Ask HN: How do you propose to rebuild industry in a post-apocalypse world?
72 comments
There is a manga/anime about this: doctor stone.
For the knowledge preservation, I guess that a copy of deepseek has most of the required information. But, it would be hard to run it in a primitive world.
For the knowledge preservation, I guess that a copy of deepseek has most of the required information. But, it would be hard to run it in a primitive world.
Thanks. I think the knowledge should contain at least text, image and tutorial videos. It would be nice if it contains some VR training programs too.
The only problem is, we need to find secure areas and long term power supply for these stuffs. The "good" thing about the virus is that it's not going to kill the infrastructure, but it kills the people who maintain them.
I'm thinking, maybe private citizens should prepare such a small library as well, just for survival. There must be some VR games about camping, fishing, tool making, etc.
The only problem is, we need to find secure areas and long term power supply for these stuffs. The "good" thing about the virus is that it's not going to kill the infrastructure, but it kills the people who maintain them.
I'm thinking, maybe private citizens should prepare such a small library as well, just for survival. There must be some VR games about camping, fishing, tool making, etc.
Tom Murphy over at Do The Math[1] argues that we would not be able to reboot modernity after an apocalypse.
The short version of his argument is that we long ago mined/drilled/farmed/harvested the easy resources that can be gotten with pre-industrial technology. The raw materials we are extracting today require modern methods and materials.
We can't bootstrap ourselves from human and animal muscle power back to industrial capacity because it is inadequate to the task.
We might have the theoretical knowledge to do it, but we'd be unable to build out the infrastructure.
And no, scavenging won't solve it because the energy and technology required to recover the raw materials again requires industrial processes and materials we won't have the ability to harness.
1 https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/
We might have the theoretical knowledge to do it, but we'd be unable to build out the infrastructure.
And no, scavenging won't solve it because the energy and technology required to recover the raw materials again requires industrial processes and materials we won't have the ability to harness.
1 https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/
He has a point. I thought about including this point into my original post but hesitated because I didn't really know how hard/easy to mine resources nowadays.
Optimistically, it might not be a blocking issue, because the much smaller population does not need that much resources. But we need to make some calculations. And I'm sure it's going to be very tough for countries that lack resources.
Optimistically, it might not be a blocking issue, because the much smaller population does not need that much resources. But we need to make some calculations. And I'm sure it's going to be very tough for countries that lack resources.
A population without the Haber-Bosch process would be much smaller.
Yeah there are so many key knowledge that ordinary people just take for granted. But that's how we built up modern industries throughout the centuries.
I guess it is not realistic to ask for one generation to rebuild everything, and that's why I think we really need a lot of those "knowledge" and "tools" storage. I know many countries have such storage for wars, but are they accessible to ordinary people in case most of the population is wiped out?
I guess it is not realistic to ask for one generation to rebuild everything, and that's why I think we really need a lot of those "knowledge" and "tools" storage. I know many countries have such storage for wars, but are they accessible to ordinary people in case most of the population is wiped out?
Not just knowledge, but the Haber Process is part of a complex machine that involves mining and transporting the feedstock (methane), distributing and applying the product (ammonia), etc. Economic infrastructure (dollar, euro, etc). Nobody knows how to build a major government money system from scratch.
We've turned the Earth into a complex and delicate machine for sustaining human life. We don't know how complex or delicate.
We've turned the Earth into a complex and delicate machine for sustaining human life. We don't know how complex or delicate.
So the population is smaller for a while and then it gets bigger. What of it? Unthinkable suffering, yes, but that wasn't the claim, the claim was about capability.
Obligatory Dr. Strangelove quote:
Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say... no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops.
Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say... no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops.
If you cannot provide modern fertiliser equivalents, your population will get smaller, yes. It won't get appreciably larger because of that first problem.
But we have landfills which are full of great raw materials. I would argue that it is easier to collect steel from a landfill than from a mine during the industrial revolution.
Collect, yes. But those materials, at the end of the consumer use cycle, are definitionally about as far as possible from raw. Having collected this scrap steel, how do you propose to smelt it efficiently for reuse with little or nothing that burns hotter than the local hardwoods? That's the question actually being asked.
I believe you can work some grades of steel tolerably with manual, bellows-fired forge processes, but not all of it will still be the same kind of steel when you finish (decarburization, etc), some you won't be able to meaningfully hot work at all, and you likely won't be reliably able to produce pieces much beyond the quality you could get in bloomery days - forgings and hot working would benefit from well-chosen scrap of compatible metallurgy, but everything would tend over time to rehomogenization into something between wrought iron, and what we would now call low- to medium-carbon mild steel.
That's far from nothing, you can do at least as much with it as our ancestors did, but it also isn't close to anything we'd call "modern." Between the relatively enormous energy inputs required to do any meaningful hot working and the relative scarcity of materials no longer being manufactured, tools and objects made of iron would probably come to be family heirlooms again for more than sentimental reasons: replacing your hipster thrice-great-grandfather's cast iron might indebt you the equivalent of half a year of your struggling truck farm's proceeds.
(It is still called a 'truck farm.' No one knows why. The old missus in town who reads says it has to do with some of the old machines, but even she doesn't try to pretend she ever saw one of them move, so no one thinks much of that. But all the village, not only the half or so she's midwifed, is happy to grant her her modest notions.)
I believe you can work some grades of steel tolerably with manual, bellows-fired forge processes, but not all of it will still be the same kind of steel when you finish (decarburization, etc), some you won't be able to meaningfully hot work at all, and you likely won't be reliably able to produce pieces much beyond the quality you could get in bloomery days - forgings and hot working would benefit from well-chosen scrap of compatible metallurgy, but everything would tend over time to rehomogenization into something between wrought iron, and what we would now call low- to medium-carbon mild steel.
That's far from nothing, you can do at least as much with it as our ancestors did, but it also isn't close to anything we'd call "modern." Between the relatively enormous energy inputs required to do any meaningful hot working and the relative scarcity of materials no longer being manufactured, tools and objects made of iron would probably come to be family heirlooms again for more than sentimental reasons: replacing your hipster thrice-great-grandfather's cast iron might indebt you the equivalent of half a year of your struggling truck farm's proceeds.
