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Weird take. Sure, you could try to re-build what you had before the apocalypse. Or you could build a new world that isn't the one that just plunged everything i

Weird take. Sure, you could try to re-build what you had before the apocalypse. Or you could build a new world that isn't the one that just plunged everything into chaos. If our technology wasn't so good, the world wouldn't be as populated, we wouldn't need so many resources, there wouldn't be so many ways to poison the earth, and the earth would be habitable and sustainable for millennia. After the apocalypse, I want the people who can dig wells, practice permaculture, organize a farm, keep sheep, spin yarn, blacksmith, prep lumber, fire pottery and glass, tan leather, hunt, fish, manage woodlands. Doctors and scientists would be handy too, but now that we know so much about how biology works it wouldn't be so difficult to keep people living longer. Assuming antibiotics still work in 20 years and we retain some basic surgical skills, we're basically set. The most challenging thing after an apocalypse is obviously going to be government. If there's no law and order you can't really organize anything. Whoever has the most power, best strategizing, and most flexible morals will collect the most resources and gather the largest forces. It'll be "join or die", and slavery will come back. Just read your history to see what happens when societies crumble.

akersten 4y ago
> Assuming antibiotics still work in 20 years and we retain some basic surgical skills And what happens when the antibiotics and sterile surgical implements run out, due to the incredible industrial machinery needed to produce them having disappeared? "1600's Welsh countryside but with modern medicine" doesn't quite play out without the corresponding modern supply chain, at least for long.
- throwaway892238 4y ago
  You don't need industrial machinery to produce penicillin. You can sterilize equipment a variety of ways, such as with horseshoe crab blood, fire, alcohol. Now, would it work well for 7 billion people? Hell no. I'm hoping the apocalypse knocks out a significant chunk of the population, and that at that point we can focus on sustainable, simple living, rather than industrialization.
  - imchillyb 4y ago
    > You don't need industrial machinery to produce penicillin. Sooo. How are you going to grow enough of that, while /not growing/ any other type of fungus, mold, bacteria, etc... There's a reason modern medicine utilizes things like cleanrooms and laboratories, instead of y'know a farm and a barn.
    - throwaway892238 4y ago
      I can build you a sanitized laboratory with 16th century equipment. That's the great thing about how much knowledge we have now: we can do more with fewer things.
ars 4y ago
> can dig wells, practice permaculture, organize a farm, keep sheep, spin yarn, blacksmith, prep lumber, fire pottery and glass, hunt, fish, manage woodlands I'm very confused by why you think this is sustainable - this type of life uses FAR FAR FAR more resources than modern living. It only works with a low population. England for example basically cut down every tree it has in order to sustain this type of (old) life. They found coal because they had no choice, they were about to run out of energy. If you just want to kill lots of people and have a low population, I suppose you can advocate for that, but it's completely orthogonal to the type of technology we have.
- throwaway892238 4y ago
  I mentioned woodland management, which would have prevented deforestation. There's actually many practices we can implement to make more use of the land than we've done in the past. Just picking different crops would enable us to feed the entire existing planet with a fraction of the land area we use today. And we certainly know a lot more about sustainable climate regulation than we did in the past, requiring fewer fuels and enabling more sustainable ones. Producing more technology to keep swelling the population obviously isn't working either (hello, climate change). Human civilization needs downsizing, or at least more rational and sustainable resource use/management.
  - imchillyb 4y ago
    SO... you think that the country of England had no woodland management? The leaders of the day decided, that the protected lands would no longer receive protection, there was no populace vote. You think post-apocalypse would be different from a monarchy /how/ exactly? The strong rule, and without rule of the masses and enforcers of law, we're back to warlords and kings. Good luck with your processes...
- rm_-rf_slash 4y ago
  I think parent meant that absent the high tech and energy dense supply chains that underly modern society, people would have to do a lot of things to sustain a society that for us these days can be solved by going to Walmart.
NoImmatureAdHom 4y ago
