Can we Re-Build Civilisation after Collapse.

[Scythe13]

(30 April 2014, 12:39)John Wrote: BTW what about the sea water powered car????

http://www.greenweez.co.uk/power-plus-sa...#ectrans=1
Granted it's a toy at the moment, and probably very inefficient, but it's still possible. Could I create one? I doubt it. Could the human ingenuity do it? We already have done, as a toy.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-effic...r-fuel.htm
So the principles are still there for larger scales too.

---

I honestly believe that we would be able to cannibalise what we have long enough to be able to get a jump start. We already have picks, spades, axes, and the alike. So those by the mining areas would be able to mine. Then there will be those with the know how to start up a furnace. Blacksmithing would be easily doable. There would be plenty of materials available to start those kinds of things off.

It would probably take a good few years to get back to the year 2000. But I think it would take a lot less than we expect.

[John]

Yes you can canibalise short term only, eventually it will all run out but to jump start, I don't so. We would not have the capability or numbers.

What happens when those picks, spades, axes, and the alike wear out, break etc.?

Sea water, just models thus far and all in all probability like the electric or new hydrogen cars, totally cost prohibitive and so will slowly die.

Knowledge to start up a furnace. You may be fortunate and Blacksmithing would be easily doable. May be to some but that all depends.

'Could I create one? I doubt it'. At least your honest but if can't that means you are hoping to reply on someone else. They may not be there.
'Could the human ingenuity do it?'
I doubt it again you are hoping that something will happen. It hasn't yet and that is before we crash and I really doubt it will.

Plan for the worst and hope for the best. I see this as hope for the best but no plan, no thought for the worst. I wonder sometime if man has got too big for his boots.

As for man, there is little reason to think that he can, in the long run, escape the fate of other creatures, and if there is
a biological law of flux and reflux, his situation is now a highly perilous one. During ten thousand years his numbers
have been on the upgrade in spite of wars, pestilence, and famines. This increase in population has become more and
more rapid. Biologically, man has for too long a time been rolling an uninterrupted run of sevens.
Earth Abides
George Ripley Stewart 1949

May we should just wrap this a agree to to differ. We are not going to know probably in our life.

It may well be life, Scythe, but not as we know it?

[Midnitemo]

Nature would have culled us back to sustainable numbers years ago with famines/plagues pestilence and natural disasters but we have used science to stave her off these last couple of centuries but i don't think science can hold her back much longer,we are at or very near breaking point but unless we are made extinct i feel sure humans will get back on top again only to repeat the cycle sadly but hey i'll be long gone.

[Scythe13]

I really do tend to agree with what you're saying John.

As you rightly say I am relying on other people for some things. Others I do plan on taking into my own hands.

Civilisation has shown the human species to develop and move forward.

I guess it would depend hugely on the size of the die-off. But I think that those of us left around do have a requirement to do our best to be able to rebuild.

This thread has encouraged me to push harder with my understanding and my knowledge on deconstruction and about simple processes, like smelting, refining, mining, and synthesising certain compounds. As well as acid and alkyline creation.

Really appreciate you posting this mate.

[bigpaul]

I do love your enthusiasm Scythe but I fear you are in for a disappointment. the human race has been getting dumber and dumber over the years, specialisation is a wonderful thing but not if it comes at the expense of everything else. just look at all the people who are divorced from nature and the natural world, the ones who don't even know which animal their food comes from and what's more they don't care, the ones that live on KFC and Macdonalds and don't know one end of a saucepan from the other, the ones who cant live without their "coffee to go" and their daily dose of Facebook and Twitter, who cant live without their technology, the latest mobile phone et all. it will depend on the scale of the "die off", I just hope its all these people that die off and not the people who know how things work or how they are made but I wouldn't count on it.

[John]

Others I do plan on taking into my own hands.

Please don't do anything drastic when they don't want you take them into your own hands.

Civilisation has shown the human species to develop and move forward.

Yes but only because we have had and nearly used all the resources. These will not be replaceable short term. Longer term is also very unlikely.

But I think that those of us left around do have a requirement to do our best to be able to rebuild.

Yes be a good boy scout and be prepared and do you best but as to rebuild, as I said we have to beg to differ on that.

Thanks for the encouragement. One of the lacking points in today's world, encouragement and motivation.

[Scythe13]

(30 April 2014, 16:40)John Wrote: Others I do plan on taking into my own hands.

Please don't do anything drastic when they don't want you take them into your own hands.

Sorry mate. Didn't explain myself there did I? I meant for some things I am relying on other people, but for other THINGS, I'll be taking those things into my own hands.

The first time round it sounded like I was into kidnapping haha.

[Mortblanc]

First, you have to destroy civilization, world wide, and you folks are not really talking about that, you are talking about losing your technology in the local arena.

Civilization existed long before the technology of today, and will continue long after it is gone.

[John]

What we are discussing is the demise of civilisation or at least a very major part of it. Which is what, at least partly, prepping is about.
We are also talking about losing all our current technology which is very much if not completely reliant on electricity. We are not concerned with the reason for that demise and we not considering the demise of just the ‘local arena’.
Yes civilisation existed long before the technology of today but it will not exist without that technology in the future. We have become too reliant on that technology.
Some sort of what you call civilisation may continue after a collapse but it will be nothing like it is now or in all probability like it was in the recent past.
What is the Blaa, blaa that you close with?
I assume that you don’t accept any of what was what said and feel that we are all really just wasting our time prepping.
The one main thing of this debate was can we re-build civilisation after collapse. For that we assume that civilisation will collapse at some point in the future by some cause.
May be you would care to enlighten on your post.

[Tartar Horde]

I find myself agreeing with Mort far too much lately, maybe because we have a historical "bent". All previous civilisations have had one thing in common, that is a level of technology simple enough for people to be in control of most of their daily needs if that civilisation collapses. We are in a situation now where we are so specialised that it is virtually impossible to realise our level of technology without the infrastructure to support it. Whereas in the past a state might fall, Babylon, Assyria and Rome etc, the effect was short lived because it only affected that single state. We are so interconnected now that the whole world will be effected if our civilisation collapses. We have built a monumental house of cards held together by worldwide connections that are very fragile to disruption. The Earth only has resources for advanced technological civilisation to be a one time event, Mother nature very rarely gives you two bites of the Cherry. We either sort these problems out or we are going to lose it all. Using my Archaeology eyes, I like to remind people that this new fangled "civilisation" thing has only been around for 5000 years or so (depending what you call civilisation) and for over 90% of our time on this planet we lived as hunter gatherers. I am pretty confident that even if we lose it all we will survive as a species, but for how long no one can tell, as it is also wise to know that over 90% of all species that have ever existed on Earth have become extinct. I really do miss the Mammoth