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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

#81

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #75
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Can anyone really foresee a collapse of civilization which somehow renders all our technology useless and unrepairable, but somehow leaves access to computers and printers available? I mean it's great to imagine if you want to be a pretend-prepper but the reality is that there will be millions of tons of food in the ground, tens of thousands of pounds of seeds available, oil, gasoline, kerosene, millions of cubi…

>Can anyone really foresee a collapse of civilization which somehow renders all our technology useless and unrepairable, but somehow leaves access to computers and printers available? No but I can foresee a number of different collapses of civilization which render almost all computers useless within a relatively short amount of predictable time and the ability to connect those computers before they become inoperable…

OK, maybe I misunderstood the post, but I still stand by my last statement. We don't need to recreate the Industrial Revolution, we just need to be able to repair and use the stuff that's already built.

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

#84

Post by hutzlibu »

colechristensen wrote: post #41
jwithington wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what I'm saying haha. I'm not looking to "prep" and the prepper manuals go overboard for what >99% of people are looking for. I'm looking for the practical things. An emergency action guide of some sort...

Go to a Costco business center and buy a bag of rice, a bag of beans, and some bottled water. Buy some camping gear and cook dinner once in a while over a fire in your back yard or a camp ground. Keep a go bag packed that you could pick up and live out of for a week at a moments notice. Take interest in the things around you and learn how to do things yourself instead of paying other people to do them, even if you do…

Waterfilters and salt are somewhat useful and easy to store as well.

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

#85

Post by ForHackernews »

If you're interested in this topic, you might also be interested to learn about http://collapseos.org/: "It is a Forth operating system and a collection of tools and documentation with a single purpose: preserve the ability to program microcontrollers through civilizational collapse."

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

#86

Post by _jal »

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…

Machinery's Handbook is similar, but sort of a step back on the production chain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machinery%27s_Handbook

Edit:

And a step further back would be Foundations of Mechanical Accuracy, by Moore. That book is a marvel of applied reason.

https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/foundations-mechanical-accura...

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

#87

Post by all2 »

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…

The problem isn't technology. The problem is immoral people. Immoral people make immoral and greedy governments. Immoral and greedy governments wield power to acquire more and survive as a parasitic organism. All governments move towards totalitarianism. No nation-state in the world has ever escaped this eventuality.

Limiting technology won't limit the harm even one evil person can do. Take a look at Gengis Khan, for example.

What limits immoral people is the moral people around them.

The reason Western culture has fared so well over the last 500 years is because it was largely Christian in nature. There are fundamental values embedded in the Bible that have echoed into what we consider to be "human rights" today. These ideas are uniquely Christian in nature, and rely on a Christian morality in order to function.

"Do to others as you would have them do to you", "love your neighbor as yourself", "you need to work in order to eat", the ten commandments (which are pretty common sense if you're looking for a stable society), a true/faithful set of weights and measures -- including a sound currency, lending for interest gained is illegal, and so on.

All of these require a basis of people who are willing to adhere to them. The Western world lacks people who are willing to adhere to them. In fact, we've been taught to hate the West and its contributions to the world. We hate white people, we hate Christianity, we hate absolute truth, we hate moral law, we hate being accountable to the Almighty, and we scoff at anyone who loves those things.

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

#88

Post by datavirtue »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #20
jwithington wrote: post #2

I'm always impressed by 80k hours to surface answers to the most existential problems! They had another good one about spinning up the global food supply post-apocalypse. Dartnell seems to be thinking longer term than immediate (first 2 weeks). Are there any guides for the first two weeks? I wonder if the US military's SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) guides are the most comprehensive resources? While int…

After the first two weeks, there's the first year then the first five years and so on. E.g. Living through the first winter will require a huge effort in stockpiling, which gets better the second year. Scavenging for the first 5 years turns to agriculture and animal husbandry and smelting.

Reality: You do what the local strongman tells you to do.

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

#89

Post by Archelaos »

Ishmaeli wrote: post #70
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.

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.

> Also, it seems like just knowing some of the dead ends would be a huge step up.

This makes me think, how Knowledge in a post-apocalyptic society would really work. Some fundamental and comparatively easy technologies might not need to be rediscovered (directly jump to iron and omit bronze). But more advanced Knowledge needs a lot of special training, dedicated institutions, etc. And even if they had access to tales from the Ancients, they would still have to distinguish between valid and invalid information. Otherwise, we could end up with a culture of Flat Earthers.

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

#90

Post by all2 »

DylanDmitri wrote: post #23

Key element is probably less technology, and more social/political/religious unity. You need a stable and egalitarian social fabric to make consistent progress. Core beliefs: rebooting civilization is hard but will make everything better (promised land), here's the scientific method and why it works, here's how to setup and maintain a democratic nation state, here's how to incentivize and reward inventors. Here's fas…

Why is this getting downvoted? A stable society is an absolute must, and that means a group of people who have a common moral foundation. Else, how do we work together?
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