If a disaster left us with pre-industrial technology, could we become advanced again?

[linkxsc]

In a word...NO

With most of the easily obtainable fossil fuels already gone, no way do we come back to even our present level.

It's why we are in such a tight corner now !

We have pretty much thrown away 50 years thanks to the anti nuclear Cassandra's.

By now, we could have pretty much been TOTALLY independent of fossil fuels for power generation.

You know you are in the s**t when even the anti nuclear brigade regard Fracking as a worse option then fission reactors !

Simon

You know, even if we were totally independent from fossil fuels for power generation/transport....wed still be fcked in half of the apocalyptic scenarios (esp the EMP, hell the Russians burned down a powerplant as I recall while testing a couple nukes... imagine that on the scale of the world. And now imagine that happening to a nuke plant itself? Yeah lots of them have millions of powerfailure modes... But how good are they at shutting themselves down when every computer connected to them is dead and all wires coming going into the thing are getting crazy varying voltage spikes?)

Even then since the event happened all across teh world, its not like all the oil suddenly disappeared. Canada would still have most of its oil, there'd still be tons and tons of it sitting in the Gulf. I see you're from the UK, well you're kinda screwed on that. But even with all these debates, its not like all the machinery on say an oil platform would die off (only the computers... and last I checked, those weren't exactly the most integrated machines around, computer/electronic needs can be bypassed if given time to re-engineer) Also ships would still be floating. Yes their navigation systems might go down, but many of the older container and cargo ships engines could be brought online with some work, and navigation could be done again by the stars, the biggest factor in the age of sail was their lack of accurate timepieces, they could find out where they were north south, it was east/west that was the problem.

Saudi Arabia is probably having some serious problems during this time of apocalypse too (its not exactly a country that can support its population well without imports, and if all their supply routes are cut off many of their people would be starving. Given a generation goes by, could probably haul right into the coast with a couple ships and men, get to an oil field and set up camp. The oil platforms would have likely been abandoned years ago because they're kinda worthless now. Or you could always trade with them for the oil.

Refinery... well dunno about bringing old ones back on line myself but its not like they're particularly complex. They heat up the oil and give it time to separate, then they suction it off at different heights and thats the different types of fuel depending on height. Find a book and some plans that are likely at the plant, and now you're cookin. Also I dunno about your country, train tracks everywhere and we have lots of people who collect old steam engines, those things would be beasts during this intermediate time period at transporting goods and well son of a gun, they're depressingly simple machines aswell, and wood isn't lacking in supply.

The only reason why fossil fuels really matter is because they give us unsurpassed power in material transport (and to an extent, materials gathering such as mining or harvesting) Forgoing the ability to move resources on a scale though, you'd never have the chance to bounce back.

And don't forget. You could possibly use an existing engine, replace the cam shaft so that you don't have a compression/power stroke anymore, although you might just leave it, compressing and expanding your steam once would just lower your efficiency a bit. And pump some high pressure steam into the intake manifold. What would normally be the intake stroke, the high pressure steam forces itself in and pushes the piston down. Seems like an interesting project... need to find an old small 2 cylinder engine that noone minds never working right again. Well there goes next weekend.

[Seret]

You can't really turn an ICE into a steam engine, but you can turn it into a wood gassification engine and run it off firewood without too much hassle.

[Duxwing]

there is no 1 shot 1 kill rule in hunting that i know of, generally though at least when hunting in nh and maine forests though, if you dont hit them with the first shot, they bolt and often you wont get a second shot. Often even if you hit then they still bolt and you have to track them down. Yeah just go for getting them with the first shot. In the hills of the midwest though you might get second and third shots at them.

Multiple supersonic bullets from a semi-automatic (or fully-automatic) rifle could hit an animal before it could react because the shooter could quickly tap the trigger.

Guns be everywhere man. Though i can vouch for the competent people. First time i ever went shooting my dad took myself and 4 of my friends along. A few of us were airsoft players so basic aiming had already been learned. But srsly, from 100yds (little less then 100m) away my friend wes couldnt hit a 36in(little less than 1m) target... or the plywood board it was attached to, the first or second day with a scoped .22lr rifle. Same gun all us others shot with, all the while he was being instructed.

