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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

#51

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

The Soviet Union tried to create antibiotic resistant bacteria as part of its bioweapons program. They were able to increase antibiotic resistance but not make anything totally resistant, so I expect antibiotics to still work 20 years from now.

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

#52

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…

Technology on its own can't cause the apocalypse. It needs mismanagement or misuse by humans.

Looking at the world today you see societies crumble while others thrive. This, despite having access to the same or similar technology. The difference being in how they organize themselves and their vision of themselves.

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

#53
post #29

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…

FWIW, 17th Century Europe didn't have access to the technology and knowledge that we have today, that do not require any fancy devices or technology to improve our efficiency of resource usage in the hypothetical scenario discussed in this thread.

At the time, there were many incentives to deforestation, but the main ones were to procure wood as fuel, and to clear arable land for agriculture and animal husbandry. I can at least speak to these two.

It was true in the past, that wood was an unsustainable source of heat. However, with modern wood-burning stoves, even in the nordic latitudes, this is no longer true.

Sweden and Norway have done a lot of innovation in this department in the last 80 years, because it's a matter of national security for them. They've found that it's actually more sustainable, affordable, and environmentally-friendly, to use wood as the main heating source for homes, rather than oil or coal. Again, this is only true if you're using wood stoves whose construction is informed by modern (post-WWII) knowledge. But the stoves are cast-iron, their manufacture doesn't require nanotechnology, pure silicon, etc.

On the agricultural front, it's difficult to overstate how far we've come in the last 400 years. Our caloric yield per acre on the same acreage of arable land would be much higher, today, even if you were to take away the products of modern industry (fertilizers, etc) that would presumably be inaccessible in an apocalypse.

Especially given access to new world domesticated produce, like potatoes, maize, various nuts, squashes, legumes, yams, tomato, maple, rubber.

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

#54

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 The Soviet Union tried to create antibiotic resistant bacteria as part of its bioweapons program. They were able to increase antibiotic resistance but not make anything totally resistant, so I expect antibiotics to still work 20 years from now.

Widespread resistance to particular antibiotics is also the product of an advanced industrial society where new variants of pathogens spread easily amongst billions of internationally-travelling city dwellers and widespread prophylactic use of the antibiotic creates strong selection pressures.

Its a bit different after an apocalypse. In theory, an isolated post-apocalyptic community could roll a 1 and get bacteria that is resistant to locally available natural and stockpiled antibiotics in their community, but that's quite low down their list of concerns.

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

#55
post #5

This was taken seriously in 1950s US Civil Defense. Since Europe had already been through that process recently, there was a lot of knowledge available. There's a classic set of books, "Build Your Own Metal Working Shop From Scrap", on this. The kid's version: "A Boy and a Battery" (1942).[1] There's also "A Boy and a Motor", on how to build your own electric train set from old metal cans, some wire, a hammer and tin…

See also The Mysterious Island (1875) by Jules Verne.

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

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

e.g. Building a hut, with cross-bracing so the square-lashed frame doesn't collapse in a light breeze. Or hanging the ridgeline of a shed roof from a post so it doesn't push the walls out of line. Or building a truss for a bridge over a creek, instead of a huge arch of stone. Lots of places statics comes in handy. And we take it for granted, that we know this stuff!

Oh, that static analysis. I, um, was thinking of something else with the same name. Yes, knowing how to build things that don't fall down is pretty fundamental.

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

#57

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.

You wouldn't be starting from scratch as a lot of stuff already made would be left lying around, and the knowledge for fixing it and making it work would largely still exist in some form.

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

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

e.g. Building a hut, with cross-bracing so the square-lashed frame doesn't collapse in a light breeze. Or hanging the ridgeline of a shed roof from a post so it doesn't push the walls out of line. Or building a truss for a bridge over a creek, instead of a huge arch of stone. Lots of places statics comes in handy. And we take it for granted, that we know this stuff!

Oh, that static analysis. I, um, was thinking of something else with the same name. Yes, knowing how to build things that don't fall down is pretty fundamental.

You gotta have `lint` in a post-apocalyptic world though.

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

#60
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. :)

That's the beauty of actual pull requests: that fat red X immediately saying a test case number 172 out of 42345 didn't pass, i.e. you're talking gibberish mister.

The beauty of publishing is that paper is patient and it may take literally centuries until someone draws a fat red X on point 172, that the Bessemer (or whatever) idea was always absolute and utter gibberish!

This is true both for the book, for the review you cite, for the comment you wrote, and for this comment of mine. It's nice to pretend you have a compiler-for-the-reality in your head that keeps predicting right every time, where in contrast with a true compiler you are wrong almost every single time.

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