[marcosdumay]

> The main thing I think we'd really miss is life sustaining medicine.

Yes, we need flexible chemistry machines on the style of CNC mills. The good news is that they aren't that far away, at the next pandemics we will probably have them.

[fock]

you didn't have those meds at all in 1918 either (and this was OPs point). and for the NZ case: did NZ ever have a real industry? With a 4.5 Mio. population today I somehow doubt that... As for basic industries (and meds): in western europe at least, we still have those things, small-scale and specialized, but we have it, including all the supporting industries (what we don't have is electronics, which 1918 wasn't a thing yet ;)). We needed to import the raw materials for 200 years. So?

[hef19898]

Try rubber, or anything oil-based, in Germany back then.