Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Are You Apocalypse-Useful?
An anonymous reader writes: "Young people, when choosing a profession, are often told to 'do what you love.' That's why we have experts in such abstruse fields as medieval gymel. But let's talk hypotheticals: if there's a worldwide catastrophe in which civilization is interrupted, somebody specializing in gymel wouldn't provide much use to fellow survivors. In a post-apocalypse world, medical doctors would be useful, as would most scientists and engineers. The bad news for Slashdotters is that decades without computers would render computer science and related professions useless. What do you consider to be the most useful and mostly useless post-apocalypse professions? How long would it take for society to rebuild enough for your profession to be useful?"
People can survive quite well without the care of physicians. Going without food is more difficult.
This is why I practise my procreation skills every day. I could be the last man on Earth.
At least it will be cool for a big EPM to take out your student loans
The bad news for Slashdotters is that decades without computers would render computer science and related professions useless.
Says who? Are we talking about a magical scenario where all technology just stops working?
There is a massive cache of existing technology which can be repurposed to rebuild society. Whos gonna do it if not Slasdotters?
We can individually maintain libraries billions of times larger than that of ancient alexandria and provide that wealth of knowledge to others at the cost of suns rays.
I have a neighbour who is a weaver. She most certainly has skills worth sharing. The post-apocalyptic world would also need blacksmiths, potters, carpenters, farmers and so on. Not to mention someone capable of swinging a sword and lopping the heads off marauders intent on dragging off the young women and torching the village. The challenge is that scientists and engineers do not necessarily have the skills most critically required in the first decade or two of a new civilization, but their knowledge is critical to helping a society advance rapidly later. Hence, we'll need monks well versed in the scriptures of science.
I'm an Apocalypse speculator. You might think I'd be at the bottom of the list; but we have been in business since ancient times. We're probably in the top 5 oldest professions. The people who run Slashdot are whoring out to something here, so apparently they will do well also.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Visit an ER or an ambulance with paramedics for half a day, you would be surprised of how much can be done for people even when you have no time or access to equipment and most drugs.
A nineteenth-century schoolbook addresses this question. Post-apocalyptic society might not be too different from that of a "colony." Farmers, millers, carpenters, blacksmiths, masons, shoemakers, doctors, school-masters make the cut; barbers, just barely; silversmiths, soldiers, dancing-masters, lawyers, politicians, and "gentlemen" do not.
[note.â"Mr. Barlow one day invented a play for his children, on purpose to show them what kind of persons and professions are the most useful in society, and particularly in a new settlement. The following is the conversation which took place between himself and his children.]
Mr. Barlow. Come, my boys, I have a new play for you. I will be the founder of a colony; and you shall be people of +different trades and professions, coming to offer yourselves to go with me. What are you, Arthur?
Arthur. I am a farmer, sir.
Mr. Barlow. Very well. Farming is the chief thing we have to depend upon. The farmer puts the seed into the earth, and takes care of it when it is grown to ripe corn. Without the farmer, we should have no bread. But you must work very +diligently; there will be trees to cut down, and roots to dig out, and a great deal of hard labor.
Arthur. I shall be ready to do my part.
Mr. Barlow. Well, then I shall take you +willingly, and as many more such good fellows as I can find. We shall have land enough, and you may go to work as soon as you please. Now for the next.
James. I am a miller, sir.
Mr. Barlow. A very useful trade! Our corn must be ground, or it will do us but little good. But what must we do for a mill, my friend?
James. I suppose we must make one, sir.
Mr. Barlow. Then we must take a mill-wright with us, and carry mill-stones. Who is next?
Charles. I am a carpenter, sir.
Mr. Barlow. The most +necessary man that could offer. We shall find you work enough, never fear. There will be houses to build, fences to make, and chairs and tables beside. But all our timber is growing; we shall have hard work to fell it, to saw boards and planks, and to frame and raise buildings. Can you help in this?
Charles. I will do my best, sir.
Mr. Barlow. Then I engage you, but I advise you to bring two or three able +assistants along with you. William. I am a blacksmith.
Mr. Barlow. An +excellent companion for the carpenter. We can not do without cither of you. You must bring your great bellows, +anvil, and +vise, and we will set up a forge for you, as soon as we arrive. By the by, we shall want a mason for that.