(It is still called a 'truck farm.' No one knows why. The old missus in town who reads says it has to do with some of the old machines, but even she doesn't try to pretend she ever saw one of them move, so no one thinks much of that. But all the village, not only the half or so she's midwifed, is happy to grant her her modest notions.)
"Not raw" is actually generally an advantage, as it's possible to sort through landfills to find directly-usable materials, or those which can be fed to an electric arc furnace (presuming that level of sophistication), or a charcoal-fed blast furnace.
This isn't great, mind you, but it's a good start.
Steel has a relatively high melting point. Other metals, notably aluminium and copper can be worked at far lower, far more attainable temperatures.
Keep in mind that modern steelmaking really doesn't begin until the Bessemer process (1860s), and that was far more predicated on high-volume, high-quality fuels (anthracite coal) than it was in the input iron ore grade. Knowledge of and access to liquid oxygen, far better process (and temperature) controls, and improved metallurgy, through the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries have advanced smelting and fabrication even further.
NB: "Truck" means to barter or trade. A "truck farm" is one on which cash crops (rather than those for local consumption) are grown, usually vegetables rather than staple grains (wheat, maize, rice).
<https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/truck%20farm>
(And I'm realising you're painting a picture of a future in which etymological knowledge is scarce, just thought I'd answer that question.)
This isn't great, mind you, but it's a good start.
Steel has a relatively high melting point. Other metals, notably aluminium and copper can be worked at far lower, far more attainable temperatures.
Keep in mind that modern steelmaking really doesn't begin until the Bessemer process (1860s), and that was far more predicated on high-volume, high-quality fuels (anthracite coal) than it was in the input iron ore grade. Knowledge of and access to liquid oxygen, far better process (and temperature) controls, and improved metallurgy, through the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries have advanced smelting and fabrication even further.
NB: "Truck" means to barter or trade. A "truck farm" is one on which cash crops (rather than those for local consumption) are grown, usually vegetables rather than staple grains (wheat, maize, rice).
<https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/truck%20farm>
(And I'm realising you're painting a picture of a future in which etymological knowledge is scarce, just thought I'd answer that question.)
I asked no question for you to answer, save the one you actively and at not obviously needful length failed to treat at all. How do you propose to power an electric arc furnace on peat, coal, or hardwood? How do you propose to produce liquid oxygen with like premodern fuels, which the problem statement declares as a constraint? Save the trivial point that less useful metals with lower melting points are easier to work, what does any of what you've said have to do with anything I and my prior interlocutor actually were conversing about?
That last question, though at least actually asked, also requires no response. Its answer is obvious, also trivial, and unrelievedly in the negative.
That last question, though at least actually asked, also requires no response. Its answer is obvious, also trivial, and unrelievedly in the negative.
I suspect you and I share similar pessimistic views of what a post-industrial, post-carbon, post-collapse scenario might be capable of. I was amending and supplying technical corrections to your points, though I agree generally that landfills won't come close to replacing historical raw material sources.
Addressing the question of metalworking and presuming a rubbish tip source, it's useful to note:
- Previously refined metals won't need refining or smelting but rather recycling. This generally simply requires heat. Aluminium does not, for example, require (electrically-driven) reduction, iron and steel do not require (coke, oxygen, or hydrogen based) carburation. The heat requirements remain challenging, but it is still a lesser challenge than production from ore.
- There are conceivable thermal processes which might assist, and for which technological knowledge even in the absence of prodigious energy resources might suffice. Solar thermal energy (requiring polished mirrors, but these being reasonably attainable) can achieve temperatures of 3,500 °C (6,330 °F). Steelmaking "only" requires temperatures of ~1,700 °C. Total capacity of a solar furnace would be well below that of a fuel- or electrically-powered blast or arc furnace, but useful quantities of metals and glass could likely be produced without extirpation of forests for charcoal.
- Siting near geothermal or hydroelectric resources, and presuming electrical generation, could enable electric-arc furnaces. Even today much aluminium production is opportunistically sited near such cheap power sources.
Several of these options might not be immediately available following a widespread collapse, but could be bootstrapped within reason over time, though most likely at far lesser scales than at present.
My suspicion is that a post-collapse society, and/or a future technological society operating with a rewewable energy basis (biomass, hydroelectric, geothermal, solar, wind) would probably have very different material bases (far more stone, brick, and ceramic, some plant-based materials whether structural timber or plant-fibre-reinforced ceramics), a vastly different land-use pattern (concentrated rather than sprawled settlements) and transportation (water-borne, canals, heavy reliance on pedestrian travel, possibly electric-powered transit and freight, minimal air travel). Overall energy-intensity comparable to the late 19th / early 20th century in the US and Europe may be reasonably attainable with smaller populations, and on balance that wasn't particularly burdensome. Food production is probably the major hurdle without Haber-Bosch ammonia production. Sufficient farm mechanisation given some available fuel and/or power distribution (alcohol, biodiesel, possibly synthetic hydrocarbon production, elecricity) would have a huge societal benefit even at small fractions of present total and per capita energy usage, not just for agriculture but other high-benefit uses such as marine propulsion and remote heat and power.
This is a discussion site, and the discussions occur between more than just two people (e.g., comment and response). I was responding with additional context for any reader interested, though of course you can be presumed to have interest. Discussions are not however proprietary, and shouldn't be treated as such.
Addressing the question of metalworking and presuming a rubbish tip source, it's useful to note:
- Previously refined metals won't need refining or smelting but rather recycling. This generally simply requires heat. Aluminium does not, for example, require (electrically-driven) reduction, iron and steel do not require (coke, oxygen, or hydrogen based) carburation. The heat requirements remain challenging, but it is still a lesser challenge than production from ore.
