What technology will survive the coming collapse of civilization?
 

When our present civilization hits the skids, how far back are we going to slide? Wolf wants to listen to radio during the shit, can she? What is gonna cause the shit? How many more generations? Any chance humanity will be space-faring by then? What parts of the world are more likely to pick up the pieces more quickly? I want your thoughts on the centralization of energy production/distribution or any weird little ideas that slip through your mind. Me, I'm betting on bison as my hedge against whichever straw breaks the collective back. :3eye: :eyebrow:

The Weber Outdoor Grille.



http://www.adfg.state.ak.us/pubs/not...e/nb-bison.jpg

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http://www.weber.com/photo/751001.jpg

[drool]mmmmmm... smokey goodness[/drool]

The question is moot. You have to tell us what the apocalypse will be driven by.

It's not going to be that kind of collapse. It'll be a slide into tyranny, not a cataclysm. Most _technology_ will survive, though it may become less and less available to those not of the ruling class (and, in fact, in general).

That's one of my questions. In my experience lefties seem to think it'll be ecological, the result of unrestrained capitalism or a failure to subsidize every paranoid scientist. Righties seem to lean toward government failures/ social upheaval. I figure bison are good for whatever disaster comes. :biggrin: I want to know what shadow flits through your mind when someone says collapse.

Strauss/Howe, The Fourth Turning

All that is to say, it's S/H's take that it's not the initial events that make the crisis period, it's humanity's *reaction* to them. 9/11 (a possible "precursor" event) was magnified because of the reaction. The destruction of the buildings was peanuts compared to the national shock. Thousands died yes, but HUNDREDS of thousands were driven out of work and several sectors almost driven out of business. (What's unavailable after the crisis? Air travel as we know it.)

It's just like personal life - each thing that happens to you can be a catalyst to change, but it's your reaction to them which really determines their role in your life. You could lose an arm and see that as the event that caused you to focus and re-evaluate your life, improving it markedly. Or you could see it as the worst thing that ever happened to you, a true tragedy which begins your slow decline.

The national mood and character is driven into a slow breakdown of the previous orders until a crisis period arrives to reset the national priorities... or to break the order completely and set the stage for a new order. Don't you FEEL unraveled right now? Even though you have plenty does it not seem like a small slip could break the insurance system, the medical system, various pieces of government, etc? This was not the national mood in the postwar era when national unity informed us that we could do *anything* we set our heads to, including putting a man on the moon.

Just ASKING the question about the coming collapse of civilization tells you where we are. Uncertain, worried, tired from stress. Old systems seeming broken and not replaced correctly. Government not protecting anybody although it claims to do so. The question you ask, Sir Griff, is not what great things we will accomplish in the next decade, but what things will wind up inevitably collapsing to the point where they don't exist any longer. This informs us that S/H are correct and that the crisis looms over us.

If it's a serious collapse, like in the dark ages after the Roman Empire, I think civilization will never recover to the point we are at now.

The industrial revolution started by using all the resources that were easy to mine. We now rely on advanced technology to mine the materials we use today. The future "cavemen" won't have that technology. They won't stumble on oil while digging a well in Pennsylvania. They won't discover iron ore in the hillsides. All they will find are these old rusted bits of metal lying around in the crumbling cities. That will last for several generations, but that's it. Then the raw materials will be gone. They won't even have whales for lamp oil, because they were over-hunted.

I feel sorry for the future genius cavemen that are trying to rebuild civilization. They will have to do it without the raw materials we had. It will be impossible.

you know, after reading this, i feel like taking the rest of the day off work and restarting Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. or possibly some of Eric Von Lustbader's novels.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that the wheel will still be a viable technology after the apocalypse. Oh...and the lever/fulcrum.

does gunpowder and a semi-automatic delivery method count as technology? if so, count me in.

That's the one I have going for me.

I have considered getting a flintlock, on the logic that the simpler the technology the better ... I have a cap and ball pistol, but as soon as you're out of caps, you're screwed.

Ah well. That's why I have the bow and arrow.

i figure that the collapse we are talking about here won't cause existing machines to quit working as long as we have fuel to run them and parts to repair them. so as far as guns go, i'll keep my favorites, and all though i don't care for the 9mm i'll add one of those to the list because of the easy access to ammunition. hell, you can find 9mm on any gradeschool playground.

We have landfills full of resources.