This viewpoint is appealing, but the thing is: natural selection says it isn't possible in the long term. For every person like you, who thinks s/he knows how things would be better for the environment and others, and how to get there (at least approximately), there is another person who doesn't give a shit and who will do long-term damage in exchange for short-term gains all day long. That person will out-compete you and other people like you. We do, however, seem to be getting better and better at solving these sorts of cooperation puzzles. I just don't see a way out of the Malthusian problem (there will be more and more of the sorts of people who breed more, by definition). We might just have to live with a boom-and-bust cycle on this planet, much like other species, but on longer timescales. It's also possible we avoid the evolutionarily stable state and manage to successfully trap ourselves in some sort of metastable state. It's all going to be fine and your life will be really good, though :-)
- hutzlibu 4y ago
  " I just don't see a way out of the Malthusian problem (there will be more and more of the sorts of people who breed more, by definition)" Why is that by definition? Even animals have more or less offspring, depending on the food offering/suitable habitat. It balances itself out. In nature by starvation. But humans could find other ways. But btw. there are many many people starving and allways have been. It is not like we are heading to a starvation crisis. We are already in it and always have been. The question is rather, of whether we can stop it one day and have all humans fed and cared for in a sustainable way.
- xaedes 4y ago
  > We might just have to live with a boom-and-bust cycle on this planet Reminds me of: "The fact is, that wherever the extremity of winter frost or of summer sun does not prevent, the human race is always increasing at times, and at other times diminishing in numbers." - from Plato's History on Atlantis
- avgcorrection 4y ago
  Boom and bust cycle? There’s been one boom and now there will be one bust. Unless you have some fancypants geoengineering idea which will stabilize the climate and put fossils back in the ground.
slibhb 4y ago
> Or you could build a new world that isn't the one that just plunged everything into chaos. How are you going to get people to agree to "live sustainably" over thousands of years?
- willcipriano 4y ago
  Better question, if you can do that, why haven't you already?
  - cheese_goddess 4y ago
    Because we're before the apocalypse?
- cheese_goddess 4y ago
  I think the answer is that if you don't, then there won't be people after "over thousands of years", or even after a few generations, anyway. I mean because this is after the apocalypse we're talking about, yes? Either people figure out how to restart civilisation in a sustainable manner or they die out after a short while.
jeffreyrogers 4y ago
> Assuming antibiotics still work in 20 years The Soviet Union tried to create antibiotic resistant bacteria as part of its bioweapons program. They were able to increase antibiotic resistance but not make anything totally resistant, so I expect antibiotics to still work 20 years from now.
- notahacker 4y ago
  Widespread resistance to particular antibiotics is also the product of an advanced industrial society where new variants of pathogens spread easily amongst billions of internationally-travelling city dwellers and widespread prophylactic use of the antibiotic creates strong selection pressures. Its a bit different after an apocalypse. In theory, an isolated post-apocalyptic community could roll a 1 and get bacteria that is resistant to locally available natural and stockpiled antibiotics in their community, but that's quite low down their list of concerns.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
all2 4y ago
The problem isn't technology. The problem is immoral people. Immoral people make immoral and greedy governments. Immoral and greedy governments wield power to acquire more and survive as a parasitic organism. All governments move towards totalitarianism. No nation-state in the world has ever escaped this eventuality. Limiting technology won't limit the harm even one evil person can do. Take a look at Gengis Khan, for example. What limits immoral people is the moral people around them. The reason Western culture has fared so well over the last 500 years is because it was largely Christian in nature. There are fundamental values embedded in the Bible that have echoed into what we consider to be "human rights" today. These ideas are uniquely Christian in nature, and rely on a Christian morality in order to function. "Do to others as you would have them do to you", "love your neighbor as yourself", "you need to work in order to eat", the ten commandments (which are pretty common sense if you're looking for a stable society), a true/faithful set of weights and measures -- including a sound currency, lending for interest gained is illegal, and so on. All of these require a basis of people who are willing to adhere to them. The Western world lacks people who are willing to adhere to them. In fact, we've been taught to hate the West and its contributions to the world. We hate white people, we hate Christianity, we hate absolute truth, we hate moral law, we hate being accountable to the Almighty, and we scoff at anyone who loves those things.
- andrekandre 4y ago
  > The problem isn't technology. The problem is immoral people. i think you are underestimating the power of your tools (technology) to shape you instead of the other way around... might be a good idea to read up on Marshal McLuhan and Neil Postman to get an idea what technologies and systems can do to us (as humans) > The reason Western culture has fared so well over the last 500 years is because it was largely Christian in nature. There are fundamental values embedded in the Bible that have echoed into what we consider to be "human rights" today. These ideas are uniquely Christian in nature, and rely on a Christian morality in order to function. human rights came from the bible? got any proof for that claim?
