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Collapse OS – bootstrap post-collapse technology

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Re: Collapse OS – bootstrap post-collapse technology

#81

Post by flohofwoe »

vermilingua wrote: post #76
pjc50 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> energy isn't so much a technological concern as it might be a political concern This is what irks me about these kinds of "collapse fantasy". Somebody described the apocalypse novels of John Wyndham (Day of the Triffids etc) as "cosy catastrophe", and that very much applies here. The laser focus on technological detail-hoarding while having blinders on to any consideration of the politics of the situation, or what…

That’s the western HRE. The ERE only survived until the 1400’s.

Nitpicking: If the Holy Roman Empire is seen as a continuation of the Western Roman Empire, then the Russian Empire can be seen as the continuation of the Eastern Roman Empire (e.g. see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow,_third_Rome), and this lasted until 1917. Both claims are dubious at best though (IMHO).

Re: Collapse OS – bootstrap post-collapse technology

#82

Post by throwaway316943 »

Anarch157a wrote: post #8
stolenmerch wrote: post #5

Genuine question: if we're in a collapse scenario that is so devastating to the global supply chain that we're scavenging microcontrollers, how do we generate electricity to power them? Solar panels and batteries don't last forever and would presumably require the same or similar supply chain as the microcontrollers. This is a cool project regardless, but in such a catastrophic scenario it seems easier to just give u…

You can scavenge car's alternators and use a water wheel or windmill to turn it. Alternators can work for a decade with minimum maintenance. Just have five or six stashed, just in case. They can supply 40A at 12V, or using a transformer to up the voltage, 4A at 120V.

Have you successfully run any modern hardware off of the irregular current coming out of something like that? You could charge batteries off of an alternator with a voltage regulator but I doubt any modern electronics are going to work well on current supplied by a jerry rigged water wheel and step up transformer. You’d be reliant on a lot of ICs to do it properly at a small scale.

Re: Collapse OS – bootstrap post-collapse technology

#83

Post by Guthur »

pjc50 wrote: post #79
Guthur wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crossbows require a permit as well :) Can't have the population undermining that monoploy on force ;) But I get your point. Like I said I hadn't given it much thought, though if one could get a sustainably large commune group with reasonable access to weaponry it would hopefully be a deterrent for most small groups. I'm in Australia which rather large. Clean water is the likely the most valuable commodity. It would b…

The "sustainable" "collapse" (again, what does this mean? end of imports including oil? large scale political turmoil with no clear winner?) level of Australian population would probably be larger than Aboriginal pre-invasion times (estimated 700k?) but not much more than that if you lose access to mechanically pumped water. It's not a very habitable place but the introduction of European crops and animals has irrevo…

The last 12 months have been quite pleasant :) Plenty of rain and we only just had our first real heat wave, which was unpleasant but nothing insane.

The centre of Australia is positively hot, always has been.

When i was refering to sustainable i meant the size of the "survivor commune", you can only realistically control a small area for sustenance with out significant order and coordination, think more tribe than state. There are millions of kangaroos i suppose :)

Re: Collapse OS – bootstrap post-collapse technology

#84

Post by mastazi »

Meph504 wrote: post #72
Guthur wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the brief thinking I've ever done about the collapse in these scenarios is to potentially band together with some like minded friends and try to setup some subsistence group with hunting, light farming and security. Firearms are highly regulated where I am from which makes the first and last a little more difficult than they potentially could be. I really never gave it that much thought to be perfectly frank. T…

Firearms are highly regulated where I am from which makes the first and last a little more difficult than they potentially could be. In a collapse they won't be, and those willing to seize them, will be at a great advantage, police dept. military bases, even countries whose population don't have access to an abundance of guns doesn't mean there isn't an abundance in the country. In almost any scenario where governmen…

> Hell is other people, best bet since the time of the plague, you want to survive go where others aren't.

I have played for a while on a Minecraft "anarchy server"[1]. You could consider it a very, very rough approximation of how anarchy would play out in real life. Your statement (if you are in a fixed location, people will find a way) closely mirrors my experience.

Even though, in the Minecraft natural environment, there are things that are dangerous (e.g. wild animals, "monsters", ravines, etc.), nothing comes close to the danger of meeting another player, possibly armed.

If you are a new player, the most challenging part is escaping spawn (the area where new players start from, which is also the only crowded area in the game). This is pretty hard because spawn is a wasteland with no natural resources left (in Minecraft you have a hunger meter so if you can't find food you will eventually die), and in addition spawn is populated by armed players who kill new players as a pastime.

Once you get to about 20 kilometres from spawn (20k blocks in Minecraft) you start finding food (trees from which you can get fruit, wood for building fishing poles, seeds that you can plant to start a small farm). However, you can't stay in the same place for long, because in a few weeks at most, some other player will find your base and steal your stuff and/or destroy the base.

Once you get to about a hundred kilometres from spawn (100k blocks in Minecraft), you can build a temporary base and hope that it will last a few months (mine lasted about 3 months).

