We're toast should we ever lose ability to make CPUs.
Perhaps there should be more research how to make small runs of chips cheaply and with simple inputs. That'd also be useful if we manage to colonize other planets.
Perhaps there should be more research how to make small runs of chips cheaply and with simple inputs. That'd also be useful if we manage to colonize other planets.
Or do you mean the circumstances that would lead to this (nuclear war perhaps) would make us toast
But tbh I don't see it as at all likely short of something like nuclear war that would be the much bigger problem.
I don't think it'd be the end of life as we know it.
It’s the ones in factories, power systems, and transportation equipment, among other things.
I think you also should realize much of the world continues on without bleeding-edge technology - homes are still built, crops are still harvested, and the world goes on.
We've had this happen before of course. There's a ton of things ancient civilizations were doing that we are clueless about. So clueless, that one of the leading theories is that they must have been aided by aliens.
I'm talking about people all over the globe, separated by time, I don't know what your deal is with acting like I'm a white person poo'ing on POC - or how any of the racial/nationality/etc stuff you wrote factors in at all. You're obviously easily triggered and/or need to work on reading comprehension
It always was a matter of commerce and knowledge sharing between distinct races and tribes.
As long as the algorithmic complexity of food logistics is O(n) or better with respect to population size, I guess.
Civilization is a continuity of discrete points of time.
We were able to enter (so-called) Dark Ages where things were forgotten (e.g., concrete) and still continue because things were often not very 'advanced': with the decline of Rome there were other stories of knowledge, and with the Black Death society hasn't much beyond blacksmithing and so was able keep those basic skills.
But we're beyond that.
First off, modern society is highly dependent on low-cost energy, and this was kicked off by the Industrial Revolution and easy accessible coal. Coal is much depleted (often needing deeper mines). Then next phase was with oil, and many of the easy deposits have been used up (it used to bubble up to the ground in the US).
So depending on how bad any collapse is, getting things up without easily accessible fossil fuels may be more of challenge.
That's an Anglo-Saxon black legend. How do you think boats and trebuchets were made? Navigation in the ocean without trig? Astrolabes? Yeah, sure. Year 600 wasn't the same as 1200.
Read about Alphonse X. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso_X_of_Castile
We did that during a period of peculiar circumstances that won't ever be replicated. Relatively large, distributed population with many different ecological environments that we were already pre-adapted to. A far smaller single-point-failure population that can't just go out and hunt for its food among the vast wildlife might have it pretty rough if industrial civilization were to falter.
Scary how high up this tightrope is.
Would be a pretty solid intermediate step to bootstrap automation and expansion in the cases where the supply of the "best" fabs is removed (like in a disaster, or the framework to support that level of manufacturing isn't available, such as your colony example)