  - all2 4y ago
    > human rights came from the bible? got any proof for that claim? I apologize for the delay. Let me see what I can do. By my reckoning the core of "all men are created equal" finds its roots in Paul's letter to the Galatians where he says 3:27 For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 3:29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise. The statement "All men are created equal", from the Declaration of Independence is an appeal to the idea of the perfected church. That is, in a perfect world, the christian church conducts itself in such a way that none of the above "identities" matters any more. (See Romans 12 for how the church ought to act towards itself and others.) You aren't valued more or less than because of your race/ethnicity/people, or because of your financial status, or even because of your gender. If the ideal is realized, there is true equality. In the Lord's Prayer, there's a request to God to bring His kingdom into this world ...Your kingdom come, Your will be done... The founders of the US understood this and it is reflected in the Preamble of the Constitution We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. They recognize they can't achieve perfection, and still seek it out "in order to form a more perfect union". I argue that the fundamental human ~right~ truth is equality. From that all other rights stem. Without equality, none of the other rights enshrined in the constitution (what you say, who you associate with, your right to self defense, your right to your person -- habius corpus, your right to swift justice, and so on) all have their roots in the sovereignty of the individual. And the sovereignty of the individual among peers is only guaranteed if one has equality with all the rest. Here's a short essay that covers this more in depth: https://www.gotquestions.org/human-rights.html https://www.gotquestions.org/human-rights.html [edit] wording [/edit]
avgcorrection 4y ago
What a weird gymnastic split this comment is. Yeah, let’s go back to pre-industrial technology. But let’s do it with “government”. You really think that you’re gonna have some kind of cross between a hippy commune and modern centralization of force/taxation? A world were all of us now-middle class folks can just go to work on the permaculture farm 8–6 and relax with our organic root beers afterwards? Welcome back to Medieval serfdom for most of us, I say. Can’t really have it both ways.
- wrycoder 4y ago
  Look back to High Farming in England. Read William Cobbett's book, Cottage Economy (1833). No need to go back to the dark ages. > Besides, skim-milk and bread (the milk being boiled) is quite strong food enough for any children’s breakfast, even when they begin to go to work; a fact which I state upon the most ample and satisfactory experience, very seldom having ever had any other sort of breakfast myself till I was more than ten years old, and I was in the fields at work full four years before that. I will here mention that it gave me singular pleasure to see a boy, just turned of six, helping his father to reap, in Sussex, this last summer. He did little, to be sure; but it was something. His father set him into the ridge at a great distance before him; and when he came up to the place, he found a sheaf cut; and, those who know what it is to reap, know how pleasant it is to find now and then a sheaf cut ready to their hand. It was no small thing to see a boy fit to be trusted with so dangerous a thing as a reap-hook in his hands, at an age when “young masters” have nursery-maids to cut their victuals for them, and to see that they do not fall out of the window, tumble down stairs, or run under carriage-wheels or horses’ bellies. Cobbett, William. Cottage Economy To Which Is Added The Poor Man's Friend (pp. 55-56). . Kindle Edition. The first duty of government is the security of its citizens and their property. That is what war lords provide, and later more sophisticated forms of government should do the same.
- imtringued 4y ago
  Yeah people will happily vote in feudalism by voting for lower land value taxes and gold as a currency to make sure social mobility is zero.
wrycoder 4y ago
This may be the right place to mention that the comment in the article, "But the photovoltaic cells we use today need pure silicon, and nanoscale manufacturing — essentially the same technology as microchips used in a computer — so actually making solar panels would be incredibly difficult." is incorrect. One needs only modestly pure silicon and no nanoscale tech at all. You can make photovoltaic cells with a small furnace and a couple of rather basic inorganic chemicals. Patterning for diffusion masking can be done with wax applied by hand. You do need some electricity, so steam power or biodiesel would be necessary at first. You will need to run scavenged vacuum pumps and induction heaters to create the silicon ingots and zone refine them. You will need to conduct some basic inorganic chemistry and be able to produce the key industrial acids and bases. Edit: you will need to recreate Pyrex glass and be able to form it into tubes and chemical glassware.