Practice makes perfect.

ty, though id try for the adults first before the eggs (might not be laying season anyways) also if any eggs are cracked and not gonna hatch, could boil them and use them for feed too.

Catching birds would be too hard.

Catching bears... need a pretty solid net. Although definite point. A salt lick with a triggerable net trap (or perhaps a leg grabber type rig) could easily attract deer and moose in my area. If 1 could get their hands on some tranquilizer to subdue them while you move them to a pen, itd probably work great. But youd need high fences to hol them. Those things make it over our 5ft fence all the time.

You could make palisade with a gate that would snap shut, trapping the bear or elk. Domestication would involve feeding the animal with scraps on a rope tossed over the side like a fishing lure.

-Duxwing

[linkxsc]

Multiple supersonic bullets from a semi-automatic (or fully-automatic) rifle could hit an animal before it could react because the shooter could quickly tap the trigger.

A full auto with a small caliber at close range maybe. A deer at 200-300 yards shooting .308, the recoil will throw off the shots. But im in the woods, the foliage is more of a problem than the deers speed

Practice makes perfect.

Ofcourse. But i said that to impress the fact that even with guns, lots of people will be wasting ammo all over the place because they have no idea what theyre doing. You can practice, but that takes up your limited ammo.

Catching birds would be too hard.

Literally my friends and i when we were little would go out with blankets and sticks catch turkeys for fun (no videogames for us). Really not too hard, especially if you have something to feed them. Guneafowl probably arent too much harder. And we caught pheasents lije this before too.

You could make palisade with a gate that would snap shut, trapping the bear or elk. Domestication would involve feeding the animal with scraps on a rope tossed over the side like a fishing lure.

-Duxwing

Countless ways of catching game. Hell bears are regularly attracted to my bird feeders.

On the note to Seret. It might not be efficient, but doable with the replacement of the cam driver (turn it into a 1:1 rather than the 2:1, though gears might not be forthcoming.

Edited August 5, 2014 by linkxsc

[Seret]

With most of the easily obtainable fossil fuels already gone, no way do we come back to even our present level.

Oil and gas are getting harder to find, but there is still stupid amounts of coal left that's easily accessible. Several hundred years even at current rates of consumption. Coal can provide both gas and liquid fuels if required (albeit at lower efficiency than natural gas or oil).

- - - Updated - - -

It might not be efficient, but doable

Maybe, I'm not quite sure why you'd bother though.

[Simon Ross]

@Seret

Ever manually dug coal ?

Simon

[linkxsc]

Oil and gas are getting harder to find, but there is still stupid amounts of coal left that's easily accessible. Several hundred years even at current rates of consumption. Coal can provide both gas and liquid fuels if required (albeit at lower efficiency than natural gas or oil).

Wood and coal, pretty much everywhere, and with a bit of work useful for steam. Also hydrogen gas is fairly easy to make if you have a sustainable electrical source (water wheel driving a generator, and compressors for the h2 and o2)

Maybe, I'm not quite sure why you'd bother though.

On the steam engine thing... dunno why either, but it could be done and given some circumstances, might be a good way to do it.

Edited August 5, 2014 by linkxsc

[linkxsc]

@Seret

Ever manually dug coal ?

Simon

Nope. But we dug it with steam powered shovels in the past, and we could do it again in the future

[RRG]

At least on the tropics, ethanol from sugar cane could be an alternative to oil. And it should also be relatively easy to fix harvesting machines and convert them to run with ethanol, if they don't already.

[vger]

At least on the tropics, ethanol from sugar cane could be an alternative to oil. And it should also be relatively easy to fix harvesting machines and convert them to run with ethanol, if they don't already.

Farmers have occasionally converted vehicles to run on manure.