Edward. I am one, sir.
Mr. Barlow. Though we may live in log-houses at first, we shall want brick-work, or stone-work, for +chimneys, +hearths, and ovens, so there will be employment for a mason. Can you make bricks, and burn lime?
Edward. I will try what I can do, sir.
Mr. Barlow. No man can do more. I engage you, Who comes next?
Francis. I am a +shoe-maker, sir.
Mr. Barlow. Shoes we can not well do without, but I fear we shall get no +leather.
Francis. But I can dress skins, sir.
Mr. Barlow. Can you? Then you are a useful fellow. I will have you, though I give you double wages.
George. I am a tailor, sir.
Mr. Barlow. We must not go naked; so there will be work for a tailor. But you are not above mending, I hope, for we must not mind wearing +patched clothes, while we work in the woods.
George. I am not, sir.
Mr. Barlow. Then I engage you, too.
Henry. I am a silversmith, sir.
Mr. Barlow. Then, my friend, you can not go to a worse place than a new colony to set up your trade in.
Henry. But I understand clock and watch making, too.
Mr. Barlow. We shall want to know how the time goes, but we can not afford to employ you. At present, I advise you to stay where you are.
Jasper. I am a barber and hair-dresser.
Mr. Barlow. What can we do with you? If you will shave our men's rough beards once a week, and crop their hairs once a quarter, and be content to help the carpenter the re
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Knowing how to shoot and shoot well would be an invaluable skill.
Although my main profession is software, I also do circuit design, construction, metalworking, carpentry and most of the other building trades
I find that even though the specifics are different, the fundamental skill is the same..problem solving
Software, circuit design, carpentry or any of the other disciplines seem more similar than different
The steps are the same..clearly identify the problem, look at the tools and materials that are available, then find a solution using what you have to work with
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. -Robert A. Heinlein
Pace the implication of the article, medieval musicians and other low-tech entertainers would likely be in high demand.
If electronic technology magically stops working (somehow), then judging by the amount of purchased and pirated music today, one of the most secure professions would probably be musician. And if technology is low, medieval music (or some synthesis of it and modern forms like jazz) would be the go-to.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Which, it turns out, has very little to do with actual computers.
The intellectual skills involved in CS could, with not much difficulty, be turned to other kinds of problem solving such as operations research. Seriously, you're going to leave questions like how to most efficiently distribute scarce resources such as food to someone with a *business* degree? As a computer scientist, I'd create a model of the underlying problem, develop alternative algorithms, then show how those algorithms and model apply the real world problem. I use computer science every time I come home from grocery shopping. As I remove items from the bags I stage them by where they are eventually going to go. Why? Because efficient sorting algorithms eliminate lots of entropy early on. Consequently I only open my refrigerator *once*.
Computer science is essentially about figuring out the resources needed to accomplish things. If you want to figure out how much fodder it would take to move your draft animal powered army over a certain distance, you *could* consult a historian who specialized in the logistics of pre-mechanized warfare who'd tell you how Viscount Howe did it in the New Jersey Campaign of 1776-1777. Or you could find some CS graduate who pulled at least a "B" in algorithms to figure it out for you.
As for experts in gymel -- a technique for singing polyphony with one voice -- it's worth considering that the technique was developed in a period of human history that would be considered apocalyptically awful by modern standards. Even when times are violent, disordered, and desperately poor people still need art and music, and if we're stipulating that apocalyptic == "no computers", that means no iPods either. So it seems quite plausible to me that experts in gymel might find their services *more* in demand in a post-apocalyptic world.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I recently took Blacksmithing I and II at Tillers International for this *exact* reason. As a Network Architect, I'm the alpha geek for data transport and a Blacksmith is the alpha geek for a world gone straight to hell.
A larger point to make is that a number of occupations require problem solving skills. Most of these fields fall in the science or engineering category. Even if the problems of the day were to change to align more with survival and rebuilding civilization, I want a glut of people who are good at problem solving over those who are only good at things which would not be useful - like moving large sums of money around and taking a cut or staring at paint on a wall or canvas.
No electricity means your failing at basic engineering. A coil and a moving magnet is not that hard to come by.
No sir I dont like it.
... until the farmer with knowledge of plants and herbs poisons their dumb asses.
So when you break your leg, you're going to have your witch doctor set it for you?
