5 ms·

We're toast should we ever lose ability to make CPUs. Perhaps there should be more research how to make small runs of chips cheaply and with simple inputs. Tha

We're toast should we ever lose ability to make CPUs. Perhaps there should be more research how to make small runs of chips cheaply and with simple inputs. That'd also be useful if we manage to colonize other planets.

spencerflem 1y ago
We as in civilization? We made it at least a few thousand years without it. Or do you mean the circumstances that would lead to this (nuclear war perhaps) would make us toast
- vardump 1y ago
  The civilization as it is.
  - spencerflem 1y ago
    I mean, the chips they're talking abt didn't exist until like 40 years ago I think we could manage. But tbh I don't see it as at all likely short of something like nuclear war that would be the much bigger problem.
    - vardump 1y ago
      Do we really still have the society wide institutional knowledge to do things how they were done 50 years ago? I wouldn't be so sure.
      - spencerflem 1y ago
        I don't think this is likely, but say we, the whole world, goes back to using telephones and writing paperwork on paper. I don't think it'd be the end of life as we know it.
        alabastervlog 1y ago
        The important chips aren’t the ones on our desks and in our hands. I think all that shit’s of dubious value to begin with. It’s the ones in factories, power systems, and transportation equipment, among other things.
      - squigz 1y ago
        Mate, 50 years wasn't that long ago. We had computers and everything else we have now. We still did a lot of things fundamentally the same way. Everything was just slower and smaller (in scale; not physically) I think you also should realize much of the world continues on without bleeding-edge technology - homes are still built, crops are still harvested, and the world goes on.
    - conductr 1y ago
      It would be chaos at first, but if it's at all physically survivable our species likely will, then we're only a few years away from a "humans exist, but most their knowledge has been lost". Only a few more years later before no human alive has ever interacted with a CPU using device, then the whole notion of a CPU kind of disappears before too long. We've had this happen before of course. There's a ton of things ancient civilizations were doing that we are clueless about. So clueless, that one of the leading theories is that they must have been aided by aliens.
      - anthk 1y ago
        Clueless? Bullshit and Amerigo-centrist crap from the far right. Non White -WASP- people were doing trigonometry far earlier than the Germanic ones, which were living in huts. Just have a look at Greece and Rome. Also, the Chinese knew basic Algebra too.
        conductr 1y ago
        Perhaps you need to re-read my comment. I'm saying they were exceptionally knowledgeable about things in general (STEM stuff). And, I'm saying WE are clueless as to how they knew a lot of things, they probably knew a lot more than we have clues to know about - thus, clueless I'm talking about people all over the globe, separated by time, I don't know what your deal is with acting like I'm a white person poo'ing on POC - or how any of the racial/nationality/etc stuff you wrote factors in at all. You're obviously easily triggered and/or need to work on reading comprehension
        anthk 1y ago
        Bear in mind the wacko alien thesis it's being held from envious right wing nuts as if the Egyptians were dumb or something. They are butthurted about Mediterranian non-Wasp origins of civilization, because their Aryan discourse crumbles down. It always was a matter of commerce and knowledge sharing between distinct races and tribes.
- AlienRobot 1y ago
  I'm not sure we can actually support 8 billion people's food production and distribution logistics without CPU's anymore.
  - spencerflem 1y ago