- There are conceivable thermal processes which might assist, and for which technological knowledge even in the absence of prodigious energy resources might suffice. Solar thermal energy (requiring polished mirrors, but these being reasonably attainable) can achieve temperatures of 3,500 °C (6,330 °F). Steelmaking "only" requires temperatures of ~1,700 °C. Total capacity of a solar furnace would be well below that of a fuel- or electrically-powered blast or arc furnace, but useful quantities of metals and glass could likely be produced without extirpation of forests for charcoal.
- Siting near geothermal or hydroelectric resources, and presuming electrical generation, could enable electric-arc furnaces. Even today much aluminium production is opportunistically sited near such cheap power sources.
Several of these options might not be immediately available following a widespread collapse, but could be bootstrapped within reason over time, though most likely at far lesser scales than at present.
My suspicion is that a post-collapse society, and/or a future technological society operating with a rewewable energy basis (biomass, hydroelectric, geothermal, solar, wind) would probably have very different material bases (far more stone, brick, and ceramic, some plant-based materials whether structural timber or plant-fibre-reinforced ceramics), a vastly different land-use pattern (concentrated rather than sprawled settlements) and transportation (water-borne, canals, heavy reliance on pedestrian travel, possibly electric-powered transit and freight, minimal air travel). Overall energy-intensity comparable to the late 19th / early 20th century in the US and Europe may be reasonably attainable with smaller populations, and on balance that wasn't particularly burdensome. Food production is probably the major hurdle without Haber-Bosch ammonia production. Sufficient farm mechanisation given some available fuel and/or power distribution (alcohol, biodiesel, possibly synthetic hydrocarbon production, elecricity) would have a huge societal benefit even at small fractions of present total and per capita energy usage, not just for agriculture but other high-benefit uses such as marine propulsion and remote heat and power.
This is a discussion site, and the discussions occur between more than just two people (e.g., comment and response). I was responding with additional context for any reader interested, though of course you can be presumed to have interest. Discussions are not however proprietary, and shouldn't be treated as such.
Landfills are not full of fossil fuels
They can be, to at least modest amounts, in the form of plastics (effectively solid oil) and methane (from decay of organic matter).
But not in the sense of quantities available from traditional coal mines, or oil/gas wells, no.
But not in the sense of quantities available from traditional coal mines, or oil/gas wells, no.
Hmm, I would have thought we could use wood fires to get to wood pellet steam engines and from there we could work our way up.
Wood pellets are made how?
Ask yourself "how do I make the tool to do that?" Recursively
Steam engines made of what?
Ask yourself "how do I make the tool to do that?" Recursively
Steam engines made of what?
Ditto
Is the modern optimized form of the technology necessary for the application? Obviously not. You are the infomercial salesman who can't use a screwdriver. Or an ax.
Good reply but it reads far better without the final two sentences, BTW.
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43456130>
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43456130>
It is not obvious to me that without the efficiencies provided by modern technology that the result would be a good use of energy and material.
The fact that wood pellets are made by one specifically industrially-intensive process doesn't mean that they must be made by such a process.
Interesting historical footnote: Kingston charcoal briquettes, a slightly larger-form of wood pellets, were created as an incidental product of Henry Fords automotive factories. These produced a large quantity of scrap wood waste which Ford saw a market for.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsford_(charcoal)#History>
Interesting historical footnote: Kingston charcoal briquettes, a slightly larger-form of wood pellets, were created as an incidental product of Henry Fords automotive factories. These produced a large quantity of scrap wood waste which Ford saw a market for.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsford_(charcoal)#History>
Industrialisation was made possible by the existence of large deposits of fossil fuels which were relatively easy to extract. Most if not all of those readily available energy sources, along with many other useful materials, have long been exhausted.
Modern society has been using increasingly complex technology to continue to find and extract those resources. Presumably, we might be able to keep this going for quite a long time.
However, if humanity somehow reverted to pre-modern technology, I don't think that it would be possible for us to industrialise again.
Modern society has been using increasingly complex technology to continue to find and extract those resources. Presumably, we might be able to keep this going for quite a long time.
However, if humanity somehow reverted to pre-modern technology, I don't think that it would be possible for us to industrialise again.
(Picture of an industrial plant powered by water wheel and burning biomass)
Noooooo it's impossibbblleeeee!
Noooooo it's impossibbblleeeee!
To crush grain? Sure. To build iPhones, not likely
One step at a time. Remember, you have to show not that one step fails, but that one step fails and cannot be worked around. It's a heavy claim.
> burning biomass
Murphy goes into this in one of his posts. The energy density of fossil fuels is such that it's hard to convey that vast quantity of biomass it takes to equal it.
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2023/09/can-modernity-last/#more-...
Murphy goes into this in one of his posts. The energy density of fossil fuels is such that it's hard to convey that vast quantity of biomass it takes to equal it.
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2023/09/can-modernity-last/#more-...
[deleted]
Hence charcoal. It sucks, but on the path of bootstrapping lots of things are going to suck.
I'm split on whether or not to read those posts. On one hand, now that I know his credentials, I know it won't be a complete waste of time -- but on the other, I fully expect his analysis to be chock full of infuriating "the way it was done was the only way it could have been done" assumptions that I would disagree with, discover that many before me had disagreed with, to no response because this isn't a dialogue.
EDIT: I read the post. I really shouldn't have. He's not just unimaginative in the industrial sense, he's spurred on by terrible objectives. I am going to save my sanity and bail on this before I get suckered into arguing with madness. Still, thanks for the link.
I'm split on whether or not to read those posts. On one hand, now that I know his credentials, I know it won't be a complete waste of time -- but on the other, I fully expect his analysis to be chock full of infuriating "the way it was done was the only way it could have been done" assumptions that I would disagree with, discover that many before me had disagreed with, to no response because this isn't a dialogue.
EDIT: I read the post. I really shouldn't have. He's not just unimaginative in the industrial sense, he's spurred on by terrible objectives. I am going to save my sanity and bail on this before I get suckered into arguing with madness. Still, thanks for the link.
The problem with charcoal is that the input fuelwood requirements are absolutely immense, particularly where charcoal itself is an input to further industrial processes (e.g., glassmaking, iron forging, steelmaking).