[linkxsc]

Ethanol is fairly easy to make if you have some yeast already. A still is just some piping, a burner, and a couple of barrels. Yeah early on you wouldnt be able to make much but you could expand. Now you have disenfectant, fuel for lamps and gasoline engines and to help star fires in wet wood, also from there you can make vinegar for pickling/preserving food.

[Seret]

Ever manually dug coal ?

No, but that's how it was done in the past. Remember that this disaster has thrown everything back to pre-industrial technology. Manual labour would be the normal way of getting everything done.

No more comfy life for us lazy modern folk.

[Eurojo46]

Since I'm an Astrobiologist, here's the long version.

Scenario 1: If an alien civilization came to destroy us for harvesting; iron for example. Our future would largely depend on the magnitude of industrious harvesting, because of atmospheric conditions and resource amounts after harvesting. 10,000 or so years later, again depending on conditions, we would have possibly de-evolved or physically degraded to match the environmental requirements. Some hundred years later, we would have re invented similar technologies, but our species would look and think vastly more different. If the harvesting was too high of a magnitude, we would die out.

Scenario 2: If an environmental disaster took place, It would again depend on magnitude. Similar events would take place.

If this helped, I'm glad it did! PM me if you have any questions. Remember, this is official!

I actually study topics similar to this!

Edited August 5, 2014 by Eurojo46
Forgot something important

[sndrtj]

(Disclaimer: I haven't read all 9 pages of this, might repeat some stuff said by others)

I think it's quite unlikely humanity will permanently slide back to pre-industrial-type technology after a natural disaster. Even if the Earth is hit by a comet with a 15km radius, at 70 km/s (that's solar escape velocity at damned Mercury), at a dead-on angle of 90 degrees, immediately damage would be nearly 0 at the other side of the planet from where it hit (thank you person who shared that calculator!). The change of such a heavy impact event is practically 0, but still, for the same of argument, let's keep it in. If it hits in the south pacific ocean, the immediate damage to humans would be relative small, and basically all developed economies would be totally spared (apart from Oceania). It is likely organized society, at least in the West, would hold up quite OK in such an event. Sure, the first few years would be very grim, but if society holds, I think we can avoid the worst. If we have some warning, we might not be able to construct huge caves (and it'd be unnecessary even, methinks) in the time available, but mass-producing greenhouses should be doable. A simple greenhouse consists of some plastic sheets, or even an inflatable bubble. Use the right crops, and you don't even need soil. Just water and dissolved nutrients. Yes, rations are going to be extremely tight, but the nuclear winter would be survivable for society itself.

Even if large scale civilization ceases to exist, there are likely pockets of civilization and order that survive. My own country (Netherlands), tho small, could probably sustain itself for quite a few years thanks to greenhouses and a large gas field (if we're not overrun by our ev0l eastern neighbour, that is ), if we're not pulverized by a tsunami. And if the gas runs out, we could turn to old-school peat burning. And even then, a society doesn't need to be rich or food-independent to sort of function. Just look at North Korea. It's a hell to live, poorest country on the planet, draconian government, nothing to eat. Hell on Earth. Yet, literacy rates are near 100%, and society is pretty much well-organized.

Now let's suppose organized society does break down, and most people will be left on their own, I'd guess that we'd probably get a smattering of city-states. Everyone who has lived in the good days will know numerous tiny things about technology, all of which will greatly speed up reinventing it. Our ancestors didn't have that luxury. It's not necessary to know exactly how something works; just a rough outline is enough to push one in the right direction. For instance, I roughly know how to make a chemical battery. I don't remember the exact solutions, but I know it involves sticking two sticks in two vats of chemicals connected through some kind of membrane/bridge. Etc etc. Now, bring all those people who roughly know something together, and you'd probably get working stuff quite quickly. What I'd worry most of is that the big leaps forward have to come from the first generation. Especially when books or other media are no longer widespread, it is going to be difficult to tell our children how our world looked like. How do you explain the workings of a phone, a computer, or even an oven to someone who's never seen anything more complex than a spade? Let alone abstract concepts like electromagnetism and so on.