    Whatever makes us forget CPUs will make there be less than 8 billion people I'm sure.
    - cranky908canuck 1y ago
      Yep. The hard way.
  - squigz 1y ago
    No, but that's hardly the same as suggesting humanity would die off. We'd adapt, just at a much smaller scale.
  - Tabular-Iceberg 1y ago
    You don’t think we could do it with human computers? As long as the algorithmic complexity of food logistics is O(n) or better with respect to population size, I guess.
- throw0101d 1y ago
  > We as in civilization? We made it at least a few thousand years without it. Civilization is a continuity of discrete points of time. We were able to enter (so-called) Dark Ages where things were forgotten (e.g., concrete) and still continue because things were often not very 'advanced': with the decline of Rome there were other stories of knowledge, and with the Black Death society hasn't much beyond blacksmithing and so was able keep those basic skills. But we're beyond that. First off, modern society is highly dependent on low-cost energy, and this was kicked off by the Industrial Revolution and easy accessible coal. Coal is much depleted (often needing deeper mines). Then next phase was with oil, and many of the easy deposits have been used up (it used to bubble up to the ground in the US). So depending on how bad any collapse is, getting things up without easily accessible fossil fuels may be more of challenge.
  - anthk 1y ago
    >hasn't much beyond blacksmithing and so was able keep those basic skills. That's an Anglo-Saxon black legend. How do you think boats and trebuchets were made? Navigation in the ocean without trig? Astrolabes? Yeah, sure. Year 600 wasn't the same as 1200. Read about Alphonse X. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso_X_of_Castile https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso_X_of_Castile
- NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
  >We made it at least a few thousand years without it. We did that during a period of peculiar circumstances that won't ever be replicated. Relatively large, distributed population with many different ecological environments that we were already pre-adapted to. A far smaller single-point-failure population that can't just go out and hunt for its food among the vast wildlife might have it pretty rough if industrial civilization were to falter.
- digitalsushi 1y ago
  i just learned about the Haber process. This guy, Fritz Haber, realized we could suck nitrogen out of the literal air and make soil fertilizer with it. The population is like 4 times higher than it would be without it. Scary how high up this tightrope is.
Legend2440 1y ago
Be more concerned about whatever nuclear war or social breakdown led to that point. Massive industrial manufacturing systems don’t shut down for nothing.
- vardump 1y ago
  It could also happen as natural decay over centuries. There's no guarantee we'll get more advanced over time.
  - spencerflem 1y ago
    That would be a pity, but I don't see why we'd be toast.
- kimixa 1y ago
  To have zero effort in attempting to reproduce even 70s-era silicon technology for 30 years implies some real bad stuff, if the entire chain has been knocked out to that level I doubt "silicon chip fabrication" would really be a worry for anyone during that time.
kimixa 1y ago
Eh, there's plenty of small fabs globally that do smaller run "nowhere near cutting edge" (180nm or so) runs - you can make a pretty decent processor on that sort of tech. Would be a pretty solid intermediate step to bootstrap automation and expansion in the cases where the supply of the "best" fabs is removed (like in a disaster, or the framework to support that level of manufacturing isn't available, such as your colony example)
- anthk 1y ago
  Forth Deck and CPUs with TTL's from magic-1.org.
LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago
https://www.minimalfab.com/en/ https://www.minimalfab.com/en/