Great Britain had cleared its own forests by the 18th century or earlier just producing modest quantities of glass and iron, and was importing lumber from Sweden and the American colonies (both as fuel and structural timber). Vaclav Smil's numerous books go into great detail on the fuelwood demands of iron production. Based on an earlier comment of mine, that's 40--80 kg of source fuelwood per kg of produced iron.
Charcoal is renewable but it is far from limitless.
In other matters, you're giving Murphy short shrift.
Great Britain had cleared its own forests by the 18th century or earlier just producing modest quantities of glass and iron, and was importing lumber from Sweden and the American colonies (both as fuel and structural timber). Vaclav Smil's numerous books go into great detail on the fuelwood demands of iron production. Based on an earlier comment of mine, that's 40--80 kg of source fuelwood per kg of produced iron.
Charcoal is renewable but it is far from limitless.
In other matters, you're giving Murphy short shrift.
There's an excellent paper, "Burning Buried Sunshine" by Jeffrey S. Dukes (2003) which details just how much biomass goes into fossil fuel resources (coal, oil, and gas), and over what time periods that accumulated. Murphy doesn't cite it, though I'd run across mention of it in Vaclav Smil's books and elsewhere after discovering the paper initially on my own.
<https://plus.maths.org/content/burning-buried-sunshine>
<https://web.archive.org/web/20170207103418/https://dge.carne...> (PDF)
<https://plus.maths.org/content/burning-buried-sunshine>
<https://web.archive.org/web/20170207103418/https://dge.carne...> (PDF)
Modern technology enables us to cover part of our current energy needs with renewable sources. Absent a great technological regression, it is likely that eventually we will transition to a future where fossil fuels are no longer needed.
However, the question at hand is what would happened if we somehow did revert to pre-modern technology.
In that case, IMHO it would not be possible to reach again the industrial capacity that we have in the XXI century because the non-renewable resources that were required in the past have long been exhausted.
We might be able to catch up with the XVIII century though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromford_Mill
However, the question at hand is what would happened if we somehow did revert to pre-modern technology.
In that case, IMHO it would not be possible to reach again the industrial capacity that we have in the XXI century because the non-renewable resources that were required in the past have long been exhausted.
We might be able to catch up with the XVIII century though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromford_Mill
Did you ever forged a knife? Just an ordinary kitchen knife, nothing special. I bet you didn't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knife_making
Possibly the most important industrial tools we would need is cutting tools. That's not kitchen knives. Those are easy. It's drill bits and lathe cutter heads. That type of steel can't be made with a water wheel and burning biomass.
High quality steel that can't be made in those conditions is also needed for rail tracks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knife_making
Possibly the most important industrial tools we would need is cutting tools. That's not kitchen knives. Those are easy. It's drill bits and lathe cutter heads. That type of steel can't be made with a water wheel and burning biomass.
High quality steel that can't be made in those conditions is also needed for rail tracks.
Canals are a reasonable substitute for railways in many cases.
They're slower, yes, but can move far more goods at scale, and with only modest power inputs.
In colder climates (should such exist), they also become ice highways in winter time, which permit for year-round bulk transport. Though the elevation gain/loss features of canal locks are lost in the latter case.
They're slower, yes, but can move far more goods at scale, and with only modest power inputs.
In colder climates (should such exist), they also become ice highways in winter time, which permit for year-round bulk transport. Though the elevation gain/loss features of canal locks are lost in the latter case.
It's useful knowing that the typical water wheel or James Watt steam engine which replaced it was only putting out 5--10 horsepower (~4--8 kW). Modern industrial plants require megawatts, and occasionally GW (e.g., aluminium smelting, electric-arc furnaces).
This sounds far more likely to be a failure of imagination along the same lines as malthusian catastrophe, peak oil, and Moore's Law Is Dead (all notoriously oversubscribed by academics) than a true constraint.
Predictions for the exact date of peak oil were wrong,
but it will still happen.
In fact,
Alaska's oil production peaked in 1988,
conventional oil production peaked around 2005,
and new oil discoveries peaked in the 1960s.
Exxon-Mobil acknowledges publicly that all the "easy" fossil fuels have been found.
Modern fossil fuel production is complex, difficult, expensive, and hugely damaging to ecosystems.
Many of the claimed reserves may not be reachable even with current sophisticated extraction methods.
The growth will end, the world will start sliding down the other side of the curve. It's only a question of when.
The growth will end, the world will start sliding down the other side of the curve. It's only a question of when.
There's a book about this! Lewis Dartnell's "The Knowledge". I'm not saying it's actually a real answer, but it's fun in a sort of mental Dwarf Fortress kind of way.
A similar book is Ryan North's "How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler." It is framed as part of a user manual for a rental time machine that can travel as far back as 12,100,000 BCE and return to the present day. Should the time machine break during a visit to the past, the "Repair Guide" section of the manual helpfully explains: "There are no user serviceable parts inside ... ." The rest of the manual (about 400 pages) "contains all the science, engineering, mathematics, art, music, writing, culture, facts, and figures that are required for one human—without any specialized training—to build a civilization from the ground up."
I read that book cover to cover when it came out and it was pretty cool. It won’t get us back to advanced semiconductors because there is just too much to reinvent to get there but it would get us back to 1930s type lifestyle with modern niceties on top.
The Knowledge was nice, but I found Ryan North's book to be much better, at least as a book. Far funnier, with a very nice through line of laughing at how slow humans were to come up with some pretty obvious ideas. (Often, humanity invented something as a toy before realizing, a hundred+ years later, that it could be used for real.)
I like The Knowledge the same way I like the US version of "The Office", in that any time I just want something on so I can shift my brain off whatever it's jammed up on, I can start it up at any point in the middle and just play it (the audiobook, of course).
I don't know that I thought it was a great book, but it was a book-length description of a version of Dwarf Fortress I would definitely play. :)
The Knowledge also works with a slightly different set of constraints, in that it's explicitly about rebooting --- that takes a lot of fossil fuel options off the table, for instance, because all the easy-to-get coal and oil has been taken.
