Hacker News Reader

Comment by umvi | Hacker News Reader

There's an anime called "Dr. Stone" which also explores the concept of starting civilization over with nothing but modern knowledge. The protagonist basically has all of Wikipedia memorized so that he can make optimal choices to advance technology given the resources at hand.

It's kind of silly and often hand wavy (especially when it comes to how much labor is actually needed to realistically produce refined materials). And it has the usual eye-roll-inducing shonen anime tropes. But if you like the "Primitive Technology" YouTube channel, you might get a kick out of "Dr. Stone".

View on HN

On a related note, you might be interested in the book "How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler" by Ryan North. It addresses that idea, of restarting civilization and reinventing the technology that has been most helpful.

Not quite as pre-historic, but along similar lines, I quite enjoyed Honzuki no Gekokujou (Ancendance of a bookworm), a series about a book-loving girl reborn as a sickly poor commoner child in a fantasy world and her attempts to create books (and other modern products) from scratch.

Definitely echoing this one, the light novels are incredible for anyone looking for something fun and casual to read. It deviates a bit more into the fantasy and political drama arena as the series goes on, but you still get fun references to reinventing products from our world all throughout.

I just finished binging the first 2 seasons after reading this, thank you.

Huh, this is pretty much my personal project (civboot.org), but I've never heard of Dr Stone!

next step

https://m.facebook.com/OpenSourceEcology/

https://www.opensourceecology.org/

Yes, I was definitely inspired by them. However, OsE is about building a village toolkit, but has no path to building a (minimalist) computer chip or computer software which can run on that chip. Last I checked they use full CAD software, definitely requiring commodity hardware.

Something like this was why I loved Jules Verne's Mysterious Island as a kid. In retrospect it was kind of unrealistic how the Smith (the Engineer) happened to know all the tech they needed to survive, but it certainly set my path!

(also, featuring Epic Crossover!)

There is this YouTube channel called "how to make everything".

Huh, sounds right up my alley. I am kind of obsessed with open world crafting games, so thanks for the recommendation.

Edit: This whole comment chain is a gold mine :-D

It was a manga serialized in Shounen Jump, the anime is merely an adaptation.

Actually a light novel was the original source. (https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=2...)

Ascendance of Bookworm is not Doctor Stone

I'm sorry, I see my mistake, I thought the parent was talking about another comment where they were talking about Ascendance of Bookworm.

Regardless, both have interesting stories. ^^

I just want to re-emphatize how incredibly eye-roll-inducing this show is

Hey it's fun, it's not a documentary or a tutorial.

Plus it's a shonen, of course it's unrealistic.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com