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The truth is that we don’t know what the long term impacts of a total exchange would be. Theories range from extreme nuclear winter events, to just the fall of

The truth is that we don’t know what the long term impacts of a total exchange would be. Theories range from extreme nuclear winter events, to just the fall of civilization. I sure won’t pretend to know where on that scale the reality is, and hope never to find out. Here is some food for thought though, about the potential for our civilization to fall; it will not rise again. We’ve accessed far too much petrochemical wealth and burned it, and the same is true of coal, and metal resources. We get around that by using our existing industry and technology to go deeper, refine more, and in general access resources which require advanced technology to exploit. There is nothing left which can be accessed by primatives, and so no way to claw back from such a reduced state. It will be many millions of years before those resources are reconstituted, far more years than the history of our species so far by orders of magnitude. This is our chance, and if we burn it away in nuclear fire, we are done. It probably won’t happen overnight, but the fall of our civilization is the fall of humanity. Let’s try to avoid that. The same goes for any cause of systematic civilization-wide collapse, we would be done. The reason we clawed back in the past is that we has only scratched the surface before, but we’ve fully plundered global resources now. It’s onward and upward, or lights out.

Retric 9y ago
Coal is still easy to access in many areas even with just hand tools and can be converted to liquid fuel or used directly for ships / trains. Hydropower and wind power are both easy to access and can scale up to cover modern needs even without coal. Metal resources are a complex issue. They are arguably much easier to access now as people can just mine old city's.
- portofcall 9y ago
  Coal in the quantities needed to rebuild a shattered civilization are not easily accessed unless you’re thinking of existing mines (which without maintenance would be inaccessible before we were done desperately trying to stay alive as a species). Hydropower and wind power both require advanced industry to work at any useful scale beyond the individual, and there would be no industry. Mind you, I’m ignoring the loss of knowledge, and just how people would remember to do these things, and I’m assuming a “best case” nuclear apocalypse. I’d prefer that our fate as a species not rely on begging the question of industry and technology.
  - Retric 9y ago
    There is still crazy amounts of coal around WV very near the surface for example. Easily enough to bootstrap an industrial revolution multiple times. It's not a question of mining you can pick coal up from open top mines on the surface with your hands. You even see coal seams where they simply cut down to build roads a little. We don't use it because the high sulfur content requires more expensive scrubbers to meet modern air quality standards. And due to the drop in solar / wind energy plus concerns about climate change it's likely to be available long term. PS: US coal supply is estimated around 350 years at current production levels. Though that's also a low estimate based on proven reserves. Further, if you consider the Oxigen in the atmosphere needed to be separated from Carbon in the first place you should realize there is quite a bit of fossil fuels sitting around.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
allthenews 9y ago
>Here is some food for thought though, about the potential for our civilization to fall; it will not rise again. We’ve accessed far too much petrochemical wealth and burned it, and the same is true of coal, and metal resources...exploit This is nonsense, for a number of reasons. First, you ignore that smaller, shallow deposits of petroleum still exist all over the world, in more than enough quantity to support a developing civilization if it were to be reduced to, say, less than 1/10th of its current size. Second, existing stores of substances necessary to civilization will not simply evaporate. Metals, plastics, and other raw materials will be recoverable and recyclable. Third, while there may be a couple hundred years or so of dark ages, I think it is extremely unlikely for any substantial amount of our current scientific progress to be eradicated. Unless we cover every mile of civilized earth with bombardment, I imagine it is guaranteed that there will be survivors with minimal technical knowledge required to operate computers and harvest various data that will inevitably be left on servers in random locations. All it takes is a handful of hackers to spread knowledge of operation and recovery. Not to mention books and magazines will likely still exist. I think you underestimate the resilience that modern technology can offer over decades in terms of recovery after a global catastrophe. A laptop, a generator, and a copy of wikipedia will get you far in preserving enough scientific and technical knowledge. Civilization at this point is hard to permanently wipe out.
- irrational 9y ago
  >survivors with minimal technical knowledge You mean, like knowing how to go to youtube and search for a video? Those primitive technology videos on youtube will be a fantastic resource come the end of civilization. Okay, that was sarcasm, but the percentage of the population that is both knowledgeable and healthy/strong enough to survive a massive global fall of civilization is so small that it might not be enough to make a difference. I'm afraid we'd quickly revert back to survival of the fittest where being intelligent would no longer be valued over pure strength.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  I fear you overstate the resilience of modern technology. In the case of, even brief, total civilizational collapse, I doubt you'd be able to access any server whatsoever. The Internet is not stable, it's actively maintained and in the state of constant flux. As for accessing individual computers and small computer networks - just how many of the survivors will have enough knowledge to arrange for electricity at appropriate frequency, ensure it doesn't burn out the fragile machines, and then be able to interface with a (likely password-locked, disk-encrypted) system to extract some useful data? And even if they do that, just for how long will it do them any good? Modern electronics are built with planned and unplanned obsolescence. Their lifetimes under active use are measured in years, and even inactive they'll age. With no industry (requiring a complex, global supply chain of millions of people) to build fresh replacement drives, there will eventually be nowhere to move the data to. Our civilization is like a living system, in the sense that it constantly works to repair itself everywhere. Disturb that, and it will rot and die.

