7 ms·
You ask about science after civilization has broken down, but then also mention after democracy and peace are gone. If you're thinking of a lawless Mad Max sty
by deftnerd 10y ago
You ask about science after civilization has broken down, but then also mention after democracy and peace are gone.
If you're thinking of a lawless Mad Max style apocalypse, most likely sciences will be regulated to discovering things that were already known but then lost to humanity. You could see it like the unrest after the Roman Empire fell (the Dark Ages) where lots of knowledge was lost and had to be learned again from scratch.
It is entirely possible that things will still be recognizable as a civilization even if democratic institutions are gone and even if a nation is at war.
There are pursuits of sciences under a monarchy and even authoritarian dictatorships. During time of conflict, science might focus on military technologies (which often have later civilian applications) or on technology to help pacify the population (agriculture, comfort goods, surveillance technologies).
- Pica_soO 10y agoYou could prevent loss of science- by uploading a wikipedia to any device or persistent depos. Or you could encode knowledge in a flue-bacteria.
- cauterized 10y agoWikipedia barely scratches the surface of the scientific knowledge that would be lost in a breakdown of civilization. It also requires a certain level of technology to be able to read a digital version, or a large warehouse to store a print one.