Vaccines and antibiotics are not high tech -- by which I mean something that requires an extensive and intact industrial infrastructure to produce. Crude replacements could be created by someone with 21st C scientific knowledge and the kind of technology that would have been available to 18th C gentleman scientists.
As for other drugs, a doctor could work with herbalists. Willow bark replaces aspirin; foxglove replaces digitalis; Ephedra sinica replaces pseudoephedrine; absinthe replaces anti-worm medications. A herbalist working under medical supervision is a lot better than nothing.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
So running a conductor through a changing magnetic field will no longer produce a charge?
Putting two lead oxide plates in an acid batch will no longer cause a chemical reaction?
My goodness, I was unaware that a catastrophe large enough to cause an apocalyptic event would change the fundamental laws of physics.
You sound young.
Its not hard to do; on the documentary 'Sliders' one guy made an antibiotic just out of mouldy bread and saved a civilisation.
Sliders was a documentary?
You don't need electricity for soldering, all you you need is something to create heat, e.g. a fire, a needle, and solder: Last time I was on Cuba for a few weeks as a visiting scientists, the power supply of my laptop broke down. I was living in one of those casas particulares, and one of the landlady's relatives proposed to open the power supply (With a saw, because it was glued) . Then he found the bad contact and since they didn't have a soldering iron, he did the soldering with a needle heated in the gas flame. Two weeks later I had to repeat the soldering procedure applying some more tin-solder, but the power supply works without a flaw ever since.
If it is a true apocalyptic scenario, 99% of us will be dead anyway, so my plan is to not prepare at all. It's worth making preparations for scenarios that are more realistic, like bottles of water in case the water gets cut off after an earthquake, or food for a few days when transportation is interrupted. Those kinds of things happen in real life.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
If she could reduce a fracture and sew up a wound; if she could diagnose the most common ailments and give the best advice you could get with the technology available, she'd be about 80% as useful as a modern doctor.
As long as you've got some distance, that plan will work. I'm always amused by the people who live 20 minutes outside a major metropolitan area spouting off with the "I'll shoot them if they come after my _____". There's a couple million people 20 minutes from you who don't know how to do anything other than pick up the phone and order food... You don't have enough bullets...
Hardly. Soldering was one of the first forms of metalworking.
All you need is a heat source; a candle will do in a pinch.
Mind you, in your unlikely world devoid of electricity, there wouldn't be much *point* to soldering electronics anyway.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
"...decades without computers would render computer science and related professions useless."
The idea of graph theory is perfect for building social systems, that withstand breakdown.
The idea for example not to over centralize government for example to avoid disastrous consequences.
We know from graph theory nodes with too many edges are suspect and reveal design weaknesses in computer networks.
The same happens in human social/governing systems. Kings, Queens or many forms of government that are too centralized results in war, death and darkness.
One thing to do after the apocalypse is pick up that graph theory and get to work in building a highly distributed, non centralized society.
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Are you forgetting that barbers were surgeons for hundreds of years as they were the only ones who could handle fine sharp instruments? Not saying they were ideal but they did it when no one else would such as taking off gangrene limbs.
No electricity means your failing at basic engineering. A coil and a moving magnet is not that hard to come by.
I would agree. Unless we end up with something like the show "Revolution" where the laws of physics are turned upside down
then having electricity on a small scale isn't a problem. The most likely scenerio in a collapse would be no cleanrooms, no
rare elements, and therefore no NEW computers so being able to cobble together existing technologies to help with irrigation
systems, etc... would be a highly useful skill. Even in a collapse computers are going to be useful. There will be plenty of tasks
that people will want done on computers and they will want someone to be able to repair them and repurpose them to more
immediate needs.
If we end up in a scenerio where an EMP, nuclear blast, sun spot, etc... fries all the chips then repurposing old technologies
becomes harder but we will still presumably have electricity but might have to rely alot more on crude relays, etc... rather
than abandoned computers. In this scenerio a hardware engineer or electrical engineer would have an advantage but most
computer programmers have at least been exposed to some of this at some point.
Checkmate, suckers.
Perhaps if you all show enough deference, I'll take you with me to the top.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
In either a sudden collapse, or gradual decay, much will be lost. Let me remind you that when the Roman civilization decayed, technologies as simple as the making of cement were lost.
