The Collapse of Society.

[Timelord]

A lot of the technological equipment we use today is built to a price and is not designed to last that long. Many of the technological parts are made out of relatively rare materials or constructed in such a way that requires an underpinning technological production facility to make it. A lot of it is now shipped into this country from far away. Obviously sourcing spares from the environment is possible but for how long can this go on before you run out? I would envisage that much of any local production facilities could be rendered unserviceable due to a whole host of possible scenarios inc looting & fire.
It takes a lot - a large widespread industrial underpinning to maintain the infrastructure we have today. If much of that underpinning goes down the pan or is inaccessible, then how would any ability to maintain limited industrial age systems fare in the longer term? Just what could be maintained by a vastly reduced underpinning industrial capability and also a possibly vastly reduced skill base? Could certain aspects be safely "ring fenced" as a necessity or is this wishful thinking in the aftermath of some big event? What is more important or comes first, the ability to maintain shelter and provide food or the quest to restore some level of infrastructure/systems? Who is going to do this or will they have the time besides their other necessary daily tasks? I don't know myself... Just surviving and the continuation of this may take up a large part of our manpower. Will the hydro-electric workers and nuclear power station workers and any other previously mentioned resource workers still be available and willing to return to their previous posts? Who will provide for their families if they are busy running plant? This means division of labour and the ability to organise it. It also means there will have to be enough produce to go around. In other words, what I am saying is that for an individual to perform a specialized task, the rest of the group or society must be able to provide for them and possibly their dependents. Generally in any society through history, for a group to thrive, a surplus of resource must be produced to allow for flexibility and division of labour. Everything else builds on top of this in layers up to where we are today. Sure, in modern times we are aware of and can take many short cuts, missing out the vast majority of stages our ancestors had to go through, but it is still a long process to build up from a serious knock back.
Our whole technological age is linked to industry which is supported by financial economics, which in turn is dependent on the sheer number of people alive today. If you drastically chop away parts of this equation, then the ability to support any of it falls away at the same time. PSHTF the scale of economics will be unlikely to favour any immediate or even mid term Techno infrastructure rebuilding. However if we have some type of partial collapse (which may seem at the time to be a complete collapse) as has happened with empires in history, then our society could emerge out the other end somewhat altered but still tied to its recent past. This would still be a very painful and seemingly at the time drawn out period. Only from the perspective of a later historical view would it appear more cohesive and possibly worthwhile. Anyone caught up in it would certainly be & feel - "put through the mill" :-)
These are just my musings on one aspect of the post. Regards, TL