I like the thinking behind S/H but don't let one Grifftopian nutjob be your compass to the apocolypse. I just like to ask questions.


*I picked up the Economist, all praise be to tw, at Wegmans today. Cover story The End of the World.

No , no, no. No cavemen...men living in caves, maybe....but no cavemen. When the shit hits the fan are you going to forget everything you know? Are you going to suddenly forget how to build things? How to make a gun? How to build an engine that will run on charcoal? How to build an animal trap? How to fix your car?
Oh, you don't know those things! You only now how to figure out video games and work an atm machine. Gee, there's a lot of people in Mexico and China that know how to build things, just ask Walmart. I guess you're fucked. :eyebrow:

Books, tools (hand held and non-computerized power tools), cars, locomotives, etc.

The internet was designed to find a way to deliver messages in the event of a nuclear war so it stands to reason any computers who haven't had their chips fried would be able to connect to the internet assuming they could find a working ISP. We'd have to take a step backwards, or sideways in technology until the infrastructure could be rebuilt.

You should read about John Titor, he explains technology in the future after more than 3 billion people are destroyed by WW3.

http://www.johntitor.com

X that provided the single biggest laugh of the holiday season. thank you. g :thumb:

You couldn't predict WWII in 1920 because one major factor hadn't really appeared on the scene yet -- Adolf Hitler.

I think the Civil War and the _attempt_ at an American Revolution could have been predicted. The presence of troops to crush such a revolt is pretty good evidence that it WAS predicted. The idea that it would succeed is another matter.

wolf: I don't think fulminate of mercury (and thus percussion caps and primers) are out of reach for a backyard chemist. Even smokeles powder isn't (nitric and sulfuric acids were known to the ancients, I believe -- certainly in medieval times. And the sulfuric isn't strictly necessary), though of course black powder is easier and safer to make.

The Improvised Munitions Manual and the books by people like Kurt Saxon all show how easy it can be to manufacture a lot of the basic necessities.

ah, John Titor pops up inthe cellar again. i think the fact that the Titor phenomenon is still talked about is pretty cool, whether or not it is true.

you had to mention Jon Titor.. didn't you.. damnit, I had to go and hunt down all that info again and re-read it.. *sigh* poor impulsive brain..

as to what technologies will survive.. that entirely depends on the scope and speed of the collapse.. as well as the cause. there are too many variables iinvolved and I don't really want to spend the time writing a novella in each case..

It depends...
 

There is a delightful novel by Larry Niven called Ringworld. The idea behind the book is a band of people search a ring where the internal side is built like a planet (Think the ring in the game Halo, but 1 million miles in diameter). When they begin to search the ring it takes a while before they meet the inhabitants, but eventually they come across some.

Basically what had happened is the civilisation that had been created on the ring fell when they ran out of power to control the hovering buildings and all the cities were turned to rubble as they fell, and the people resorted to barbarians living in the ruins.
The ring itself was made of metal with about 40 feet of land above it (If the numbers are wrong forgive me the point is still the same). This stopped the people from bringing civilisation back because there were no elements for them to harvest, and technology could not evolve like it had on Earth initially.
However, they did come across some floating buildings, i.e. those that had their own power, and some buildings with defence mechanisms still functioning.

The point I am trying to make is, technology will only survive as long as there is energy to power it, and when we run out of power, technology will have to evolve again.

I know this is based on a fictional book, and we have the fortune of still having things that didn't rely on power to fall back on, but you can see where I'm coming from.

And as for your question about the radio, she an only listen to it if there is still someone broadcasting something, regardless of if the radio itself is working. Chances are you'd just get some government warning over and over again.
Or Abba repeats.

Whatever happens, cockroaches will survive.

http://scienceblogs.com/clock/upload.../cockroach.jpg

I had to look up Titor. Interesting but not really practical.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Titor

I'm gonna prefect my fermentation and distilling skills.

Liquor's not going out of style, and it is fungible. I can drink it, I can trade it, I can use it as a disinfectant or as firestarter.

Neon.

I'm not aware of any other sort of electric lamp that a reasonable number of living people know how to manufacture on a small, local scale with simple technology: all you really need are glass tubes, relatively pure neon/argon/mercury, heat (forced air natural gas torches), and a good vacuum pump. It happens to be energy efficient, also.

