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The problem with claims of imminent societal collapse is they treat "collapse" like an event, with the world neatly divided into before and after. Historically,

The problem with claims of imminent societal collapse is they treat "collapse" like an event, with the world neatly divided into before and after. Historically, societal collapse is much more fuzzy. No neat single cause. No single moment when things flipped. You can only truly know the collapse has happened well in retrospect. In terms of computing, this means that any strategy looking at a before/after collapse framing is missing the entire interesting middle part - how do we transition from this high-tech to low-tech world over the course of decades. I seriously doubt it can happen by anticipating what computing we might need and just leapfrogging there.

wibbily 2y ago
Same author has a sort of "missing link" version that is better suited to modern PCs. Doesn't answer your philosophical questions about civilizations etc. but the goal isn't to start building Z80s out of transistors anytime soon. I think the vision here is more likely to play out, if any were to. Not many fabs that can make modern chips, and the biggest one is under the business end of Chinese artillery so. Gotta make do with whatever we have even if new supply dries up. https://duskos.org/ https://duskos.org/
- anthk 2y ago
  Its's the same author. Uh, wait, I've properly read your comment now. Still, I miss a ZMachine interpreter for DuskOS. And networking. Gopher, IRC and email (among maybe some NNTP client) are a must.
cowfarts 2y ago
[dead]
wat10000 2y ago
I don’t think it’s the focus of this, but we do now live in a time where the collapse could potentially happen in an hour.
- borntoolate 2y ago
  Even if the collapse is a fuzzy decades one I think it would also have an ever increasing probability of the remainder in under an hour as something entirely forgotten fails.
- danpalmer 2y ago
  Why do you think that? I'm assuming you're talking about the internet, networked services, etc, because that's the only conceivable way a collapse could happen that quickly... except all modern infrastructure we rely on like that has backups and redundancy built in, and largely separated failure domains, so that such a failure would never be able to happen that quickly.
  - lukev 2y ago
    I assume they mean nuclear war.
    - wat10000 2y ago
      Yes, exactly. Even if some fabs survived, the ability to supply and staff them would not last long. The world's ability to manufacture advanced computers would disappear.
  - N19PEDL2 2y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybergeddon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybergeddon
- perrygeo 2y ago
  Or worse, decades in the future when historians look back, they might determine that collapse started before 2025 (perhaps 9/11, 2008 financial collapse, covid, the re-emergence of populist fascism, AI, microplastics, climate change ... take your pick). Which means we might be living in collapse now, we just don't know it yet. "The Long Emergency" as James Howard Kunstler put it.
  - 2y ago
nukem222 2y ago
[dead]
toss1 2y ago
Plausible, but there really may not be a middle part longer than a few hours or days, depending on the mechanism (and I'm not even considering nuclear war here). I recall reading a first-hand account of surviving in Sarajevo during the war, and one of the things that most struck the author was how quickly -a mere couple of days- everything changed from going about the day as normal to apocalyptic survival-mode hellscape. And not because of specific battle events, but the breakdown of supply chains. We really have no way to predict it. It is even likely to be different in different locales.
rossdavidh 2y ago
That is DuskOS, from the same creator apparently.
abrookewood 2y ago
He kinda deals with that - he has also built another OS called DuskOS, which is when we still have modern computers lying around, but can't make more of them. It's the OS you would use prior to devolving all the way to CollapseOS
- amy214 2y ago
  I feel like he has considered everything. He also has AbacOS which is an abacus-based operating system, for when we run out of energy, then HamstOS for a hamster-wheel powered operating system
  - kragen 2y ago
    No, he doesn't.
  - johnsmth 2y ago
    HamstOS is just the microcontroller for the power supply. Pros: it is voice activated and fault tolerant. Cons: only responds to voice prompts beginning "Hey Mr. Binky". Also, it secretly hates you.
anon6362 2y ago
The frog will boil slowly and discontinuously. The net effects are that by 2030: - Industrial food will gradually become extremely expensive and homesteading will become more popular. Crop failures and famines will be routine as food security and international trade wanes. - Unemployment will soar with automation and overall decreased purchasing power. - Crime and theft will soar as police decline (Austin TX is already understaffed by 300 officers and doesn't respond to property crimes until 48 hours later) - Civil/national/world wars. - 100M's of climate refugees migrating across and between continents. If you think scapegoating of "illegal" immigrants is bad now, just wait until all forms of hate in the forms of racism, xenophobia, and classism become turbocharged. Expect militarized borders guarded by killer robots.