Cement.
Not exactly what we'd consider "high tech." It demonstrates just how fragile our scientific advancements are. They can be wiped out by a few generations of relative illiteracy for the great mass of survivors. In three generations, electric lights are a distant legend and those ubiquitous round copper disks find their most frequent use as quick, easily made arrowheads.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
>So running a conductor through a changing magnetic field will no longer produce a charge?
Sure, if you want to light a flashlight bulb. Rather a far cry from generating 10A at a regulated 120 VAC @ 60Hz, sport.
Mind you weve had water powered wheel for millenias and widespread electrification of western world took place on the early half of the 20th century. Not a insurmountable task for modern professionals especially if their and the lives of their loved ones depend on it.
In a post-apocalypse society, I will raid the nearest electronics stores then wander the land, repairing electronics with my knowledge and large stash of replacement electrolytic capacitors.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
I plan on being a zombie. I plan on leading the zombies. We are talking zombie apocalypse, right?
Slashdotters tend to have vaguely higher intelligence, judging by their impeccable skill at moderating posts and speed of typing "frist post". Completely ignoring science as any good zombie would, I deduce that their brains must be tastier and more wholesomely satisfying to my soon-to-be-acquired tastes for human brains.
Nobody asked which side I'd be on after the apocalypse. I plan on being on the winning side. Now, go make me a sammich... with your ears as bread.
Agreed. I have a magnifying glass that will heat a soldering iron... In fact a little tip for you is if you EVER see a rear projection TV sitting on the curb, GET THE LENSES!!!
I can also use a manual mill, lathe, drill press (all of those used to run on belts from water wheels, they are that old). People solid in science or engineering often have a grasp of the history of technology, having a grasp of historical technique is way more valuable. Problem solving is great but remembering HOW it was solved in the past is infinitely better. If you are serious, find old books and protect and store them... I wish I still owned the encyclopedia set I had in 1965... it had everything from gear cutting details to gun cotton recipes...
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
In other words, keep the candle under the needle while soldering.
You failed at being useful :)
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Forget coils and moving magnets - In a post-apocalypse world there are alternators under the hood of every abandoned car. Some diodes, a windmill or waterwheel and you're in business.
No modern "career job" is useful after an Apocalypse. If you are involved in any kind of competitive (free market) industry, you are using the infrastructure to its best advantage. "Modern" farming knows little to nothing about how to farm without fuel or pesticides. Similarly, modern medicine isn't about basic hygiene or simple infection control.
If you want to be useful after an Apocalypse, take up survivalism as a hobby, learn to grow your own food, make your own tools, including weapons for hunting / defense, and do construction without power tools. But, don't think you can make a living in the real world with these skills, unless you are a promoting your hobby and selling it as a service to others - which takes: modern technology to effectively do your advertising and customer handling, competitively.
Also, the dominant early Apocalypse survivors will be all about Max Max style scavenging of whatever is leftover, you won't get down to the true basic skills until the stores are picked clean and structures have fallen to rubble - and the "natural world" may not resemble anything familiar... adaptability is key.
Submitter has read too many bad books.
Remember, in stories, the world works the way the author needs it to work for dramatic purposes, not necessarily the way that it most likely would in reality.
The typical Mad Max scenario is unlikely. Just like SciFi authors thought we'd have flying cars and take our vacations on the moon, but didn't forsee the Internet and mobile phones, the real scenario will very likely be quite different from the movies you've seen.
Which basically means: Who the fuck knows which skills will be useful and which ones won't? Maybe computers will be worthless and shooting is important. But maybe supply of ammunition runs out a lot faster than electricity which we increasingly generate decentralized with solar and wind farms.
Maybe something entirely unexpected turns out to be the most important skill to have.
Also: Looking at history, civilization-destroying catastrophies are incredibly rare. Most civilizations enter a phase of decline and slowly fade away.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The challenge is that scientists and engineers do not necessarily have the skills most critically required in the first decade or two of a new civilization
Not true. Many of the oldest trades no longer exist so you need someone to develop the techniques and skills again. As a physicist I've never made a steam engine or a large scale electrical generator but I know the basic principles behind them and given time could get one working or figure out how to repair one which breaks. Put that together with a chemist who can figure out how to extract copper and steel from ores and a biologist who can figure out the best crop rotations and dietary requirements and you have the skills needed to greatly increase your survival odds in the first few years.