Retric 9y ago

Coal is still easy to access in many areas even with just hand tools and can be converted to liquid fuel or used directly for ships / trains. Hydropower and wind power are both easy to access and can scale up to cover modern needs even without coal. Metal resources are a complex issue. They are arguably much easier to access now as people can just mine old city's.

portofcall 9y ago
Coal in the quantities needed to rebuild a shattered civilization are not easily accessed unless you’re thinking of existing mines (which without maintenance would be inaccessible before we were done desperately trying to stay alive as a species). Hydropower and wind power both require advanced industry to work at any useful scale beyond the individual, and there would be no industry. Mind you, I’m ignoring the loss of knowledge, and just how people would remember to do these things, and I’m assuming a “best case” nuclear apocalypse. I’d prefer that our fate as a species not rely on begging the question of industry and technology.
- Retric 9y ago
  There is still crazy amounts of coal around WV very near the surface for example. Easily enough to bootstrap an industrial revolution multiple times. It's not a question of mining you can pick coal up from open top mines on the surface with your hands. You even see coal seams where they simply cut down to build roads a little. We don't use it because the high sulfur content requires more expensive scrubbers to meet modern air quality standards. And due to the drop in solar / wind energy plus concerns about climate change it's likely to be available long term. PS: US coal supply is estimated around 350 years at current production levels. Though that's also a low estimate based on proven reserves. Further, if you consider the Oxigen in the atmosphere needed to be separated from Carbon in the first place you should realize there is quite a bit of fossil fuels sitting around.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

allthenews 9y ago

>Here is some food for thought though, about the potential for our civilization to fall; it will not rise again. We’ve accessed far too much petrochemical wealth and burned it, and the same is true of coal, and metal resources...exploit This is nonsense, for a number of reasons. First, you ignore that smaller, shallow deposits of petroleum still exist all over the world, in more than enough quantity to support a developing civilization if it were to be reduced to, say, less than 1/10th of its current size. Second, existing stores of substances necessary to civilization will not simply evaporate. Metals, plastics, and other raw materials will be recoverable and recyclable. Third, while there may be a couple hundred years or so of dark ages, I think it is extremely unlikely for any substantial amount of our current scientific progress to be eradicated. Unless we cover every mile of civilized earth with bombardment, I imagine it is guaranteed that there will be survivors with minimal technical knowledge required to operate computers and harvest various data that will inevitably be left on servers in random locations. All it takes is a handful of hackers to spread knowledge of operation and recovery. Not to mention books and magazines will likely still exist. I think you underestimate the resilience that modern technology can offer over decades in terms of recovery after a global catastrophe. A laptop, a generator, and a copy of wikipedia will get you far in preserving enough scientific and technical knowledge. Civilization at this point is hard to permanently wipe out.

irrational 9y ago
>survivors with minimal technical knowledge You mean, like knowing how to go to youtube and search for a video? Those primitive technology videos on youtube will be a fantastic resource come the end of civilization. Okay, that was sarcasm, but the percentage of the population that is both knowledgeable and healthy/strong enough to survive a massive global fall of civilization is so small that it might not be enough to make a difference. I'm afraid we'd quickly revert back to survival of the fittest where being intelligent would no longer be valued over pure strength.
TeMPOraL 9y ago
I fear you overstate the resilience of modern technology. In the case of, even brief, total civilizational collapse, I doubt you'd be able to access any server whatsoever. The Internet is not stable, it's actively maintained and in the state of constant flux. As for accessing individual computers and small computer networks - just how many of the survivors will have enough knowledge to arrange for electricity at appropriate frequency, ensure it doesn't burn out the fragile machines, and then be able to interface with a (likely password-locked, disk-encrypted) system to extract some useful data? And even if they do that, just for how long will it do them any good? Modern electronics are built with planned and unplanned obsolescence. Their lifetimes under active use are measured in years, and even inactive they'll age. With no industry (requiring a complex, global supply chain of millions of people) to build fresh replacement drives, there will eventually be nowhere to move the data to. Our civilization is like a living system, in the sense that it constantly works to repair itself everywhere. Disturb that, and it will rot and die.