Getting humanity to bounce back faster in a post-apocalyptic world • Hacker News Board

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

#31

Post by ethbr0 » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 8:27 PM UTC

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…

Sounds like an opportunity for a 2nd edition!

If Amazon commenters filed pull requests rather than potshots, the world would be a better place. :)

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

#32

Post by ethbr0 » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 8:31 PM UTC

CJefferson wrote: post #12

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…

Yes, materials will be important. We probably can't "do the same again", so much of the Industrial Revolution (from my reading at least) was started with the huge amounts of wood, then easily accessible coal, then "spending" coal to get access to deeper coal. If you started from scratch, there isn't really any easily accessible coal left.

One thing not to discount is that if we needed to rebuild civilization suddenly... a lot of us are going to be dead.

And consequently, those surviving and rebuilding are going to have the residue of a civilization that supported many more people to work with.

Cast iron might be relatively rare, but would it be relatively rare for 1/1000th as many of us?

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

#33

Post by ethbr0 » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 8:33 PM UTC

hguant wrote: post #22

CJefferson wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, materials will be important. We probably can't "do the same again", so much of the Industrial Revolution (from my reading at least) was started with the huge amounts of wood, then easily accessible coal, then "spending" coal to get access to deeper coal. If you started from scratch, there isn't really any easily accessible coal left.

>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…

They do open-cut mining in Wyoming, from what I saw.

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

#34

Post by throwaway892238 » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 8:35 PM UTC

akersten wrote: post #28

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…

> Assuming antibiotics still work in 20 years and we retain some basic surgical skills And what happens when the antibiotics and sterile surgical implements run out, due to the incredible industrial machinery needed to produce them having disappeared? "1600's Welsh countryside but with modern medicine" doesn't quite play out without the corresponding modern supply chain, at least for long.

You don't need industrial machinery to produce penicillin. You can sterilize equipment a variety of ways, such as with horseshoe crab blood, fire, alcohol. Now, would it work well for 7 billion people? Hell no. I'm hoping the apocalypse knocks out a significant chunk of the population, and that at that point we can focus on sustainable, simple living, rather than industrialization.

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

#35

Post by NoImmatureAdHom » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 8:35 PM UTC

nescioquid wrote: post #21

alasdair_ wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are there any guides for the first two weeks? There are thousands of prepper guides around, depending on how much work you want to do. I'd say a good start would be to think about the pandemic and think about what stuff became hard to get and make sure you have more of that available. Medications are a big one - try to have enough spare to last a couple of months. Having actual cash is important too, as is having c…

> Medications are a big one - try to have enough spare to last a couple of months. I've always wondered about how to carry out this advice for medicines other than what's available OTC. If someone depends on prescription medication, is this possible? How do you ask?

I can think of three ways:

1) "Hi doc, I'm thinking about ways to better hedge tail risk as I get a little older. In the case of this particular med, obviously it'd be really bad to be without it for [2 weeks, whatever]. People were without meds for that long in [Katrina, other example disaster]. So, I'd like to have a supply on hand. Can you prescribe me [a month] extra?

2) Lie. "Hi doc, I'm going to [really far-flung place, Alaska] on a [long, 3-month] expedition. I need to have my meds. What should we do?

3) Skip the bullshit and, assuming they're not controlled substances, just order directly from an Indian / Canadian pharmacy online.

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

#36

Post by AnimalMuppet » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 8:39 PM UTC

hguant wrote: post #22

CJefferson wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, materials will be important. We probably can't "do the same again", so much of the Industrial Revolution (from my reading at least) was started with the huge amounts of wood, then easily accessible coal, then "spending" coal to get access to deeper coal. If you started from scratch, there isn't really any easily accessible coal left.

>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.

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

#37

Post by Barrin92 » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 8:40 PM UTC

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 apocalypse in the first place.

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

#38

Post by throwaway892238 » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 8:40 PM UTC

ars wrote: post #29

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…

> can dig wells, practice permaculture, organize a farm, keep sheep, spin yarn, blacksmith, prep lumber, fire pottery and glass, hunt, fish, manage woodlands I'm very confused by why you think this is sustainable - this type of life uses FAR FAR FAR more resources than modern living. It only works with a low population. England for example basically cut down every tree it has in order to sustain this type of (old) li…

I mentioned woodland management, which would have prevented deforestation. There's actually many practices we can implement to make more use of the land than we've done in the past. Just picking different crops would enable us to feed the entire existing planet with a fraction of the land area we use today. And we certainly know a lot more about sustainable climate regulation than we did in the past, requiring fewer fuels and enabling more sustainable ones.

Producing more technology to keep swelling the population obviously isn't working either (hello, climate change). Human civilization needs downsizing, or at least more rational and sustainable resource use/management.

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

#39

Post by AnimalMuppet » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 8:41 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #17

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.

I find it a bit weird to have static analysis on that list. Other than that, I agree.

Why static analysis?

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

#40

Post by rm_-rf_slash » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 8:43 PM UTC

ars wrote: post #29

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…

> can dig wells, practice permaculture, organize a farm, keep sheep, spin yarn, blacksmith, prep lumber, fire pottery and glass, hunt, fish, manage woodlands I'm very confused by why you think this is sustainable - this type of life uses FAR FAR FAR more resources than modern living. It only works with a low population. England for example basically cut down every tree it has in order to sustain this type of (old) li…

I think parent meant that absent the high tech and energy dense supply chains that underly modern society, people would have to do a lot of things to sustain a society that for us these days can be solved by going to Walmart.