The advantage of scientists and engineers is not that we are trained for some task but that we have the training to figure out how to do many, many different tasks. We routinely build and do things that nobody knows how to build or do because they have never been built or done before. In modern society it is more efficient to have individuals trained for each special task but without that scientists and engineers will be the ones who will need to reinvent everything which is missing and in the longer term teach the next generation.
In at least one universe, yes.
My supreme skill is calculating the intersections of triangles with tetrahedrons with highest possible accuracy at the lowest computational cost. I am sure there is a job for me in the post apocalyptic world. But, in the odd chance there isn't, I certainly will be useful, may be as food.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
In the 1700s, people started seriously experimenting with electricity, magnetism and general chemistry (as opposed to alchemy).
By the late 1800s we had thermionic valves and semiconductor rectifiers.
In 1949 we figured out how to combine semiconductors in order to make a "transfer resistor" (trans-istor). Followed rapidly by integrated circuits and avalanching into sophisticated nanometer circuitry.
There are still people alive who grew up on farms thinking that diodes and triodes were pretty neat new technogy and you can almost construct stuff like that using bear skins and stone knives. The hardest part, in fact, is the glass-blowing technology required, assuming you don't opt for some other similar vacuum-tight container.
A lot of modern civilization wouldn't be that hard to re-construct if we had the resources available. The knowledge is what took us so long to get here, and unless we lose all the knowledge and the knowledge about the knowledge, recovery wouldn't be a problem. What would hurt more is if we lost our transportation services. Most of what goes into modern electronics is not locally produced where I live.
So one of the most valuable professions might very well be landfill-miner, since the easiest way to get materials would be to extract them from what is now often buried as garbage.
Here's my opinion on apocalyptic planning. You're wasting your energy. We've been predicting that the apocalypse is right around the corner since the dawn of civilization.
Prepare yourself for _likely_ (mathematically probable) scenarios. If you're 40 or under, prepare yourself for the possibility of dying or being seriously injured in an automobile accident. Buy the safest vehicle you can afford, because this is your leading cause of death. If you're over 40, take measures to prevent yourself from dying of heart disease by eating right and getting more exercise.
A cache of guns and a bomb shelter full of provisions won't do you any good if you're obese and you die of heart attack at age 55. Nor will it do you much good if you're in your late 20's and you die in a car crash on the way to Wal-Mart to purchase rifles and canned food.
Continue doing whatever you're doing because if something serious like an asteroid hits Earth, you're already dead. Anything serious like that will completely rewrite all the rules for life, and you can't predict what you will need. Maybe the only thing you will need is genetic resistance to the diseases that will run rampant. Or the ability to hide. Or the ability to relax and not worry. Or the ability to accept death.
Simple mechanical linkages. Easier to build and repair. Welcome to the steampunk apocalyptic aftermath.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
Indeed.
I'm an EE. If the grid goes down and I've got carte blanche, I could get some semblance of electricity up and running in under a week. (Which would enable you to plug in your standard appliances.) I could get solar USB chargers working in the same time frame.
First you get the electricity, then you get the... power... uh... then you get the wom... can I start over?
I know how to make beer.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Being a bum.
No, I'm dead serious. In a post apocalyptic world, you won't need woodworkers and blacksmiths. We're not suddenly back in the middle ages. Everything we had will still be around, but society will break down. And that doesn't mean you have to learn how to make bow and arrows so you can go hunt for deer. It means find the shotgun so you have an upper hand over the other looters in the local Wal Mart.
Why everyone thinks that "post apocalypse" means that everything we did in the last 500 years goes poof over night and we have to fall back on feudal technology is beyond me. It's very likely that at the very least most of what we have will still be there. What will be lost is probably everything that requires some kind of central organization. I.e. don't expect gas, water, power, sewage or any other municipal or other central service still to work. But the stuff will still be there. Your car will still run at the very least as long as there is gas in it. You might not get to refill at the next gas station, but there's still gas in your tank! You might not get power from the power grid anymore but batteries still work. And while you might not know how to build new firearms, there's still plenty of them around along with ammo for them, so there's no need to rely on the ancient art of war. By the time you need this, chances are that YOU won't need it anymore.
