The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

GDB2222

ivyleaf wrote: »

Oh silvercar, what a shock! Such a good thing DH has PHI. Best wishes.

GDB It was a good story even if it wasn't yours Glad your second op is out of the way. When would they hope to do the other one?

maggie How are you?

The second op is supposed to have a gradual effect, so it will take time to find out if it's been effective. Hopefully, it has been, and I am cured. If not, I'll have op number 3 in a month or three. I'd want to wait to be quite sure op 2 has not worked first.

michaels

zagubov wrote: »

I was reading the Knowledge; a handbook about what to do if a plague or other catastrophe wipes out civilisation and how to rebuild everything as quickly and safely as possible

It's a general science book about self-reliance but full of advice like moving to the countryside because houses there still have chimneys and you'll be chopping up and burning wood for heating at some point.

Reading it you'l regret every time you threw away unused medicine. They're chemically very stable, and one of the first things we'd miss if the brown stuff hit the fan.

Thanks for this, I will takes look. I always think of Hitch Hikers g2tg where Arthur is marooned on a less developed planet and despite in theory being privy to all earth's technology all he is actually able to impart is the art of making sandwiches....

GDB2222

It might be difficult to rebuild society, as a lot of the minerals that are easy to extract have been extracted. Of course, the survivors could mine the railway lines for iron, but after that it gets more difficult.

zagubov

It's assumed that metals (and plastics) will have to be used sparingly in the technological reboot.

As the book mentions, all the material structures we're building will erode and be reclaimed to a natural environment. They do say the average lifespan of a modern skyscraper is about forty years (I don't mean they fall down quickly after that, it's just that we replace them so quickly we don't need them to last for centuries.

I did read somewhere else that if human society arose again in the far future, the one most obvious sign of previous technological civilisation would be if people noticed lights in the sky that never moved through night or day or with the seasons.

Years ago I was perturbed by people who assumed there had been higher civilisations in the past, like Atlantis. I never knew how to argue them out of this, until a mate who knows geology mentioned it was all rubbish as we'd never be finding such a wealth of untapped minerals under the ground available for us to dig up if earlier civilisations had risen to a high level of material culture.

michaels

zagubov wrote: »

It's assumed that metals (and plastics) will have to be used sparingly in the technological reboot.

As the book mentions, all the material structures we're building will erode and be reclaimed to a natural environment. They do say the average lifespan of a modern skyscraper is about forty years (I don't mean they fall down quickly after that, it's just that we replace them so quickly we don't need them to last for centuries.

I did read somewhere else that if human society arose again in the far future, the one most obvious sign of previous technological civilisation would be if people noticed lights in the sky that never moved through night or day or with the seasons.

Years ago I was perturbed by people who assumed there had been higher civilisations in the past, like Atlantis. I never knew how to argue them out of this, until a mate who knows geology mentioned it was all rubbish as we'd never be finding such a wealth of untapped minerals under the ground available for us to dig up if earlier civilisations had risen to a high level of material culture.

Not sure, I could sort of imagine our rubbish dumps could be a future eons oil reserves, our nuke power plants third uranium deposits etc once geological time has had its turn.....

PasturesNew

I often sit and think "we have all this stuff, but we couldn't make it from scratch by ourselves if it all went tomorrow".

Even cooking over an open fire.... in what?

But, it's immaterial anyway - and any book "useless" - if civilisation broke down there'd be hoardes of machete wielding maniacs rampaging everywhere to see if you had food and steal your food/stuff from you in any case, so you'd have been beheaded, or hunted down by their hunting dogs and ripped apart.

GDB2222

PasturesNew wrote: »

I often sit and think "we have all this stuff, but we couldn't make it from scratch by ourselves if it all went tomorrow".

Even cooking over an open fire.... in what?

But, it's immaterial anyway - and any book "useless" - if civilisation broke down there'd be hoardes of machete wielding maniacs rampaging everywhere to see if you had food and steal your food/stuff from you in any case, so you'd have been beheaded, or hunted down by their hunting dogs and ripped apart.

Yes, the chances of survival are pretty meagre, and only the nastiest will survive.

zagubov

PasturesNew wrote: »

I often sit and think "we have all this stuff, but we couldn't make it from scratch by ourselves if it all went tomorrow".

Even cooking over an open fire.... in what?

But, it's immaterial anyway - and any book "useless" - if civilisation broke down there'd be hoardes of machete wielding maniacs rampaging everywhere to see if you had food and steal your food/stuff from you in any case, so you'd have been beheaded, or hunted down by their hunting dogs and ripped apart.

Part of the trick is making it clear to everybody what useful skills you've got to offer. You're going to need cooks and chemists and craftsmen and in general, fast learners.

There really are people who take this seriously in parts of America. They get their teeth removed because untreatable oral infections would be common and deadly if there was a lack of dentistry etc.

This books not really for them, it's more of a thought experiment about how to rebuild a workable civilisation rather than build a one-person fortress.

silvercar

The latest CD to add to our collection is one of OH's heart pumping! Nice to have a memento of the occasion, particularly when you declined the offer of sedation so you could enjoy the proceedings!

vivatifosi

Sorry to hear the bottom of the chain is wobbly Pastures. How has your house been lately? Have the ferals been behaving? I have been thinking of you as I noticed Family Search now has a button for indexing volunteers and wondered if you would be interested.

I haven't posted much of late, but thought it was about time for a catch up. Just got back from Brighton. Went down for Pride weekend and it was lovely. Kylie was playing at Pride in the Park and the concert.