Sounds like we need a wiki for this stuff. If we managed to get a bunch of engineers contributing, we really would have a guide for rebooting civilization. Maybe include a button to print out the whole thing.
Can anyone really foresee a collapse of civilization which somehow renders all our technology useless and unrepairable, but somehow leaves access to computers and printers available?
I mean it's great to imagine if you want to be a pretend-prepper but the reality is that there will be millions of tons of food in the ground, tens of thousands of pounds of seeds available, oil, gasoline, kerosene, millions of cubic yards of fresh water. Lots of electrical generators, small and large, pretty much anything you need has already been built. etc, etc. You want to build a small house? Get materials from a large building!
We don't need a post-apocalyptic civilization to know how to refine cast iron, we need them to know how to repair diesel engines.
>Can anyone really foresee a collapse of civilization which somehow renders all our technology useless and unrepairable, but somehow leaves access to computers and printers available?
No but I can foresee a number of different collapses of civilization which render almost all computers useless within a relatively short amount of predictable time and the ability to connect those computers before they become inoperable to printers where one would print out numerous copies of the books.
But also, imho, it would be a compelling way to learn how the stuff of civilization actually works.
Maybe I'm weird but it's always sorta bothered me that if I accidentally went a thousand years back in time, I wouldn't know how to restore any significant modern technology. In the same way it used to bother me that I didn't know how to make stone knives and fire without matches, the most basic technologies of human history. Learning how and doing it made me feel like a more complete human being.
OK, maybe I misunderstood the post, but I still stand by my last statement. We don't need to recreate the Industrial Revolution, we just need to be able to repair and use the stuff that's already built.
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