# Limits to technological collapse? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 12, 2025, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-to-technological-collapse/1019539 "2025-06-12T19:10:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2025, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-to-technological-collapse/1019539/141 "2025-06-20T20:16:49Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > > > it’ll be the societies that already mostly make do without modern technology > > Though I’m skeptical many such people exist. Maybe 50 years ago they did but your average African smallhold farmer is just as dependent on fragile international supply networks for their machinery, tools, and supplies, as your Manhattan apartment dweller. They may not have as much technology as a huge western farm, but they aren’t iron age subsistence farmers either, they use tools, fertilizer, pesticides, some machines. I would imagine that anyone who knows how to farm can work out how to farm without the benefit of modern agricultural equipment and fertilizer. That is to say, they know how and when to till fields and plant seeds and whatnot. It would just take a lot longer, require a lot more work, and not produce as much food. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2025, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-to-technological-collapse/1019539/142 "2025-06-20T20:38:35Z")
I think you should add another qualifier, “smallholder” - even traditional “farmer families” in the USA are often LLC’s covering far more land (and often more _marginal_ land) than could be handled using pre-industrial tools. For example, a lot of modern farming land is unviable short of mass irrigation, which would be one of those things to expect to break down. Smallholders, who currently manage the sort of territory coverable on foot for example, while a rarity in the USA, would be more common elsewhere (see @MrDibble’s comments and cites), and are probably managing land suited to sustainable agriculture even without the infrastructure we take for granted. Or at least, they’re far less dependent upon it, even if they can and do use it _when it’s available at all_ (the example of tractor co-ops). ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2025, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-to-technological-collapse/1019539/143 "2025-06-21T07:46:12Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > > [@msmith537](#): > > > > I think a lot of it depends on the nature and timeline of the collapse. You’re talking about a slow global “enshitification”, which might be driven by something like climate change, dwindling resources, or population crash. Technology, infrastructure, markets, and political structures are still functional, but standard of living is getting steadily worse. > > Yeah, like maybe “Soylent Green”. Civilization hasn’t collapsed (yet), but it’s sagged quite a bit. But is that due to environmental issues or our own human idiocy (assuming that standards are getting worse)? It’s not like we don’t have enough homes for people to live in or food for people to eat. People aren’t wanting for “stuff”. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2025, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-to-technological-collapse/1019539/144 "2025-06-23T01:55:29Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > I mean that petroleum is at least partly being used directly for food production (e.g., as a component of fertilizer), meaning we are literally eating dinosaurs. Without fossil fuel use, food production would drop below global population sustainability. Yes but ammonia can be created out of water using electrolysis. If you have an energy source you break the water into hydrogen and oxygen, then react the hydrogen with nitrogen. The world had electricity long before semiconductors and computers. > [@msmith537](#): > > The limits are without modern energy, transportation, and telecom infrastructure to maintain global supply chains, society drops back a couple hundred years. So employees of places like Colonial Williamsburg and Olde Sturbridge Village will suddenly be in high demand for their knowledge of forging, smithing, and making clothes by hand. But how much do we need global supply chains? In the US, I think around 90% of manufactured goods were made domestically around the WW2 era. Global supply chains are fairly recent. There has been trade in the past, but was it as integral to the economy as it is now. Fundamentally, we just need to keep people alive. The main factors in that are calories and public health. As long as we have those things, we can keep people alive and fairly healthy while we try to rebuild in a way that takes the new resource depletion we face into account. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2025, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-to-technological-collapse/1019539/145 "2025-06-23T02:13:30Z")
Global supply chains have been around since before the East India Company and the American Colonies (which imported most stuff from Britain). It’s not so much the “globalness” of the supply chain as it is most food and parts and whatnot come from somewhere other than the town where it’s used. The problem with a technological collapse is that you have a lot of communities that may not have any individuals with actual skills to keep the community alive if they can’t order what they need from Amazon or GrubHub. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2025, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-to-technological-collapse/1019539/146 "2025-06-23T03:26:28Z")