akersten 4y ago

> Assuming antibiotics still work in 20 years and we retain some basic surgical skills And what happens when the antibiotics and sterile surgical implements run out, due to the incredible industrial machinery needed to produce them having disappeared? "1600's Welsh countryside but with modern medicine" doesn't quite play out without the corresponding modern supply chain, at least for long.

throwaway892238 4y ago
You don't need industrial machinery to produce penicillin. You can sterilize equipment a variety of ways, such as with horseshoe crab blood, fire, alcohol. Now, would it work well for 7 billion people? Hell no. I'm hoping the apocalypse knocks out a significant chunk of the population, and that at that point we can focus on sustainable, simple living, rather than industrialization.
- imchillyb 4y ago
  > You don't need industrial machinery to produce penicillin. Sooo. How are you going to grow enough of that, while /not growing/ any other type of fungus, mold, bacteria, etc... There's a reason modern medicine utilizes things like cleanrooms and laboratories, instead of y'know a farm and a barn.
  - throwaway892238 4y ago
    I can build you a sanitized laboratory with 16th century equipment. That's the great thing about how much knowledge we have now: we can do more with fewer things.

ars 4y ago

> can dig wells, practice permaculture, organize a farm, keep sheep, spin yarn, blacksmith, prep lumber, fire pottery and glass, hunt, fish, manage woodlands I'm very confused by why you think this is sustainable - this type of life uses FAR FAR FAR more resources than modern living. It only works with a low population. England for example basically cut down every tree it has in order to sustain this type of (old) life. They found coal because they had no choice, they were about to run out of energy. If you just want to kill lots of people and have a low population, I suppose you can advocate for that, but it's completely orthogonal to the type of technology we have.

throwaway892238 4y ago
I mentioned woodland management, which would have prevented deforestation. There's actually many practices we can implement to make more use of the land than we've done in the past. Just picking different crops would enable us to feed the entire existing planet with a fraction of the land area we use today. And we certainly know a lot more about sustainable climate regulation than we did in the past, requiring fewer fuels and enabling more sustainable ones. Producing more technology to keep swelling the population obviously isn't working either (hello, climate change). Human civilization needs downsizing, or at least more rational and sustainable resource use/management.
- imchillyb 4y ago
  SO... you think that the country of England had no woodland management? The leaders of the day decided, that the protected lands would no longer receive protection, there was no populace vote. You think post-apocalypse would be different from a monarchy /how/ exactly? The strong rule, and without rule of the masses and enforcers of law, we're back to warlords and kings. Good luck with your processes...
rm_-rf_slash 4y ago
I think parent meant that absent the high tech and energy dense supply chains that underly modern society, people would have to do a lot of things to sustain a society that for us these days can be solved by going to Walmart.

NoImmatureAdHom 4y ago

This viewpoint is appealing, but the thing is: natural selection says it isn't possible in the long term. For every person like you, who thinks s/he knows how things would be better for the environment and others, and how to get there (at least approximately), there is another person who doesn't give a shit and who will do long-term damage in exchange for short-term gains all day long. That person will out-compete you and other people like you. We do, however, seem to be getting better and better at solving these sorts of cooperation puzzles. I just don't see a way out of the Malthusian problem (there will be more and more of the sorts of people who breed more, by definition). We might just have to live with a boom-and-bust cycle on this planet, much like other species, but on longer timescales. It's also possible we avoid the evolutionarily stable state and manage to successfully trap ourselves in some sort of metastable state. It's all going to be fine and your life will be really good, though :-)