wibbily 2y ago

Same author has a sort of "missing link" version that is better suited to modern PCs. Doesn't answer your philosophical questions about civilizations etc. but the goal isn't to start building Z80s out of transistors anytime soon. I think the vision here is more likely to play out, if any were to. Not many fabs that can make modern chips, and the biggest one is under the business end of Chinese artillery so. Gotta make do with whatever we have even if new supply dries up. https://duskos.org/ https://duskos.org/

anthk 2y ago
Its's the same author. Uh, wait, I've properly read your comment now. Still, I miss a ZMachine interpreter for DuskOS. And networking. Gopher, IRC and email (among maybe some NNTP client) are a must.

cowfarts 2y ago

[dead]

wat10000 2y ago

I don’t think it’s the focus of this, but we do now live in a time where the collapse could potentially happen in an hour.

borntoolate 2y ago
Even if the collapse is a fuzzy decades one I think it would also have an ever increasing probability of the remainder in under an hour as something entirely forgotten fails.
danpalmer 2y ago
Why do you think that? I'm assuming you're talking about the internet, networked services, etc, because that's the only conceivable way a collapse could happen that quickly... except all modern infrastructure we rely on like that has backups and redundancy built in, and largely separated failure domains, so that such a failure would never be able to happen that quickly.
- lukev 2y ago
  I assume they mean nuclear war.
  - wat10000 2y ago
    Yes, exactly. Even if some fabs survived, the ability to supply and staff them would not last long. The world's ability to manufacture advanced computers would disappear.
- N19PEDL2 2y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybergeddon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybergeddon
perrygeo 2y ago
Or worse, decades in the future when historians look back, they might determine that collapse started before 2025 (perhaps 9/11, 2008 financial collapse, covid, the re-emergence of populist fascism, AI, microplastics, climate change ... take your pick). Which means we might be living in collapse now, we just don't know it yet. "The Long Emergency" as James Howard Kunstler put it.
- 2y ago

nukem222 2y ago

[dead]

toss1 2y ago

Plausible, but there really may not be a middle part longer than a few hours or days, depending on the mechanism (and I'm not even considering nuclear war here). I recall reading a first-hand account of surviving in Sarajevo during the war, and one of the things that most struck the author was how quickly -a mere couple of days- everything changed from going about the day as normal to apocalyptic survival-mode hellscape. And not because of specific battle events, but the breakdown of supply chains. We really have no way to predict it. It is even likely to be different in different locales.

rossdavidh 2y ago

That is DuskOS, from the same creator apparently.

abrookewood 2y ago

He kinda deals with that - he has also built another OS called DuskOS, which is when we still have modern computers lying around, but can't make more of them. It's the OS you would use prior to devolving all the way to CollapseOS

amy214 2y ago
I feel like he has considered everything. He also has AbacOS which is an abacus-based operating system, for when we run out of energy, then HamstOS for a hamster-wheel powered operating system
- kragen 2y ago
  No, he doesn't.
- johnsmth 2y ago
  HamstOS is just the microcontroller for the power supply. Pros: it is voice activated and fault tolerant. Cons: only responds to voice prompts beginning "Hey Mr. Binky". Also, it secretly hates you.

anon6362 2y ago

The frog will boil slowly and discontinuously. The net effects are that by 2030: - Industrial food will gradually become extremely expensive and homesteading will become more popular. Crop failures and famines will be routine as food security and international trade wanes. - Unemployment will soar with automation and overall decreased purchasing power. - Crime and theft will soar as police decline (Austin TX is already understaffed by 300 officers and doesn't respond to property crimes until 48 hours later) - Civil/national/world wars. - 100M's of climate refugees migrating across and between continents. If you think scapegoating of "illegal" immigrants is bad now, just wait until all forms of hate in the forms of racism, xenophobia, and classism become turbocharged. Expect militarized borders guarded by killer robots.