And economy of scale. A blast furnace or a water-powered spinning and looming factory needs lots of customers. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2025, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-to-technological-collapse/1019539/147 "2025-06-23T05:21:52Z")
On both sides of the equation - they also need suppliers of iron ore & coke / raw cotton or wool in more-than-just-artisanal amounts ---
**Author:** ![Mortimus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e36b37/32.png) [@Mortimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mortimus)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2025, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-to-technological-collapse/1019539/148 "2025-06-23T05:27:44Z")
Just build everything out of bamboo and coconuts but make sure Gilligan isn’t around. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2025, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-to-technological-collapse/1019539/149 "2025-06-23T06:57:25Z")
> [@Mortimus](#): > > Just build everything out of bamboo and coconuts I don’t think we have enough swallows to import all the coconuts we’d need. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2025, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-to-technological-collapse/1019539/150 "2025-06-23T16:53:12Z")
Gas Town and The Bullet Farm will supply all our needs. ---
**Author:** ![xtenkfarpl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c2a13f/32.png) [@xtenkfarpl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xtenkfarpl)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2025, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-to-technological-collapse/1019539/151 "2025-06-25T17:43:58Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > I don’t think we have enough swallows to import all the coconuts we’d need. We’ll just have to genetically engineer the coconuts to migrate by themselves? I mean, they have those fibers on the outside, sort of like the flagella on a big paramoecium. Get those working, and bob’s your uncle… ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2025, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-to-technological-collapse/1019539/152 "2025-06-25T22:15:37Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > On both sides of the equation - they also need suppliers of iron ore & coke / raw cotton or wool in more-than-just-artisanal amounts I would say we have substantial quantities of already-smelted metals, readily accessible. In a post-apocalyptic society, the need for materials is likely to be between somewhat and a lot less that today, because we would be designing and building things to be used for a while, rather and building things to have the shortest possible journey to the midden. What has already been produced could maintain a post-consumerism society for quite a while.        Also, such a society would probably not have a strong objection to using hemp for many of their fiber-related needs. Hemp is just this side of being a total weed, so it should be fairly easy to grow and harvest. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2025, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-to-technological-collapse/1019539/153 "2025-06-26T04:12:31Z")
There are lots of low-tech ways to obtain fiber. If humans survive, they’ll be able to obtain “artisanal” quantities of fiber. But you do need quite a lot of it to run a factory. (And lots of random people, like me, have experience doing a little drop spinning with tools it’s easy to cobble together. I’m pretty sure that skill will be re-developed.) ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2025, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-to-technological-collapse/1019539/154 "2025-06-26T05:17:06Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > I would say we have substantial quantities of already-smelted metals I was replying specifically to the needs of blast furnaces as that was the example offered. For recycling already-smelted metals, you’re _just_ going to need the coke, or some other fossil fuel energy source. Post-apoc electrical generation isn’t going to be running arc furnaces. ---
**Author:** ![ThisOneGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@ThisOneGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThisOneGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-to-technological-collapse/1019539/155 "2025-06-27T18:25:47Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > For recycling already-smelted metals, you’re _just_ going to need the coke, or some other fossil fuel energy source Doesn’t need to be fossil fuel. Was done for centuries with charcoal. Was a major cause of deforestation, so limited in scale compared to coal. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-to-technological-collapse/1019539/156 "2025-06-27T19:06:36Z")
> [@ThisOneGuy](#): > > Was done for centuries with charcoal. There’s a reason the Chinese switched to coke as soon as they were able…like, in the first millennium CE. > [@ThisOneGuy](#): > > Was a major cause of deforestation, so limited in scale There’s the reason. The example I was responding to was blast smelt furnaces, which morphed into recycling furnaces (various possible types there). Those generally don’t run off charcoal anymore. You _can_ run furnaces off charcoal in the situation in question(just like you _could_ run an electric arc furnace if you really wanted to spend all your resources running it) . Other fuels are just way, way better for the given circumstance. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-to-technological-collapse/1019539.md?page=7)