I don't know that I thought it was a great book, but it was a book-length description of a version of Dwarf Fortress I would definitely play. :)
The Knowledge also works with a slightly different set of constraints, in that it's explicitly about rebooting --- that takes a lot of fossil fuel options off the table, for instance, because all the easy-to-get coal and oil has been taken.
Check out the Phil Gingery series of books. He discusses how to build a lathe using scrap metal and sand (starting with a foundry). From there it’s all magnitude.
Should this be David Gingery instead?
Scenario: I think a deadly virus outbreak is far more
likely and devastating than a thermal nuclear war. Let's
assume that such an outbreak took out most of the
governments and the population, and only local communities
start to show up afterwards.
How do you reboot modern industry? I'm sure we can scavenge
stores and storehouses for a while, but eventually we need
to rebuild a very large portion of modern technologies, if
not all of them.
0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages_(historiography)
I don't disagree with you, but I think we can do something to accelerate such process. Maybe not 1,000 years, maybe just a few generations? After all we already made the progress and now need to relearn and rebuild it. And hopefully enough technicians, engineers and scientists survive.
> I don't disagree with you, but I think we can do something to accelerate such process. Maybe not 1,000 years, maybe just a few generations? After all we already made the progress and now need to relearn and rebuild it.
Consider as a counter example the Antikythera mechanism[0]. It took well over a millennium for collective knowledge to reach the same point such that similar devices could be created.
For immediate survival needs, rediscovery would very likely be quicker. Things like crop irrigation, water management in general, and/or food preservation I imagine would be the quickest to be rediscovered.
0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism
Consider as a counter example the Antikythera mechanism[0]. It took well over a millennium for collective knowledge to reach the same point such that similar devices could be created.
For immediate survival needs, rediscovery would very likely be quicker. Things like crop irrigation, water management in general, and/or food preservation I imagine would be the quickest to be rediscovered.
0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism
In the right hands, knowledge that something specific can be done is often enough to dramatically accelerate discovery. It allows for serious resource allocation in a specific trajectory, while the rate-limiting step in original discovery is working through innumerable dead ends, which both individuals and institutions are understandably reluctant to commit serious resources towards. See: Soviet thermonuclear program.
> In the right hands, knowledge that something specific can be done is often enough to dramatically accelerate discovery. It allows for serious resource allocation in a specific trajectory, while the rate-limiting step in original discovery is working through innumerable dead ends ...
For this theory to hold, it would have to explain the inordinate duration of the Dark Ages.
My explanation of same is the prerequisite for successful discovery is collective understanding of foundational principles, not awareness of previous achievements. For example, just because someone has knowledge of the Catskill Aqueduct[0] existing doesn't mean recreating another like it would be any quicker if the underlying knowledge was lost.
0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catskill_Aqueduct
For this theory to hold, it would have to explain the inordinate duration of the Dark Ages.
My explanation of same is the prerequisite for successful discovery is collective understanding of foundational principles, not awareness of previous achievements. For example, just because someone has knowledge of the Catskill Aqueduct[0] existing doesn't mean recreating another like it would be any quicker if the underlying knowledge was lost.
0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catskill_Aqueduct
I'd suggest looking in the direction of the Global Village Construction Set being worked on by Open Source Ecology: https://wiki.opensourceecology.org/wiki/Global_Village_Const...
Thanks, first time heard about it.
It's probably more useful to look both at how our modern technological society did evolve, and at groups which are seriously considering existential risk, complexity, and potential paths to a reboot.
Among the latter is the Long Now Foundation, which has proposed a Manual for Civilization (02010):
<https://longnow.org/ideas/manual-for-civilization/>
I've my own disagreements with LNF, but the concept is worth consideration and the effort to compile useful knowlege worth studying for both points of agreement and difference.
The question of how, why, where, and when the Industrial Revolution (writ broadly, ~1700 to present) emerged has filled books. The so-called Needham Question asks why it was the British Isles and not China which saw the IR take off. Needham's exploration of this topic, begun in 1954, has produced 27 books to date and remains underway. Wikipedia's article gives a good overview, as well as the general organisation of the work and its contents to date:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_Civilisation_in_Ch...>
I've been partial to histories of the world through the lens of history, most notably Vaclav Smil's Energy and Civilization: A History (2017) and Energy in World History (1994), and Manfred Weissenbacher's Sources of Power (2009).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaclav_Smil#Books>
<https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/sources-of-power-9780313356278...>
Smil has also looked at many other elements of technological history, material usage, and energy transitions, see the publications section of his Wikipedia bio above.
What's notable is that most of the material and energy ingredients of the modern world have been known since antiquity, but were not, or could not be, usefully employed, for various reasons. There's endless speculation as to why, with theological, technical, scientific, social, political, geographical, and other justifications given. I suspect it's many of these inter-operating, and that the bootstrapping process is a sensitive and delicate one.
Many of these elements are covered in the series the Princeton Economic History of the Western World:
<https://press.princeton.edu/series/the-princeton-economic-hi...>
There are of course other books which touch on this topic (and I'd strongly recommend Polanyi's The Great Transformation), but if you want one-stop shopping over many dimensions of the question, this is an excellent place to start.
My own thinking leads me to believe that there are nine fundamental dynamics to technological mechanisms:
- Fuels
- Materials
- Power transmission and transformation (simple machines, electromagnetic, etc.)
- Process knowledge (technical)
- Causal knowledge (scientific)
- Networks (nodes and links, physical or logical, experience "network effects" and network contagion)
- Systems (feedback)
- Information (input, parsing, storage/retrieval, logic, transmission)
- Hygiene (addressing unintended / unanticipated consequences)
In particular, the availability or discovery of new fuels and materials has typically resulted in widespread societal changes and progress, though also in other areas (e.g., information technologies, from speech to writing to maths to printing to digital IT). At the same time, each mechanism has limitations and consequences which also affect capabilities and impose limits.
By way of outlining a specific answer: the shape of a solution or reboot will depend tremendously on what materials and fuels are available, how they're accessed (our own waste dumps are likely to be major sources moving forward), and the consequences of past and present industrialisation on that landscape. Fundamental requirements of food, housing, and basic production capital will establish general capabilities. Transportation, over land and sea, possibly air, will determine requirements for self-sufficiency or possibilities of trade. Our ability to address basic production and distribution (whether through market or other means) general living conditions within and between specific societies and polities.