Another aspect that I'd worry about is communication. Our world generally uses highly standardized communication systems. E.g. the HTTP protocol, or government-sanctioned radio frequencies. If all these small city states reinvent mass communication, they probably all use a slightly (or not so slightly) different protocol. That's going to give some major headaches while communicating with other city states.

[shynung]

...literacy rates are near 100%...

I should point out that literacy in North Korea is defined by the ability to write, in Korean, the name 'Kim Il Sung'.

I do agree, though, that knowledge about technology, even a little, can give us quite a head start compared to our ancestors if we are ever to rebuild society from scratch.

[SelectHalfling0]

It would probably take many generations, but eventually humans will learn how to use combustion engines and such again.

[ThinkOutsideTheHangar]

Yes. There are tons of sustenance farmers in Asia and Africa, and they are probably going to be only survivors anyway. After ^^many generations^^, they could rediscover modern technology. EDIT: Also, people in the front posts, THIS IS PRE INDUSTRIAL TECHNOLOGY. THERE ARE NO SCRAPS PEOPLE CAN REVERSE ENGINEER. NO ENGINES, ONLY TOOLS BEFORE THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION (18th century.)

Edited August 7, 2014 by ThinkOutsideTheHangar

[Jetwave]

The most likely "disaster" that would leave us with pre-industrial technologies would be that we are unable to reduce our dependency on oil, and as such we would run out. If that happens, there would be large riots in all of the modernised countries, leaving many dead. Anything that is oil based would become rare, as well as food and other essential things that wouldn't be able to get transported to the stores. Electricity would stay on for a few days. During the months after this crisis, governments collapse, looting and murder become more common, and chaos ensues. Eventually we might end up with a world similar to the last of us, except without zombies. Survivors would band together into small factions in the wilderness, building new self-sustaining communities. After many many MANY years, we might rebuild society, and some of the technology we have today might resurface. Of course, it would have to use a different form of fuel than oil, and we likely won't have anything similar to plastics anytime soon, but we would still be able to continue as a species and advance our technologies.

@ThinkOutsideTheHangar:

You didn't ask the question, don't make up the rules. This is fictional theories. It's perfectly plausible that people from the future would uncover our technology. They might not know what it is, but they would have it.

[ThinkOutsideTheHangar]

It said in the first post and the topic title that the disaster left us with pre industrial technology. There would be no useable scraps left if that was true.

[Seret]

The most likely "disaster" that would leave us with pre-industrial technologies would be that we are unable to reduce our dependency on oil <snip> Electricity would stay on for a few days.

Most countries actually get almost none of their electricity from oil.

[_Augustus_]

Well, we'd still have the knowledge about how to make stuff, so..

WE HAVE DA POWER

[Capt.Joseph Kerbertson]

Mankind has existed for a very long time without technology. It wouldn't take very long to get back into the swing of things. Humans are quite inventive, even in times of peril.

[linkxsc]

Mankind has existed for a very long time without technology. It wouldn't take very long to get back into the swing of things. Humans are quite inventive, especially in times of peril.

Fixed your post

On the note of only preindustrial tech (lit pre1800s, actually i dont even think a lot of people realise how advanced we were between 1600 and 1800, which ill admit is dwarfed by 1800-1900, which again is dwarfed by almost every decade of the 1900s). Preindustrial isnt even really that bad, sailing ships, muskets, fertilizer, the beginnings of advanced steels. Heck the simple knowledge of the Chinese wheeled cart over the western wheelbarrow would put me miles ahead of many. And still, even if blasted back in tech, theres no way to remove the shreds of modern tech that would be left over.

[Seret]

We'd definitely progress quicker. It took them quite a while to implement important innovations like standardised parts during the actual industrial revolution. We'd not only know that we should be doing it from day one, we'd already have the standards to use.

[Jesrad]

I don't know if that's been mentioned before, but the Long Now Foundation has several projects set up for just the kind of disaster discussed here. Its Manual for Civilisation initiative is a repository of all techs + languages, and necessary knowledge to kickstart civilisation back to our current level.