>I would expect things to stabilize at a technology level of maybe the late 19th/early 20th century and start back up. That's not how technology works. You can

>I would expect things to stabilize at a technology level of maybe the late 19th/early 20th century and start back up. That's not how technology works. You can't rewind things arbitrarily backwards any more than than you can wind them arbitrarily forwards. The technology required to recreate my grandfathers feed and fuel business simply doesn't not exist anymore. The horses that pulled the wagons no longer exist and would have to be bred up again. All the manufactured fittings no longer have factories and there is no one that knows how to design the machines. If there is a slip it would be to the level of small manually run farms. Those that could not manage that particular technology would die. Which would be almost everyone. It would make a lot more sense to recover as many machine tools as possible and then try to recreate the existing technology from the wreckage