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Ehhhh. It might be because so many recent events have given me cause to be disappointed in people, but I don't think a massive loss of cultural memory is all th

Ehhhh. It might be because so many recent events have given me cause to be disappointed in people, but I don't think a massive loss of cultural memory is all that implausible. We have great numbers of people now who either don't believe vaccines are safe, or don't believe the Earth is round, or don't believe in evolution, or don't believe in anthropogenic climate change. Even as little attention as this thread is likely to get, probably someone's going to read this comment and not believe at least one of those things. The irony of not believing one of those things while reading the comment on a device built by science, over a vast technological network of other devices built by science, likely won't occur to them. Now also think about how much of modern stuff we take for granted rests on technological principles that are totally unknown to the average person. I have no idea how a toilet works. It would probably take me years to build a working one from scratch. I read about the principle of the plumbing in a toilet, once, but I can't recall it right this minute. Toilets are among the inventions that have had the greatest positive impact on human societies, and I could do no better right this minute than dig a hole somewhere and put some dirt on top of it. Given a strand of copper and some magnets, I could make a crude motor or generator. But I have no idea how to extrude fine copper wire, how to identify copper ore, mine it, or refine it. I know enough to make a crappy magnet out of some iron, but it would take me a hundred years to manufacture a motor and a lead-acid battery, and without modern medicine, I could hope for maybe 20 years. I think there are plausible scenarios where something like a sufficiently destructive solar flare could do enough damage to reset the last thousand years of technological development, and in those scenarios, people would within just a generation or two stop believing that things like an internet ever existed.

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
It literally took a millennium for Europe to rediscover the lost knowledge of the Romans and Greeks and to reorganise itself to a comparable level of political and economic sophistication. And the ancient world wasn't operating at anything like the level we have today. Technical knowledge is incredibly fragile. It requires a global network of raw materials, energy sources, processing systems of various kinds, and logistics - all maintained by overlapping knowledge concentrated in a relatively small number of individuals and institutions, none of whom have a complete picture. So even if the knowledge survived in book form, it would still be useless at a local level if the supply chains that feed it were broken. The absolute best you could hope for is some kind of partial memory in a few local pockets, and maybe the odd genius would turn up every century or two to make another attempt at deciphering the ancient wisdom.
- Broken_Hippo 6y ago
  Do you not think that society, after living in the digital age with internet and communication, wouldn't immediately work to fix these things? I don't know about the 'rediscover lost knowledge of the Romans and Greeks" bit. We aren't clamoring to get the 'sophistication' of the Victorian time period, in part because so many of the ideas aren't valued, and much of the same attitude probably was the same for the 'lost' information. We view the ancients in a romantic way, but... they also didn't have chimneys. Folks through history often didn't have the literacy rates we do. And no one in history had a really good overview either, honestly. A complete supply overview isn't necessary at a local level: We all know these exist. It won't take long before we communicate easily again and we'll have electricity before long. Once you have these things, lots of other things will fall into place.
akiselev 6y ago
The global literacy rate two hundred years ago, at the dawn of the industrial revolution, is estimated to be under 20% [1]. Today it's over 80% because the contributions of a small number of inventors raised the tide for everyone, increasing access to education. Half the world couldn't even read until the mid-1960s. Knowledge has always been unevenly distributed and most people who succeed do so because they were born into a supportive environment. It's unreasonable to expect that from seven billion people when a significant fraction of them grew up with illiterate elders. [1] https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/economics/how-was-life_9789264214262-en#page96 https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/economics/how-was-life_978926...
Broken_Hippo 6y ago
It isn't that we all know how to build this stuff - but more that we know the stuff exists. We all have these ideas. It is online, it is written in books. The chances of all of our information being lost is slim. We have a pretty good literacy rate now as well. You don't need to know everything: Other folks know a lot about mining, making wire, and so on. Some folks know a great deal about making medicine, fixing bones, and so on. This is why I say it won't be lost: We have the information, both digital and in hard copy form. We know it all exists: We'd rebuild. It isn't going to need YOU, specifically, to remember it all, but simply to know this stuff exists and understand that folks are peppered through the earth that know about the technologies you don't - and know what these things are used for. We wouldn't lose toilets - a well documented technology - we'd rebuild them. A solar flare wiping out some of the communication routes wouldn't be enough. That would simply be a setback - a major one, but not enough to destroy things. This is all despite folks not believing in a round earth or vaccines and all of that stuff.

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago

It literally took a millennium for Europe to rediscover the lost knowledge of the Romans and Greeks and to reorganise itself to a comparable level of political and economic sophistication. And the ancient world wasn't operating at anything like the level we have today. Technical knowledge is incredibly fragile. It requires a global network of raw materials, energy sources, processing systems of various kinds, and logistics - all maintained by overlapping knowledge concentrated in a relatively small number of individuals and institutions, none of whom have a complete picture. So even if the knowledge survived in book form, it would still be useless at a local level if the supply chains that feed it were broken. The absolute best you could hope for is some kind of partial memory in a few local pockets, and maybe the odd genius would turn up every century or two to make another attempt at deciphering the ancient wisdom.

Broken_Hippo 6y ago
Do you not think that society, after living in the digital age with internet and communication, wouldn't immediately work to fix these things? I don't know about the 'rediscover lost knowledge of the Romans and Greeks" bit. We aren't clamoring to get the 'sophistication' of the Victorian time period, in part because so many of the ideas aren't valued, and much of the same attitude probably was the same for the 'lost' information. We view the ancients in a romantic way, but... they also didn't have chimneys. Folks through history often didn't have the literacy rates we do. And no one in history had a really good overview either, honestly. A complete supply overview isn't necessary at a local level: We all know these exist. It won't take long before we communicate easily again and we'll have electricity before long. Once you have these things, lots of other things will fall into place.

akiselev 6y ago

The global literacy rate two hundred years ago, at the dawn of the industrial revolution, is estimated to be under 20% [1]. Today it's over 80% because the contributions of a small number of inventors raised the tide for everyone, increasing access to education. Half the world couldn't even read until the mid-1960s. Knowledge has always been unevenly distributed and most people who succeed do so because they were born into a supportive environment. It's unreasonable to expect that from seven billion people when a significant fraction of them grew up with illiterate elders. [1] https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/economics/how-was-life_9789264214262-en#page96 https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/economics/how-was-life_978926...

Broken_Hippo 6y ago

It isn't that we all know how to build this stuff - but more that we know the stuff exists. We all have these ideas. It is online, it is written in books. The chances of all of our information being lost is slim. We have a pretty good literacy rate now as well. You don't need to know everything: Other folks know a lot about mining, making wire, and so on. Some folks know a great deal about making medicine, fixing bones, and so on. This is why I say it won't be lost: We have the information, both digital and in hard copy form. We know it all exists: We'd rebuild. It isn't going to need YOU, specifically, to remember it all, but simply to know this stuff exists and understand that folks are peppered through the earth that know about the technologies you don't - and know what these things are used for. We wouldn't lose toilets - a well documented technology - we'd rebuild them. A solar flare wiping out some of the communication routes wouldn't be enough. That would simply be a setback - a major one, but not enough to destroy things. This is all despite folks not believing in a round earth or vaccines and all of that stuff.