hutzlibu 4y ago
" I just don't see a way out of the Malthusian problem (there will be more and more of the sorts of people who breed more, by definition)" Why is that by definition? Even animals have more or less offspring, depending on the food offering/suitable habitat. It balances itself out. In nature by starvation. But humans could find other ways. But btw. there are many many people starving and allways have been. It is not like we are heading to a starvation crisis. We are already in it and always have been. The question is rather, of whether we can stop it one day and have all humans fed and cared for in a sustainable way.
xaedes 4y ago
> We might just have to live with a boom-and-bust cycle on this planet Reminds me of: "The fact is, that wherever the extremity of winter frost or of summer sun does not prevent, the human race is always increasing at times, and at other times diminishing in numbers." - from Plato's History on Atlantis
avgcorrection 4y ago
Boom and bust cycle? There’s been one boom and now there will be one bust. Unless you have some fancypants geoengineering idea which will stabilize the climate and put fossils back in the ground.

slibhb 4y ago

> Or you could build a new world that isn't the one that just plunged everything into chaos. How are you going to get people to agree to "live sustainably" over thousands of years?

willcipriano 4y ago
Better question, if you can do that, why haven't you already?
- cheese_goddess 4y ago
  Because we're before the apocalypse?
cheese_goddess 4y ago
I think the answer is that if you don't, then there won't be people after "over thousands of years", or even after a few generations, anyway. I mean because this is after the apocalypse we're talking about, yes? Either people figure out how to restart civilisation in a sustainable manner or they die out after a short while.

jeffreyrogers 4y ago

> Assuming antibiotics still work in 20 years The Soviet Union tried to create antibiotic resistant bacteria as part of its bioweapons program. They were able to increase antibiotic resistance but not make anything totally resistant, so I expect antibiotics to still work 20 years from now.

notahacker 4y ago
Widespread resistance to particular antibiotics is also the product of an advanced industrial society where new variants of pathogens spread easily amongst billions of internationally-travelling city dwellers and widespread prophylactic use of the antibiotic creates strong selection pressures. Its a bit different after an apocalypse. In theory, an isolated post-apocalyptic community could roll a 1 and get bacteria that is resistant to locally available natural and stockpiled antibiotics in their community, but that's quite low down their list of concerns.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

all2 4y ago

The problem isn't technology. The problem is immoral people. Immoral people make immoral and greedy governments. Immoral and greedy governments wield power to acquire more and survive as a parasitic organism. All governments move towards totalitarianism. No nation-state in the world has ever escaped this eventuality. Limiting technology won't limit the harm even one evil person can do. Take a look at Gengis Khan, for example. What limits immoral people is the moral people around them. The reason Western culture has fared so well over the last 500 years is because it was largely Christian in nature. There are fundamental values embedded in the Bible that have echoed into what we consider to be "human rights" today. These ideas are uniquely Christian in nature, and rely on a Christian morality in order to function. "Do to others as you would have them do to you", "love your neighbor as yourself", "you need to work in order to eat", the ten commandments (which are pretty common sense if you're looking for a stable society), a true/faithful set of weights and measures -- including a sound currency, lending for interest gained is illegal, and so on. All of these require a basis of people who are willing to adhere to them. The Western world lacks people who are willing to adhere to them. In fact, we've been taught to hate the West and its contributions to the world. We hate white people, we hate Christianity, we hate absolute truth, we hate moral law, we hate being accountable to the Almighty, and we scoff at anyone who loves those things.