I'd additionally strongly recommend the work of William Ophuls and Thomas Homer-Dixon.
Among the latter is the Long Now Foundation, which has proposed a Manual for Civilization (02010):
<https://longnow.org/ideas/manual-for-civilization/>
I've my own disagreements with LNF, but the concept is worth consideration and the effort to compile useful knowlege worth studying for both points of agreement and difference.
The question of how, why, where, and when the Industrial Revolution (writ broadly, ~1700 to present) emerged has filled books. The so-called Needham Question asks why it was the British Isles and not China which saw the IR take off. Needham's exploration of this topic, begun in 1954, has produced 27 books to date and remains underway. Wikipedia's article gives a good overview, as well as the general organisation of the work and its contents to date:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_Civilisation_in_Ch...>
I've been partial to histories of the world through the lens of history, most notably Vaclav Smil's Energy and Civilization: A History (2017) and Energy in World History (1994), and Manfred Weissenbacher's Sources of Power (2009).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaclav_Smil#Books>
<https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/sources-of-power-9780313356278...>
Smil has also looked at many other elements of technological history, material usage, and energy transitions, see the publications section of his Wikipedia bio above.
What's notable is that most of the material and energy ingredients of the modern world have been known since antiquity, but were not, or could not be, usefully employed, for various reasons. There's endless speculation as to why, with theological, technical, scientific, social, political, geographical, and other justifications given. I suspect it's many of these inter-operating, and that the bootstrapping process is a sensitive and delicate one.
Many of these elements are covered in the series the Princeton Economic History of the Western World:
<https://press.princeton.edu/series/the-princeton-economic-hi...>
There are of course other books which touch on this topic (and I'd strongly recommend Polanyi's The Great Transformation), but if you want one-stop shopping over many dimensions of the question, this is an excellent place to start.
My own thinking leads me to believe that there are nine fundamental dynamics to technological mechanisms:
- Fuels
- Materials
- Power transmission and transformation (simple machines, electromagnetic, etc.)
- Process knowledge (technical)
- Causal knowledge (scientific)
- Networks (nodes and links, physical or logical, experience "network effects" and network contagion)
- Systems (feedback)
- Information (input, parsing, storage/retrieval, logic, transmission)
- Hygiene (addressing unintended / unanticipated consequences)
In particular, the availability or discovery of new fuels and materials has typically resulted in widespread societal changes and progress, though also in other areas (e.g., information technologies, from speech to writing to maths to printing to digital IT). At the same time, each mechanism has limitations and consequences which also affect capabilities and impose limits.
By way of outlining a specific answer: the shape of a solution or reboot will depend tremendously on what materials and fuels are available, how they're accessed (our own waste dumps are likely to be major sources moving forward), and the consequences of past and present industrialisation on that landscape. Fundamental requirements of food, housing, and basic production capital will establish general capabilities. Transportation, over land and sea, possibly air, will determine requirements for self-sufficiency or possibilities of trade. Our ability to address basic production and distribution (whether through market or other means) general living conditions within and between specific societies and polities.
I'd additionally strongly recommend the work of William Ophuls and Thomas Homer-Dixon.
Addenda: For those wondering why I put so much emphasis on Needham when China didn't spark the IR, it's both a good bad example in that China developed one heck of a lot of technology we'd consider essential (printing, papermaking, compass, gunpowder, deep drilling, natural gas distribution, just to name six), without launching a mechanical and steam-powered industrial boom, and contributed many of those technologies to the West over the years. Francis Bacon noted the Four Great Inventions specifically of the compass, gunpowder, papermaking, and printing, see: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Great_Inventions>.
The clear lesson is that technological capacity and determinism alone don't explain the IR.
While I'm adding points: it's often been noted that Great Britain's geography, being a large island adjacent to a larger continent, afforded distinct advantages. In which case it's interesting to note similar geographies which did not similarly launch industrial societies, most notably Japan, but also, say, Madagascar, Cuba, Sri Lanka, the Indonesian archipelago, and New Zealand (at a stretch).
The island of Great Britain is very close to the European mainland (~30 km / 20 miles at the narrowest point of the Channel), closer than any of the alternatives but still far enough to make an invasion highly unlikely. The geography is sedimentary / metamorphic rather than igneous, which translates to major fossil fuel deposits on and nearby (coal onland, oil and gas offshore, though the latter weren't developed until the 1970s). The situation generally leads to a stable political situation (as with Japan). The proximity and existence of capable polities and cultures on the mainland led to extensive commerce and intellectual exchange. Cuba, Madagascar, and New Zealand all lacked the latter.
(I've not thought much on Sri Lanka and Indonesia though those should also give interesting insights.)
The clear lesson is that technological capacity and determinism alone don't explain the IR.
While I'm adding points: it's often been noted that Great Britain's geography, being a large island adjacent to a larger continent, afforded distinct advantages. In which case it's interesting to note similar geographies which did not similarly launch industrial societies, most notably Japan, but also, say, Madagascar, Cuba, Sri Lanka, the Indonesian archipelago, and New Zealand (at a stretch).
The island of Great Britain is very close to the European mainland (~30 km / 20 miles at the narrowest point of the Channel), closer than any of the alternatives but still far enough to make an invasion highly unlikely. The geography is sedimentary / metamorphic rather than igneous, which translates to major fossil fuel deposits on and nearby (coal onland, oil and gas offshore, though the latter weren't developed until the 1970s). The situation generally leads to a stable political situation (as with Japan). The proximity and existence of capable polities and cultures on the mainland led to extensive commerce and intellectual exchange. Cuba, Madagascar, and New Zealand all lacked the latter.
(I've not thought much on Sri Lanka and Indonesia though those should also give interesting insights.)
Kartiya are like Toyotas. When they break down we get another one.