The components themselves (glass tubes, transformers) strike me as fairly impervious to EMF, too, if you're worried about some sort of nuclear devastation/sunspots knocking things out -- I think you'd have a better chance of scrapping and salvaging neon than a fluorescent system, anyway.

bicycles

http://bamboobikestudio.com/products...oo-bike-frame/


This should keep BigV busy.

I am always skeptical of doomsday scenarios. Bad times are the way of history. People will just roll with the punches.

However, when I think about the future, I think about Solar powered cars, cleaner oceans, renuable energy, affordable techonogy for all, no paper books, no paper money, artificial habitats for species once on the brink of extenction, but when I think about people, I do draw a blank.:unsure:

Wood powered.

Collapse of civilization? How?

Since we are around 7 billions human beings on earth, it won't be easy to take it down save for an event that will drastically reduce the population.

Yet, once this event has occured, life will be harsh. Never forget that we're not so far from the barbarians that once defeated Rome.

As for our technology, a lot of it requires tremendous quantities of energy, either electrical or chemical (mostly petroleum).

For example, take a car.

It require chemical energy to run (gasoline, diesel or possibly wood). How many people know how to create those? Yeah, wood grows alone, but you still have to cut it down. By what means? And do you know how to make the apparatus that will convert it into a gas usable by the car?

It also need tyres to run smoothly, grease to lube the engine. Speaking of that last item : how is it made? Steel, aluminium, etc... All things that require energy and technology to produce.

Of course, just after the collapse and the reduction of population, a lot of those things will be just lying around. How long before they decay?

Technology, as I once saw it defined, is based on a tool to make a tool to make a tool to make a tool to make a tool to make a tool... ...to achieve the desired effect.

Another problem is that the first needs to satisfy in such a situation are food, shelter and security whith very little consideration for everything else. You can look it up in the 'Pyramid of Maslow'. It is true of almost all human beings.
Education comes a long way after that. And you need to have education to create technology.

And as we are quite prompt to revert to barbarians, at first, it will be kill or be killed...

The killin' box will survive.

Legacy of mankind will be many herbicide resistant weeds.

It won't do the weeds much good if mankind is no longer around to manufacture the herbicides though...

TW,

The legacy of mankind, ironically, will be Monsanto and its GM crops.

Ironic in that the basis for the company's existence will outlive civilization itself, and possibly mankind, and continue to evolve, unlike Monsanto.

Legacy? I don't think so.

More like humanity downfall. In order to stay in business, they sell seeds that are infertile.

Yes, your crop will grow and you will be able to get a harvest.

No, you won't be able to use the harvested seeds to grow another crop the next year.

Since glyphosate in Round-Up, is weakening the plants immune system (think plant AIDS) we'll have trouble growing enough food.

But that's kind of moot, since this "Collapse of civilization" would most likely disrupt supplies to the grocery store, which would be empty in a day or two.
Without any food, next years crop is just a philosophical discussion.


And those deer that come down to drink in my back yard, are in deep shit. :yesnod:

I agree. To obtain food at the store, the barbarian will come into play...

And, yes, vegans are toast :3eye:

Maybe. The vegans I know already grow a lot of their own food. They'd at least have something.

On the other hand, the McDonald's patrons who don't understand that food doesn't naturally grow in packages also will have ample body fat stores to help them last through the winter. So they've got that going for them.

Grindstone technology will survive.

I'll still have my sonic hammer ... take that Doctor Who!

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The GM crops will immediately disappear. GM crops do not replicate themselves. But herbicide resistant plants are arising about one a year. Already ragweed and pigweed are herbicide resistant due to too many using only Roundup rather than rotating their weed control solutions.

So when a new amphibian species rises from the oceans to become the dominant predator, they must culture ragweed as a food source. And will not worry about Gluton free products.

Not so, sir.

That they absolutely *do* replicate is precisely the source of conflict between the factory farmers who use such technologies and the organic farmers downwind whose livelihood is in jeopardy from contamination by the "non-virginal" replicators of the same species.

he may be thinking about the terminator gene

He may well be. And Monsanto does offer crops that have been altered in ways that have the effect, among others, of being sterile. But the blanket statement GM crops do not replicate themselves is not true.

"These crops ain't gonna replicate themselves, boy. Now get to work!"

When Monsanto is gone, can mankind live on ragweed alone? Maybe we are doomed.

Or the General Motors crops.