andrekandre 4y ago
> The problem isn't technology. The problem is immoral people. i think you are underestimating the power of your tools (technology) to shape you instead of the other way around... might be a good idea to read up on Marshal McLuhan and Neil Postman to get an idea what technologies and systems can do to us (as humans) > The reason Western culture has fared so well over the last 500 years is because it was largely Christian in nature. There are fundamental values embedded in the Bible that have echoed into what we consider to be "human rights" today. These ideas are uniquely Christian in nature, and rely on a Christian morality in order to function. human rights came from the bible? got any proof for that claim?
- all2 4y ago
  > human rights came from the bible? got any proof for that claim? I apologize for the delay. Let me see what I can do. By my reckoning the core of "all men are created equal" finds its roots in Paul's letter to the Galatians where he says 3:27 For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 3:29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise. The statement "All men are created equal", from the Declaration of Independence is an appeal to the idea of the perfected church. That is, in a perfect world, the christian church conducts itself in such a way that none of the above "identities" matters any more. (See Romans 12 for how the church ought to act towards itself and others.) You aren't valued more or less than because of your race/ethnicity/people, or because of your financial status, or even because of your gender. If the ideal is realized, there is true equality. In the Lord's Prayer, there's a request to God to bring His kingdom into this world ...Your kingdom come, Your will be done... The founders of the US understood this and it is reflected in the Preamble of the Constitution We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. They recognize they can't achieve perfection, and still seek it out "in order to form a more perfect union". I argue that the fundamental human ~right~ truth is equality. From that all other rights stem. Without equality, none of the other rights enshrined in the constitution (what you say, who you associate with, your right to self defense, your right to your person -- habius corpus, your right to swift justice, and so on) all have their roots in the sovereignty of the individual. And the sovereignty of the individual among peers is only guaranteed if one has equality with all the rest. Here's a short essay that covers this more in depth: https://www.gotquestions.org/human-rights.html https://www.gotquestions.org/human-rights.html [edit] wording [/edit]

avgcorrection 4y ago

What a weird gymnastic split this comment is. Yeah, let’s go back to pre-industrial technology. But let’s do it with “government”. You really think that you’re gonna have some kind of cross between a hippy commune and modern centralization of force/taxation? A world were all of us now-middle class folks can just go to work on the permaculture farm 8–6 and relax with our organic root beers afterwards? Welcome back to Medieval serfdom for most of us, I say. Can’t really have it both ways.

wrycoder 4y ago
Look back to High Farming in England. Read William Cobbett's book, Cottage Economy (1833). No need to go back to the dark ages. > Besides, skim-milk and bread (the milk being boiled) is quite strong food enough for any children’s breakfast, even when they begin to go to work; a fact which I state upon the most ample and satisfactory experience, very seldom having ever had any other sort of breakfast myself till I was more than ten years old, and I was in the fields at work full four years before that. I will here mention that it gave me singular pleasure to see a boy, just turned of six, helping his father to reap, in Sussex, this last summer. He did little, to be sure; but it was something. His father set him into the ridge at a great distance before him; and when he came up to the place, he found a sheaf cut; and, those who know what it is to reap, know how pleasant it is to find now and then a sheaf cut ready to their hand. It was no small thing to see a boy fit to be trusted with so dangerous a thing as a reap-hook in his hands, at an age when “young masters” have nursery-maids to cut their victuals for them, and to see that they do not fall out of the window, tumble down stairs, or run under carriage-wheels or horses’ bellies. Cobbett, William. Cottage Economy To Which Is Added The Poor Man's Friend (pp. 55-56). . Kindle Edition. The first duty of government is the security of its citizens and their property. That is what war lords provide, and later more sophisticated forms of government should do the same.
imtringued 4y ago
Yeah people will happily vote in feudalism by voting for lower land value taxes and gold as a currency to make sure social mobility is zero.

wrycoder 4y ago

This may be the right place to mention that the comment in the article, "But the photovoltaic cells we use today need pure silicon, and nanoscale manufacturing — essentially the same technology as microchips used in a computer — so actually making solar panels would be incredibly difficult." is incorrect. One needs only modestly pure silicon and no nanoscale tech at all. You can make photovoltaic cells with a small furnace and a couple of rather basic inorganic chemicals. Patterning for diffusion masking can be done with wax applied by hand. You do need some electricity, so steam power or biodiesel would be necessary at first. You will need to run scavenged vacuum pumps and induction heaters to create the silicon ingots and zone refine them. You will need to conduct some basic inorganic chemistry and be able to produce the key industrial acids and bases. Edit: you will need to recreate Pyrex glass and be able to form it into tubes and chemical glassware.