For those interested in life after the end of the world · 6:49am Jul 8th, 2014
If you're paying attention to my account because of my Friendship is Optimal story 'Just Be Happy' there is a chance you might be interested in what it would take to attempt a rebuild of civilization from a starting point of just a handful of people. The following is a short list of the sources of inspiration that went into Just Be Happy.
Written by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, arguably the most badflank duo in scifi writing history, this novel is a must read for anyone interested in apocalyptic conditions.
It chronicles the lead up to and aftermath of an asteroid strike. The science behind this is incredibly plausible and it pretty much describes a scenario that could happen in real life. In addition its written with a combination of many interesting viewpoints. There's the merciless survivalists, the clueless city folk, a diabetic astronomer whose days are numbered without access to diabetic medicine and many different shades of religious whackjobs all thrown into one pot where they all have to fight together or against each other for survival.
And not just survival from each other. The world is changed drastically but realistically by the asteroid impact in ways that avoid the tired old giant rad scorpions and endless wastelands of most post apocalypse fiction.
Next up is the Global Village Construction Set
Open source is usually a term applied to software, here its applied to different kinds of hardware. The designs of which are distributed freely with the intent that anyone anywhere in the world will be able to download them and build their own farm equipment rather than purchase stuff mass produced from a factory. Even if you aren't interested in building your own tractor this is still a great resource for understanding what these machines are built to do and how they do it.
Building a civilization is certainly not all about engineering. In a city if you don't like the people you are living with you can just move into a different apartment. When you are huddled together in the same cabin out in the woods with only a few chances to go out all winter long however suddenly getting along with people is a survival skill.
Games people play is one of the best books on psychoanalysis out there and will lay bare the reasons why people do petty, selfish or even self destructive things for you to examine and understand. You WILL learn uncomfortable things about yourself and the way you think while reading this, but you will come away from it with the tools to better understand why seemingly pointless drama is such a huge part of many peoples daily lives.
And on the topic of understanding human emotions Stranger In A Strange Land is a fascinating read for anyone wondering how we might go about improving the human condition to avoid the continual disappointment we experience when dealing with ourselves and each other.
Stranger tells the story of a young man raised on Mars by an alien culture and brought back to Earth. Heinlein does a very good job with this story in capturing a neutral observers perspective on the human race and all its strengths and weaknesses. Then in the last half of the book he takes it a step further and proposes through this young martian man how we might discard the parts of us that only serve to hold us back. This story should be essential reading for anyone interested in transhumanism and is a good primer for those who have never heard of the concept before as well.
There are definitely more influences that I've stumbled across in my life but I am a firm believer in keeping stuff simple and these are the sources that provide most if not all of what you would need to write or contemplate a life without the safety net of civilization.
Another good source is Heinlein's "Tunnel In the Sky", which involves a group of teenagers trying to survive indefinitely on a new planet starting with only the camping supplies they intended for a short trip. The story talks about topics like getting started with pottery, house-building, and good site selection for a town.
There's also the collection of essays here -- I thought I found a better site for them but don't see it now -- based on the "1632" novel series. Gets into topics like "how hard would it be to smelt aluminum starting from primitive tech?"
I've imagined someone making an "Archive of Research and Culture" (ARC) as an apocalypse-proof set of documents including a bunch of textbooks and literature. The data itself would fit on a USB drive, and I picture people walking around with those as a statement about their lack of hope for the immediate future of civilization, but what would it take to have either a printer/reliable computer or something that could be more easily distributed than a pile of books?
2266830 I've imagined someone making an "Archive of Research and Culture" (ARC) as an apocalypse-proof set of documents including a bunch of textbooks and literature.
I would put Lucifers Hammer above Tunnel for the simple reason that it covers more of the basics of survival for those who have maybe been camping twice in their life where as Tunnel assumes the teenagers in question have all the skills but no equipment. In that regard Tunnel would be a great followup read to Lucifers Hammer.
There is the Long Now Foundation which had proposed exactly such a list of books but heck if I can actually find anything useful on their website. The language archiving and genetic preservation projects seem interesting but the rest of the site gives the impression they employ people more interested in having their art projects be around in ten thousand years than in anything else.
The Optimalverses pony pad is actually a pretty powerful data storage tool in its own right. CelestAI could easily teach its user everything they would need to know about rebuilding a civilization through it, she just doesn't want to.
Aside from that theres the fictional example of the Pipbuck... err Pipboy. Although they weren't equipped with a library of civilization rebuilding knowledge there's no reason they couldn't have had that much info stored in text format on them and they appear to be both highly resistant to damage and cappable of supplying their own power needs.
As far as real life examples go this page puts together a good list of challenges in keeping computers from dying while moving or using them out of doors.
There isn't really a good middle ground between how compact you can get data in a computer and the long term, low power storage of lots of bulky books. The only efficiency I can think of to be had is that a lot of books are not written with an eye to how much they weigh but to how complete their information is. Compacting entire libraries worth of knowledge down to just a few books that cover only what is absolutely essential and could be carried in a single backpack seems like an interesting writing challenge...