– remark by a Western Desert woman about westerners who work in Indigenous communities
– remark by a Western Desert woman about westerners who work in Indigenous communities
Here's how one Chinese RPG game think of it: they save as much knowledge as possible, and then send it to the outer space, hoping to find a right planet to settle down again and rebuild civilization first, and then one day make a call back home and return earth to its former glory. (That's Genshin Impact/Honkai Impact 2&3)
Here's how one Japanese RPG game think of it: they separated human body and soul and send it to outer space as well, and the "people" who lived in the earth will now be humanoid androids instead to prevent themselves from being "corrupted", in other word, your soul could remote control the robot from outer space, and achieved "immortality". (That's Nier Replicant/Gestalt/Automata)
But after all, the only problem is: how do we prevent the entropy/information we human build over thousands of year from being annihilated from a single black swan, disastrous event. That's one of the reason I liked informatics so much.
Here's how one Japanese RPG game think of it: they separated human body and soul and send it to outer space as well, and the "people" who lived in the earth will now be humanoid androids instead to prevent themselves from being "corrupted", in other word, your soul could remote control the robot from outer space, and achieved "immortality". (That's Nier Replicant/Gestalt/Automata)
But after all, the only problem is: how do we prevent the entropy/information we human build over thousands of year from being annihilated from a single black swan, disastrous event. That's one of the reason I liked informatics so much.
Who are we saving it for? That level of black swan will end humanity and … well, that's it. We won't need the info. Any species that arises after us will likely follow different paths of development. Any species receiving the information would have to be at a very specific point of development in order to even understand what they received.
If we're saving it to aid future generations of humans understand us and/or rebuild or something useful, then by all means, save it. But if we're just trying to prove to the universe that we existed, I don't think the universe cares one way or the other.
If we're saving it to aid future generations of humans understand us and/or rebuild or something useful, then by all means, save it. But if we're just trying to prove to the universe that we existed, I don't think the universe cares one way or the other.
I actually think that in a virus scenario humanity would be able to bounce back fairly quickly (meaning 100 years instead of 10,000), presuming there is a solution for the virus
Why? Because the virus doesn't actually kill infrastructure. Many roads and bridges will be ok-ish sitting around with no load for a while. Many factories and tools will be mostly in tact. Most importantly though, it infra will be fine. A laptop with a backup of Wikipedia can sit around for a few decades, and generating some electricity locally is not that big of an issue.
That would kickstart humanity's recovery. We don't need to reinvent the wheel, just read how someone else did it
Why? Because the virus doesn't actually kill infrastructure. Many roads and bridges will be ok-ish sitting around with no load for a while. Many factories and tools will be mostly in tact. Most importantly though, it infra will be fine. A laptop with a backup of Wikipedia can sit around for a few decades, and generating some electricity locally is not that big of an issue.
That would kickstart humanity's recovery. We don't need to reinvent the wheel, just read how someone else did it
I think this is both true and yet completely insufficient.
There’s a whole system that produces the people and materials that enable every field of endeavor. Having the books and the eg. sub-nanometer scale silicon wafer etching machine does not get you a new iPhone.
There’s a whole system that produces the people and materials that enable every field of endeavor. Having the books and the eg. sub-nanometer scale silicon wafer etching machine does not get you a new iPhone.
Yeah, I agree. The whole chain is long and no one really knows everything. Even China doesn't produce everything albeit it is the manufacturing powerhouse of the world right now.
Since I live in Canada, a country that needs to import a lot of manufactured goods from foreign countries, I'm worried that a reboot is not possible. Adding the US into the picture improves quite a bit, but again US has transformed from a manufacturing giant to a financial one for many decades.
Since I live in Canada, a country that needs to import a lot of manufactured goods from foreign countries, I'm worried that a reboot is not possible. Adding the US into the picture improves quite a bit, but again US has transformed from a manufacturing giant to a financial one for many decades.
I was surprised a couple of years ago to read that the US no longer made the aluminum tubing used to make bicycle frames. Despite having quite a significant custom frame building scene and many craftspeople, such a simple raw material was no longer made in the US.
I'm sure there are many, many things like this, for most countries.
I'm sure there are many, many things like this, for most countries.
Yeah I think that's the "pro" part. But I think potentially a virus can kill a lot more than a nuclear war (I could definitely be wrong) so there aren't many people left. Most resources online don't really teach common people to build factories anyway.
For example how does a community build a small steel factory? We need a lot more details than Wikipedia.
For example how does a community build a small steel factory? We need a lot more details than Wikipedia.
Probably best not to get hung up on specific scenarios, though if you want to explore that space, Jared Diamond, Collapse, offers a theory of civilisational collapse and likely mechanisms based on previous history:
<https://archive.org/details/jared-diamond-collapse-how-socie...>
I could see a pathology, one more likely attacking our agricultural base than humans directly, as being one fairly likely precipitating event. A cascade failure, including supply-chain collapse and financial contagion as well as developing political dysfunction and potentially regional or global war as consequential features of a more fundamental failure, and then the problems of local self-sufficiency in a world that's grown all-but-entirely interconnected, might do it.
But the question here is far more how to recover and with what knowledge than "why'd it happen in the first place".
Neal Stephenson's unspecified "agent" from Seveneves is useful here. We know that something destroyed the Moon, what it was specifically isn't really of any narrative importance.
<https://archive.org/details/jared-diamond-collapse-how-socie...>
I could see a pathology, one more likely attacking our agricultural base than humans directly, as being one fairly likely precipitating event. A cascade failure, including supply-chain collapse and financial contagion as well as developing political dysfunction and potentially regional or global war as consequential features of a more fundamental failure, and then the problems of local self-sufficiency in a world that's grown all-but-entirely interconnected, might do it.
But the question here is far more how to recover and with what knowledge than "why'd it happen in the first place".
Neal Stephenson's unspecified "agent" from Seveneves is useful here. We know that something destroyed the Moon, what it was specifically isn't really of any narrative importance.
I think it’s unlikely that a reboot gets us to iPhones again (within hundreds of years anyway) because of the easy resources all gone issue.
Can we get back to imperial Roman quality of life? Or 1600s Europe? Maybe, but different.
