Hacker News Reader

Comment by ashildr | Hacker News Reader

> I think humans would probably be able to build back pretty quickly given the tech and manufacturing capability we have today.

I’m not trying to be rude, but I don’t think that you have any knowlegde of the logistics and the advanced electronics, biology, chemistry and processes that is necessary for the current manufacturing we have to work. If you look into this and learn how complex even the production of the most simple objects and devices is, you may lose some sleep. And this is only about infrastructure - not engineers/specialists who know how to build and operate it. On top there are no easily available hydrocarbons left to bootstrap an industrial civilization a second time.

If we fuck up this time, or are fucked up by a major extinction event, we’ll be stuck in early middle ages until we die out.

View on HN

I'm quite acquainted with said knowledge. A small community surviving with a garage full of machine tools, some glassblowing, and a bookshelf of dusty encyclopedias, could easily bootstrap back to the early 20th century. A bit of steam reforming and the gigatons of plastic trash gives an ample source of chemical precursors to replace petroleum for chemical uses, and biofuel/gasification for energy. Not to mention millions of solar panels for the taking.

Just because it's not economical to do these things now, does not mean it would be impossible, especially in dire straits.

Would it cut the human population to a few million? Probably. Reset to the middle ages? Hardly.

What are the real innovations that make the modern world?

- the surface plate and 3-plate method

- steel metallurgy

- certain key chemical processes: Haber, Bosch, etc

- electrical generation

- the radio/telegraph

- the transistor

- calculus and algebra

All would survive a full-blown nuclear attack. Rebuild would be slow and tedious, but completely plausible, if not guaranteed.

With a nuclear winter, incoming sun energy for solar would be attenuated. Crops would be contaminated and yields due to the same solar attenuation would further be degraded.

Running a machine show would be a practice in slow decline to some very basic levels as you expend your specialized materials dependent on more complex supply chains. You could easily starve while trying to bootstr

I would guess some humanity would survive, but it would be a huge dice role wether you had the basic food and energy resources available in your area, as well as the sheer luck to avoid death from environmental poisoning or missing any of a thousand civilizational inputs (like basic medicines).

A lot of people like to playact like they would survive. I think it would be horrific.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com