Currently I have a base that is over one million blocks from spawn (i.e. more than 1000 kms) and I expect this may last for a longer period, maybe even years, so I'm building larger structures.

Obviously this is just a Minecraft server and doesn't accurately reflect real life.

Some elements are realistic, for example travelling speed[2], or the way natural resources are either renewable (plants, animals) or non renewable (minerals).

Some other elements are not that realistic, for example the number of players on the server is way smaller than the population of a typical city. This means that the "safe distance" from spawn might not reflect the safe distance from a major city in real life.

Also, spawn is the only area with a high population. There are some larger bases across the map, but even the largest ones have a population of a few dozens players at most.

Another element that is not realistic is obviously construction. In real life, building a home or a farm means a lot of hard work, whereas in Minecraft you can do it in a few hours.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2b2t

[2] walking speed is about 5 km/h, travelling through a "nether highway" you can go at about 45km/h so this could be compared to motorised transport in real life

Re: Collapse OS – bootstrap post-collapse technology

#85

Post by throwaway316943 »

Guthur wrote: post #67
pjc50 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> energy isn't so much a technological concern as it might be a political concern This is what irks me about these kinds of "collapse fantasy". Somebody described the apocalypse novels of John Wyndham (Day of the Triffids etc) as "cosy catastrophe", and that very much applies here. The laser focus on technological detail-hoarding while having blinders on to any consideration of the politics of the situation, or what…

Yeah, the brief thinking I've ever done about the collapse in these scenarios is to potentially band together with some like minded friends and try to setup some subsistence group with hunting, light farming and security. Firearms are highly regulated where I am from which makes the first and last a little more difficult than they potentially could be. I really never gave it that much thought to be perfectly frank. T…

Light farming and hunting won’t work unless something like >50% of the population dies off quickly. Even then you’d still need to have everyone spread out pretty evenly across the countryside, be able to learn how to plant and do it on time. You’d be going back to subsistence farming which is extremely hard work. Fertilizer and fuel for tractors would not be replenished. You’d have to learn how to save seeds, irrigate without power and pumps, eventually how to plow with draft animals. If you aren’t already doing this now chances are you wouldn’t make it. That’s the problem I have with collapse fantasies, you’re either all in now or you’re dead. The safer bet is on working to prevent a collapse since that’s something you can do now that probably has immediate payoff unlike going all in on prepping.

Re: Collapse OS – bootstrap post-collapse technology

#88

Post by notjustanymike »

kreeben wrote: post #70

I imagine that if an apocalypse occurs during our era, the internet era, our first main technological endeavor would be to build an internet out of scraps of hardware we would find sprinkled almost homogeneously all over earth (phones, old C64's etc) so that we could once again start organizing ourselves and reach out to our fellow human beings and in this reoccurring daydream of mine I always end up thinking long an…

The most likely networked computers to survive will be banking computers, so time to brush up on your... ...Fortran? Oh dear. Nevermind, I'll just be a raider.

Re: Collapse OS – bootstrap post-collapse technology

#89

Post by Meph504 »

Guthur wrote: post #75
Meph504 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firearms are highly regulated where I am from which makes the first and last a little more difficult than they potentially could be. In a collapse they won't be, and those willing to seize them, will be at a great advantage, police dept. military bases, even countries whose population don't have access to an abundance of guns doesn't mean there isn't an abundance in the country. In almost any scenario where governmen…

Crossbows require a permit as well :) Can't have the population undermining that monoploy on force ;) But I get your point. Like I said I hadn't given it much thought, though if one could get a sustainably large commune group with reasonable access to weaponry it would hopefully be a deterrent for most small groups. I'm in Australia which rather large. Clean water is the likely the most valuable commodity. It would b…

If you have a collapse, I don't think permits on weapons are going to be a large concern. And after the collapse, they are one of the more simple to craft, and easy to operate weapons.

MadMax should be your go to guide right? (just kidding)

Large targets, can be whittled away over time, you basically become under siege, your attackers can leave anytime in small groups to gather supplies, you would be stuck at your parameter.

Think castles, after a while, they all fall through starvation, contamination, sabotage, etc..

Re: Collapse OS – bootstrap post-collapse technology

#90

Post by Wowfunhappy »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #47
6510 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything is very tightly connected now. Products and food are produced very far away and does an impressive bit of traveling during assembly. It's a supper efficient approach but not very robust. It is hard to get an idea of the knowledge hidden/locked in proprietary property but one can expect it to be truly advanced. It would take decades to replicate for other companies.

One of the things that has surprised me about the pandemic is how well these systems have held up. There are shortages of some goods, PPE in particular but on the whole our systems have continued working. We haven't been raiding our neighbours for food, if anything it's been the opposite.

In the grand scheme of history, the pandemic just isn't that bad. You can imagine a scenario—a much deadlier disease, or a war—in which we lost 5% of the world's population.
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