For the first few generations we’d have some people with useful knowledge. After that, interpreting the artifacts will become harder.
There also the question of whether the remnant population would want to rebuild the society that had collapsed.
I think it’s much more productive to focus on not wiping out most of humanity in the first place.
Can we get back to imperial Roman quality of life? Or 1600s Europe? Maybe, but different.
For the first few generations we’d have some people with useful knowledge. After that, interpreting the artifacts will become harder.
There also the question of whether the remnant population would want to rebuild the society that had collapsed.
I think it’s much more productive to focus on not wiping out most of humanity in the first place.
I agree that it looks grim, but I do think preserving a full set of documentation for every industry helps the future generation to reboot. The resource part is not solvable, I have to admit that. The only hope is that with much less population and a forever mind of scarcity we do not need that much resources.
Actually, taking away the virus part, looks like we are dead if we can't get out of earth to mine other planets economically before the resources are depleted. But as far as I heard, that is super expensive. Maybe colonization with terraformation is the only answer? But we are so far from it.
Actually, taking away the virus part, looks like we are dead if we can't get out of earth to mine other planets economically before the resources are depleted. But as far as I heard, that is super expensive. Maybe colonization with terraformation is the only answer? But we are so far from it.
Information would absolutely be useful.
The current generation however will struggle: there won't be an Internet, so all the information will be in paper books. And finding what you want when presented with a library without a paper catalog ... there's a whole bunch of people needed to rebuild indexes that had moved online.
I'm confident that small numbers of people can survive with the resources available. Maybe tens or even hundreds of thousands in total, in medium-sized groups on fertile land and in good climates. But I don't think rebooting to 21st century technology would be possible inside hundreds of years.
The current generation however will struggle: there won't be an Internet, so all the information will be in paper books. And finding what you want when presented with a library without a paper catalog ... there's a whole bunch of people needed to rebuild indexes that had moved online.
I'm confident that small numbers of people can survive with the resources available. Maybe tens or even hundreds of thousands in total, in medium-sized groups on fertile land and in good climates. But I don't think rebooting to 21st century technology would be possible inside hundreds of years.
Isn’t the Dewey decimal system universal so that the same book will have the same reference no matter which library it’s in? So all it would take is one analog index somewhere and it would apply to every library.
Even without it, there are sections that are labeled in libraries that require no index.
Even without it, there are sections that are labeled in libraries that require no index.
> because of the easy resources all gone issue.
Definitely true for coal and petroleum (and those are big ones), but are other resources much more available? (e.g. metals could be "mined" from excess infrastructure)
Definitely true for coal and petroleum (and those are big ones), but are other resources much more available? (e.g. metals could be "mined" from excess infrastructure)
I'm absolutely no expert here, but tin comes to mind. It was a critical ore with limited sources during the bronze age, and required a substantial trading economy to exist to allow bronze-based technology to flourish.
Extracting resources from the detritus of the 20th and 21st centuries would surely be a major activity. But to efficiently do so requires a bunch of power and chemistry and reagents/catalysts that are themselves probably a heap of work to acquire.
Getting iron and mild steel from rebar, fallen bridges, rail lines, cars, etc, would likely be plausible though. It wouldn't be high-quality steel, but for blacksmithing-type stuff, it'd work ok. Probably sufficient for sand-casting too? Aluminium and copper are probably recyclable too, although I'm not sure how aluminium would work with different source alloys?
Extracting resources from the detritus of the 20th and 21st centuries would surely be a major activity. But to efficiently do so requires a bunch of power and chemistry and reagents/catalysts that are themselves probably a heap of work to acquire.
Getting iron and mild steel from rebar, fallen bridges, rail lines, cars, etc, would likely be plausible though. It wouldn't be high-quality steel, but for blacksmithing-type stuff, it'd work ok. Probably sufficient for sand-casting too? Aluminium and copper are probably recyclable too, although I'm not sure how aluminium would work with different source alloys?
It would be an interesting research project to focus on one of them, say coal, and gather as much public information about each major coal mines, as possible.
Their location, owner, operator, status, estimated amount, residual amount, techniques required, anything, everything.
Their location, owner, operator, status, estimated amount, residual amount, techniques required, anything, everything.
[deleted]
One problem is lack of law and order. You can build something and have it stolen by the local warlord or just randomly burned out of spite.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solarpunk
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43236520
I love the concept of Solarpunk or anything similar. However, I fail to understand how to reboot modern industry in a post-apocalypse world.
Scenario: I think a deadly virus outbreak is far more likely and devastating than a thermal nuclear war. Let's assume that such an outbreak took out most of the governments and the population, and only local communities start to show up afterwards.
How do you reboot modern industry? I'm sure we can scavenge stores and storehouses for a while, but eventually we need to rebuild a very large portion of modern technologies, if not all of them.
For a start, how do we produce steel, aluminum and other common metal from raw materials? How do we actually mine them? How do we product antibiotics, needles and everything we need in a hospital? How do we build roads (I think this is actually not too hard)? How do we build transportation tools -- for sure we don't want to rely on animals? How do we build water processing factories, or at least, build water processing tools and pills? As a SWE I feel I know nothing about modern industries.
Modern industries are too complex for any small community to even start to think about them. Someone gotta at least preserve some detailed documents for everything so that our future generations have a chance to rebuild them. Take steel production as an example, assuming mining is not a problem (it is), future generations need to know how such a factory is planned, built and operated. I never worked in such a factory but I bet there are tons of papers for just one of them. Encyclopedias won't cut. They don't teach you the 10,000 checks you need to check for all those pipelines and machines. Only factories and industry associations keep such documents, I think.
How do we build such a knowledge preservation project? They gotta be so detailed that even laymen can start learning. How do we store them? If we store them electronically, we need to make sure that future generations have the tools to access them. We also need copies of such a project everywhere in the world, because post-apocalypse communities are small and far from each other.
I also think such documentations should include smaller scale projects so that communities can actually start using it. If the community only has 1,000 people, a project that needs 10,000 doesn't make any sense.
What do you think? Do you think your country already has it covered?