Because until we have to fall back on "old tech", I'd guess that a good portion of us would no longer exist. The first ones to go would be the ones that rely heavily on medical treatment. Like dialysis patient. They'd be gone in a week or so. People with severe allergies won't last long either. If society as a whole breaks down, I would not rely on surviving if you're by some stretch handicapped, i.e. if you can't move or if you can't survive on your own. People who need hearing or seeing aids might get by, depending on their disability, but one thing's certain, your glasses better not break. My guess would be that about 5-10% of the population in our "civilized" world is simply unable to make it without said civilization.
Another 10% loss is to be assumed for looting, pillaging and general "I don't like you and no cop can force me to" behaviour. This would of course depend on the amount of firearms that are around. The more, the merrier. Yes, if both sides are armed it means that the other one can shoot back but face it: When you have food and a gun, and I have hunger and a gun, I will attack. Whether I die of hunger or by your bullet, do I give a shit? Attacking you gives me a chance.
So with fights and accidents, I think it's conservative to assume a total loss of personnel of about 50% before we have to think about moving away from living "off the land" (i.e. sustain ourselves by looting and pillaging) and actually have to pick up ancient skills like farming.
So the most apt "profession" to even GET to that 50% phase is, oddly, bums. They already know how to do that. They don't have to learn anything. They know all that is necessary. Where can you scrounge successfully. Where do you find stuff you need to survive. How do you approach others and how to gauge their reaction. How to get the hell outta some place if things get rough.
It's nice if you know how to plant fruits and vegetables, how to build your own tools and how to hunt game, but unless you somehow manage to GET there it's moot.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
ah, so you've never had to do REAL work in your clothes eh?
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
I don't think that would even stop them form collecting debt.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
No amount of autistic raging is going to change the fact that there are definitions and then there are colloquial definitions.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
if a large portion of the population is killed, food won't be an immediate concern as the canned goods on the shelf of homes and super markets will last for years while production gets sorted out.
Rather than just dying, the more likely scenerio is that a large portion of the population quickly starves to death
using up all those canned goods before doing so.
Engineers may seem practical in a post-apocalypse situation but many engineers would also find their skills useless since the tech tree to apply their skill set may be disrupted or none existent.
I think the real problem is that it's highly likely that the tech tree takes more than a single generation to recover so
how do we preserve this "useless" knowledge for multiple generations so that we have it available when the tech
tree recovers to the point where it can be utilized again.
someone capable of swinging a sword and lopping the heads off marauders intent on dragging off the young women and torching the village.
I doubt a post-apocalyptic world will be much like the mediaeval times portrayed in Game of Thrones. In fact the medieval world wasn’t much like that.
Swords were very expensive and used only by the nobility. The peasants use staffs or slings - i.e. sticks and stones, or long bows at certain periods.
As others have pointed out, there can be expected to be plenty of rusting machinery available, so the economy & warfare would be different. It's a lot cheaper to get iron by melting a car engine block - no matter how rusted - than smelting it from iron ore.
So maybe weapons would be different, too. Perhaps with more metal available everybody would have a metal bow, or perhaps with fewer forests and less firewood, metal would be more expensive and nobody would have swords.
Moderated Usenet
We actually had events happen that killed 40 to 50% of the population, its called a plague. These unrealistic scenarios happened every 500 years or so. Even in our modern society if a plague kills so many that medical infrastructure is overwhelmed you can have a vaccine available but lack the means to distribute it or the quantity necessary to vaccinate most of the population.
That's assuming they even have a vaccine. Ebola has no cure and has a 90%+ kill rate.
Oh, and it's already in 3 countries and is continuing to spread: http://umap.openstreetmap.fr/f...
This is all true... But people with a grasp of the history of, well, history, will know that the people most useful to themselves while be the ones (1) with familiarity with whatever weaponry still functions and (2) with a glib tongue to unite likely minded people.
It won't be an apocalypse if we can feed everyone. When we cannot feed everyone, there will be violence. When there is violence, the people will be triaged into three groups:
- the tough and glib (lords)
- the useful professionals (craftsmen)
- the manual laborers, when needed (serfs)
Those who can't cut it as thugs, and do not know something useful will be lucky to be allowed to pick at the dirt and retain enough to feed themselves. In highly populated regions, about one in a hundred will be lucky to be needed as a serf.
