeah people will happily vote in feudalism by voting for lower land value taxes and gold as a currency to make sure social mobility is zero.
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