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You significantly underestimate the last 20 000 years of progress. It's easy, because progress was very slow, but it was still nessesary for the later stages, a

by ajuc 11y ago

You significantly underestimate the last 20 000 years of progress. It's easy, because progress was very slow, but it was still nessesary for the later stages, and there's no reason to think it will take less time the next time around. Domestication and farming alone took tousands of years, if you restarted the culture in year 0 - we wouldn't have to wait 1600 years for industrial revolution, but more like 10 000 years.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
It's true that what we have today was built directly on the last 20 000 years of progress, but there is still a significant difference - those previous 20 000 years will live in the memories of survivors of the next great war, as well as in any books that will last. Domestication, farming, basic health care, etc. are things that can fit in one's mind. In the entire known history, we've never really restarted from scratch. Even from our times, a some of knowledge would probably survive - from the ideas behind industrial revolution or modern medicine that can fit in one's head, to knowledge of physics, chemistry and biology that is stored in books. No matter how hard we try, we won't nuke every single book out of existence. But then again, not that much knowledge will live, given our increased dependence on volatile storage media. Even if a hard drive would survive a century, we won't have anything to read it with. The reason last 300 years were special is because our progress started to depend on enormous and ever increasing amounts of power. We've used up most of the sources that could be mined, and most renewables are not viable without high-precision manufacturing. Solar power is out of the question; we could start rebuilding hydro and wind power capacity but it will be a slow and very painful process, without easy coal and petroleum to help build the infrastructure. We simply may not have enough easy fuel left to restart the technological civilization.

by ajuc 11y ago

TeMPOraL 11y ago

It's true that what we have today was built directly on the last 20 000 years of progress, but there is still a significant difference - those previous 20 000 years will live in the memories of survivors of the next great war, as well as in any books that will last. Domestication, farming, basic health care, etc. are things that can fit in one's mind. In the entire known history, we've never really restarted from scratch. Even from our times, a some of knowledge would probably survive - from the ideas behind industrial revolution or modern medicine that can fit in one's head, to knowledge of physics, chemistry and biology that is stored in books. No matter how hard we try, we won't nuke every single book out of existence. But then again, not that much knowledge will live, given our increased dependence on volatile storage media. Even if a hard drive would survive a century, we won't have anything to read it with. The reason last 300 years were special is because our progress started to depend on enormous and ever increasing amounts of power. We've used up most of the sources that could be mined, and most renewables are not viable without high-precision manufacturing. Solar power is out of the question; we could start rebuilding hydro and wind power capacity but it will be a slow and very painful process, without easy coal and petroleum to help build the infrastructure. We simply may not have enough easy fuel left to restart the technological civilization.