This does not apply to regions where the population is sparse enough and the land productive enough so that food is not an issue. But without modern tech, there will not be enough food for the everyone... and big cities will be littered with the dead and dying within a week.
Twenty years ago, I would have tried for lord. Today, I think I may still qualify for 'craftsman'. Twenty years from now, I probably will be a good fit only for 'dead'. So can we not have an Apocalypse, please?
No good deed goes unpunished...
You don't even need diodes because there is a rectifier, and usually a voltage regulator, built right into the alternator. Connect it to a steam engine, and a battery to prime the field coil, and your good to go, most alternators generate about 60 ~ 100 amps @ 13.8 ~ 14.2 volt DC. You can wire the DC output from multiple alternators in parallel for more amperage.
You would also have solar, wind, and water power that you can use to charge a battery bank, 12 volt batteries would become a hot commodity in a post apocalyptic world. DC would be king, AC would be hard to generate because it will be difficult to sync multiple generators so the phases don't cancel each other out, the AC output on automotive alternators is 3 phase.
A computer power supply typically only needs -12, +12, +5, and +3.3 volts DC. In theory, you could rig two alternators in series to generate -12 and +12 volts with a common ground, this would also give you 24 volts across the terminals. You can produce all the voltages by simply MacGyvering a computer power supply, since they all have DC-DC converters.
According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics for 2009, there are 254 million registered passenger vehicles in the U.S. alone, and the U.S. population is 313 million. That's almost enough for every person to have one, I like those odds. That's enough power to keep the lights on at night.
I am an MD, PhD. For many, many situations the diagnostic performance of an expert clinician with basic tools (stethoscope, diapason etc) is up to 80-90% with all the rest of the technology bringing this up to 95-99% (diminishing returns). Furthermore, in an apocalyptic scenario, the very hard, very complex medical conditions would not be a priority: people dying from cancer at age 78 or from complications of diabetes at age 68 would not require the huge resources we can afford to give them in modern society. We would probably be much more preoccupied with helping women give birth, protecting neonates from infections and hypothermia and doing all that stuff that could save millions of lives in the third world today (like hydrating infants with rotavirus infection).
Obviously, modern doctors are not perfectly prepared for such a scenario, but the basic training is there. So, yes, I think a significant part of medical knowledge would be useful in a post-apocalyptic world, even if the infrastructure is not there.
What's all this stuff I read about you trolling people here with sockpuppet fake accounts you made to do so and getting caught?
"You are in a maze of twisty AC posts that all look alike."
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Funny, I recently bought a place and I'm planting a garden. The soil is so clay heavy I could throw it on a wheel, and fire it to at least earthenware temperatures. This also means a rototiller is useless, so I've been using a shovel to remove the grass layer, which I pile up around the edges of the bed, a fork to break up the top 10 inches of clay, and then a wheelbarrow and shovel to cart over topsoil from a pile I had delivered. In a post-apocolypse world, we can omit the delivered dirt, because you wouldn't choose such crappy soil to start with.
I'm 45, not a weightlifter, runner ... not even a regular exerciser. I'm a little chubby from sitting at a desk all the time. In about about an hour and half I can dig up, till with a fork, and wheel barrow over a 10" layer of top soil to do a 10x10 area. This gives me about 20" of planting bed, the 10" I broke up with a fork and the 10" I dumped on top, the grass clumps act like the frame for a raised bed. If this was done in good dirt without the need for added topsoil, subtract half an hour because of easy digging and no dirt hauling.
If I did two of those beds per day, one in the morning and one in the evening, I could dig up 1400 sq ft in a week.
It looks like I'd need about 23,000 square feet to feed myself, but some of that can be made up with space devoted to animals -- most though still goes to garden.
http://www.treehugger.com/gree...
I started this post feeling sort of positive, but tilling soil in this manner burns 4-500 calories per hour. Do this for three hours per day on a 2000 calorie/day diet, and you're going to turn into a rail fast. If it was only 400 calories to dig 100 sq ft of easy soil, and I had to dig 15000 sq ft, I'm going to need an extra 60,000 calories to make it -- an extra month's worth of food to invest in labor to plant a garden. It is sounding increasingly unrealistic to hand dig a garden in the absence of outside inputs, i.e., food for the digger.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good