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I think it depends on your definition of collapse. A total apocalyptic collapse I think is quite unlikely; even in nuclear war we don't have enough warheads to
by nexuist 6y ago
I think it depends on your definition of collapse. A total apocalyptic collapse I think is quite unlikely; even in nuclear war we don't have enough warheads to cover every square inch of land.
What is far more likely is decentralized collapse, i.e. at the national or continental level. We see instances of this going on even today, for example in Syria where basic societal privileges like rule of law and utilities are/were destroyed. There are a few countries around the world that match this description.
In that case, old hardware is much more likely to be present, especially if autonomous gangs roam around looting households and public area freely. Furthermore, if you imagine that all technology is gone entirely, it would be much "easier" (relatively, anyways) to build a floppy disk from scratch than an SSD. Once you reach a certain level of operating system like CollapseOS, developing and deploying embedded software applications becomes "trivial" (relatively) which opens up the gateway to autonomous factory machines that build better machines, that build better machines, that build better products, etc. until you eventually reach a stage where you are equivalent with modern production.
- henearkr 6y agoBut, supposing tech artefacts are still around, why the autonomous gangs would use old hw? If you enter a house or a store today, would you not more likely find a sdcard than a floppy drive?
- ac29 6y ago> In that case, old hardware is much more likely to be present This project seems to be targeting computers and games consoles from the 1980s - stuff that hasn't been manufactured in decades. Why is that more likely to be present than something like a Raspberry Pi, or a WiFi router that can be flashed with OpenWRT?
- nexuist 6y agoBecause third world economies run on stuff from the 1980s. Most of the world still doesn't have WiFi routers.
- henearkr 6y agoI don't know everywhere in the world, but at least in some of the poorest countries of West Africa, in the low-to-middle class (merchants, a large part of bike/car taxis, salesmen, teachers, IT...) everyone have a smartphone, using heavily Whatsapp btw. This is the kind of hw that will most likely remain after a collapse. Survival should concentrate on using smartphones for general purposes, while trying to not depend on online services (AppleStore, PlayStore etc). As a side note, survival best practice would be to depend only on what is the most likely to remain. Programmers knowing the mainstream languages are the wide majority, so after losing lots of people, they are the ones most likely to be still around. Better build an OS based on C/C++, Java, JS.
- ac29 6y agoWhich country exactly do you think has no WiFi devices, but has a ton of TRS-80s?