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If our civilization falls, it will be difficult to rebuild. We've exhausted many of the easy to get to minerals. The conditions that let us bootstrap the indust

If our civilization falls, it will be difficult to rebuild. We've exhausted many of the easy to get to minerals. The conditions that let us bootstrap the industrial revolution won't exist again. But more than that, technology improves every day. The only reason we aren't extinct now is because nuclear weapons happen to be very difficult to build. Imagine if the materials required to build them were common, and any idiot could do it with some parts from the hardware store. How long do you think the world would last? Well who is to say the next world destroying technology will be the same? Maybe there's a reason the sky is empty.

njharman 9y ago
Exhausted all the minerals? Pfft, who cares about minerals when refined alloys and other recyclable materials are all over. The parking lots of one USA town has more metal than the (few) survivors of any civilazation collapsing level event could even use. Also, civilization existed before the industrial revolution. In fact that would be a good point to mark the start of the fall. Giving the rate of increase in pollution, overconsumption, climate and environment destruction since and before then.
- jfoutz 9y ago
  Ehh, try welding aluminum. I agree with you, but it ain't no walk in the park. Oil and coal seem like the real keys to industrialization. We took most of the easy stuff.
- deleted 9y ago
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- Houshalter 9y ago
  We've taken concentrated deposits of minerals and scattered them widely. And exposed them to the air where they quickly corrode away into nothing useful. Sure, digging up landfills for a handful of aluminum cans might meet the needs of a small primitive post apocalyptic town. But that's not enough to sustain an industrial revolution. Preindustrial civilizations are nothing to aspire to. By all measurements the quality of life was abysmal and almost not worth living for the majority of the population. I'd rather our species just go extinct than endure that forever.

njharman 9y ago

Exhausted all the minerals? Pfft, who cares about minerals when refined alloys and other recyclable materials are all over. The parking lots of one USA town has more metal than the (few) survivors of any civilazation collapsing level event could even use. Also, civilization existed before the industrial revolution. In fact that would be a good point to mark the start of the fall. Giving the rate of increase in pollution, overconsumption, climate and environment destruction since and before then.

jfoutz 9y ago
Ehh, try welding aluminum. I agree with you, but it ain't no walk in the park. Oil and coal seem like the real keys to industrialization. We took most of the easy stuff.
deleted 9y ago
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Houshalter 9y ago
We've taken concentrated deposits of minerals and scattered them widely. And exposed them to the air where they quickly corrode away into nothing useful. Sure, digging up landfills for a handful of aluminum cans might meet the needs of a small primitive post apocalyptic town. But that's not enough to sustain an industrial revolution. Preindustrial civilizations are nothing to aspire to. By all measurements the quality of life was abysmal and almost not worth living for the majority of the population. I'd rather our species just go extinct than endure that forever.