spencerflem 1y ago

We as in civilization? We made it at least a few thousand years without it. Or do you mean the circumstances that would lead to this (nuclear war perhaps) would make us toast

vardump 1y ago
The civilization as it is.
- spencerflem 1y ago
  I mean, the chips they're talking abt didn't exist until like 40 years ago I think we could manage. But tbh I don't see it as at all likely short of something like nuclear war that would be the much bigger problem.
  - vardump 1y ago
    Do we really still have the society wide institutional knowledge to do things how they were done 50 years ago? I wouldn't be so sure.
    - spencerflem 1y ago
      I don't think this is likely, but say we, the whole world, goes back to using telephones and writing paperwork on paper. I don't think it'd be the end of life as we know it.
      - alabastervlog 1y ago
        The important chips aren’t the ones on our desks and in our hands. I think all that shit’s of dubious value to begin with. It’s the ones in factories, power systems, and transportation equipment, among other things.
    - squigz 1y ago
      Mate, 50 years wasn't that long ago. We had computers and everything else we have now. We still did a lot of things fundamentally the same way. Everything was just slower and smaller (in scale; not physically) I think you also should realize much of the world continues on without bleeding-edge technology - homes are still built, crops are still harvested, and the world goes on.
  - conductr 1y ago
    It would be chaos at first, but if it's at all physically survivable our species likely will, then we're only a few years away from a "humans exist, but most their knowledge has been lost". Only a few more years later before no human alive has ever interacted with a CPU using device, then the whole notion of a CPU kind of disappears before too long. We've had this happen before of course. There's a ton of things ancient civilizations were doing that we are clueless about. So clueless, that one of the leading theories is that they must have been aided by aliens.
    - anthk 1y ago
      Clueless? Bullshit and Amerigo-centrist crap from the far right. Non White -WASP- people were doing trigonometry far earlier than the Germanic ones, which were living in huts. Just have a look at Greece and Rome. Also, the Chinese knew basic Algebra too.
      - conductr 1y ago
        Perhaps you need to re-read my comment. I'm saying they were exceptionally knowledgeable about things in general (STEM stuff). And, I'm saying WE are clueless as to how they knew a lot of things, they probably knew a lot more than we have clues to know about - thus, clueless I'm talking about people all over the globe, separated by time, I don't know what your deal is with acting like I'm a white person poo'ing on POC - or how any of the racial/nationality/etc stuff you wrote factors in at all. You're obviously easily triggered and/or need to work on reading comprehension
        anthk 1y ago
        Bear in mind the wacko alien thesis it's being held from envious right wing nuts as if the Egyptians were dumb or something. They are butthurted about Mediterranian non-Wasp origins of civilization, because their Aryan discourse crumbles down. It always was a matter of commerce and knowledge sharing between distinct races and tribes.
AlienRobot 1y ago
I'm not sure we can actually support 8 billion people's food production and distribution logistics without CPU's anymore.
- spencerflem 1y ago
  Whatever makes us forget CPUs will make there be less than 8 billion people I'm sure.
  - cranky908canuck 1y ago
    Yep. The hard way.
- squigz 1y ago
  No, but that's hardly the same as suggesting humanity would die off. We'd adapt, just at a much smaller scale.
- Tabular-Iceberg 1y ago
  You don’t think we could do it with human computers? As long as the algorithmic complexity of food logistics is O(n) or better with respect to population size, I guess.
throw0101d 1y ago
> We as in civilization? We made it at least a few thousand years without it. Civilization is a continuity of discrete points of time. We were able to enter (so-called) Dark Ages where things were forgotten (e.g., concrete) and still continue because things were often not very 'advanced': with the decline of Rome there were other stories of knowledge, and with the Black Death society hasn't much beyond blacksmithing and so was able keep those basic skills. But we're beyond that. First off, modern society is highly dependent on low-cost energy, and this was kicked off by the Industrial Revolution and easy accessible coal. Coal is much depleted (often needing deeper mines). Then next phase was with oil, and many of the easy deposits have been used up (it used to bubble up to the ground in the US). So depending on how bad any collapse is, getting things up without easily accessible fossil fuels may be more of challenge.
- anthk 1y ago
  >hasn't much beyond blacksmithing and so was able keep those basic skills. That's an Anglo-Saxon black legend. How do you think boats and trebuchets were made? Navigation in the ocean without trig? Astrolabes? Yeah, sure. Year 600 wasn't the same as 1200. Read about Alphonse X. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso_X_of_Castile https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso_X_of_Castile
NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
>We made it at least a few thousand years without it. We did that during a period of peculiar circumstances that won't ever be replicated. Relatively large, distributed population with many different ecological environments that we were already pre-adapted to. A far smaller single-point-failure population that can't just go out and hunt for its food among the vast wildlife might have it pretty rough if industrial civilization were to falter.
digitalsushi 1y ago
i just learned about the Haber process. This guy, Fritz Haber, realized we could suck nitrogen out of the literal air and make soil fertilizer with it. The population is like 4 times higher than it would be without it. Scary how high up this tightrope is.

Legend2440 1y ago

Be more concerned about whatever nuclear war or social breakdown led to that point. Massive industrial manufacturing systems don’t shut down for nothing.

vardump 1y ago
It could also happen as natural decay over centuries. There's no guarantee we'll get more advanced over time.
- spencerflem 1y ago
  That would be a pity, but I don't see why we'd be toast.
kimixa 1y ago
To have zero effort in attempting to reproduce even 70s-era silicon technology for 30 years implies some real bad stuff, if the entire chain has been knocked out to that level I doubt "silicon chip fabrication" would really be a worry for anyone during that time.

kimixa 1y ago

Eh, there's plenty of small fabs globally that do smaller run "nowhere near cutting edge" (180nm or so) runs - you can make a pretty decent processor on that sort of tech. Would be a pretty solid intermediate step to bootstrap automation and expansion in the cases where the supply of the "best" fabs is removed (like in a disaster, or the framework to support that level of manufacturing isn't available, such as your colony example)

anthk 1y ago
Forth Deck and CPUs with TTL's from magic-1.org.

LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago

https://www.minimalfab.com/en/ https://www.minimalfab.com/en/