# What if we had to restart technology from scratch, but with all the knowledge we have? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 11, 2012, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-to-restart-technology-from-scratch-but-with-all-the-knowledge-we-have/609131 "2012-01-11T05:02:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2012, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-to-restart-technology-from-scratch-but-with-all-the-knowledge-we-have/609131/181 "2012-02-03T00:19:13Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I think we could. Between fishing, hunting and gathering, I think a third of the population could feed the other two thirds adequately for quite a while and we would probably continue engaging in hunting, fishing and gathering long after we have started farming. Not a chance. You apparently don’t have a clue just how dispersed wild foods are across the landscape. HGs, who were full-time, professional, multi-generational fishers, hunters and gatherers couldn’t feed themselves for 12 months at a time. Annual periods of starvation were, as far as we can tell, universal amongst HGs. Never mind trying to feed twice their number in unproductive people as well. Agriculture can support far, far more people than fishing, hunting and gathering ever could. That’s an indisputable fact. Yet until the agricultural revolution in the 18th century even a farmer couldn’t support herself and two unproductives. In fact 80% of the population was involved full-time in food production. Just think about that for a second: even with agriculture, it requires 3 full-time farmers, millers and bakers to produce enough bread to feed just one unproductive. Even within agricultural systems in the western world, the majority of the population was involved in food production until the 20th century. Once again, I ask you to stop and consider that: even with early 20th century technology such as factories, electricity, steam trains, crop and herd improvement, combine harvesters, threshing machines, medicine and so forth, one farmer still couldn’t support one unproductive in addition to himself. The only possible way that your statement might be true is if by “quite a while” you mean 3 months or s0. If you arrived in the Pacific Northwest in the middle of the Salmon run, then one fisher could support 2two unproductives for a month or so, and store enough food for maybe another few months month. But history teaches us that it’s simply impossible for a HG society to support two unproductives for each productive. It’s impossible for any pre-industrial society to even reach parity between unproductives and productives. Yet you think that somehow we can achieve with hunting and gathering what western agricultural technology didn’t even achieve until 100 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2012, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-to-restart-technology-from-scratch-but-with-all-the-knowledge-we-have/609131/182 "2012-02-03T19:50:46Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Not a chance. > > You apparently don’t have a clue just how dispersed wild foods are across the landscape. HGs, who were full-time, professional, multi-generational fishers, hunters and gatherers couldn’t feed themselves for 12 months at a time. Annual periods of starvation were, as far as we can tell, universal amongst HGs. Never mind trying to feed twice their number in unproductive people as well. Have you ever gone fishing in Hawaii? I’m not saying we have to land in Hawaii but the world’s oceans have been heavily fished and they still provide lots and lots of fish for us to eat. Have you ever gone hunting in Africa. There is game everywhere, huge fucking herds of it. I would suggest that you don’t have a clue how much game there was before man came on the scene. Sure everyone would have to help out if they drove a herd over a cliff and everyone would have to participate in the curing and preserving of food, we’re not talking about 66% deadweight. We need some people to build shelter, we need some people to make tools, we need some people to make that water wheel and push us up the technology tree. As far as I can tell, HG had a lot of free time. > **[The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race](https://www.ditext.com/diamond/mistake.html)** “Scattered throughout the world, several dozen groups of so-called primitive people, like the Kalahari bushmen, continue to support themselves that way. It turns out that these people have plenty of leisure time, sleep a good deal, and work less hard than their farming neighbors. For instance, the average time devoted each week to obtaining food is only 12 to 19 hours for one group of Bushmen, 14 hours or less for the Hadza nomads of Tanzania. One Bushman, when asked why he hadn’t emulated neighboring tribes by adopting agriculture, replied, “Why should we, when there are so many mongongo nuts in the world?”” > **[Hunter-gatherer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer)** > > A hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living in a community, or according to an ancestrally derived lifestyle, in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local naturally occurring sources, especially wild edible plants but also insects, fungi, honey, bird eggs, or anything safe to eat, or by hunting game (pursuing or trapping and killing wild animals, including catching fish). This is a common practice among most vertebrates that are omnivores. Hunt Hunti... “ethnographic data indicated that hunter-gatherers worked far fewer hours and enjoyed more leisure than typical members of industrial society, and they still ate well.” > **[Raw Food Health](https://raw-food-health.net)** > > The ultimate guide to raw food diets, benefits, recipes, and tips for a vibrant, healthy lifestyle. Eat raw, live well! "Food is abundant enough that there’s little urgency in the food gathering activities of the Batek of Malaysia. They don’t view the work as a burden, but actually approach it with enthusiasm (10), walking through the forest in social groups at a leisurely pace to pick nuts, fruits, and roots. They frequently stop to chat, flirt, share fruit, and even play with babies. In camp, the Batek often remark that they’re tired of sitting around, and so head off to go walk the jungle or go fishing. (10) It’s often been noted that hunter gatherers act as if they have it made. They don’t work hard to gather extra food for a rainy day, but only enough for their immediate needs.Rarely does anyone doubt their ability to find food tomorrow(11)." If you can provide cites to the contrary, I would like to see them. Our hunter gatherers will have better preservation techniques so they will not be as crippled by variability in availability of game, fish or gathered food (we know how to smoke meat, pickle vegetables, turn fruits in jam and make jerky, jerky for dinner might not be all that satisfying but it will keep body and soul together). We will also have the benefit of a lot of knowledge like how to use nets to catch fowl, how to make wheeled carts/sleds to carry more game back to camp, how to fish better how to make dynamite and gunpowder. We can take advantage of a lot of this knowledge in the first week we are here. > [@](#): > > Agriculture can support far, far more people than fishing, hunting and gathering ever could. That’s an indisputable fact. Farming is MUCH more labor intensive than hunting gathering. It becomes necessary when you have population centers that cannot support themselves with local wildlife/gathering but if your population starts to grow you need to take up agriculture. Better to have 10,000 people with 1% working on working up the technology tree than 100 people with 30% pushing us up the technology tree. > [@](#): > > Yet until the agricultural revolution in the 18th century even a farmer couldn’t support herself and two unproductives. In fact 80% of the population was involved full-time in food production. Just think about that for a second: even with agriculture, it requires 3 full-time farmers, millers and bakers to produce enough bread to feed just one unproductive. cite? > [@](#): > > Even within agricultural systems in the western world, the majority of the population was involved in food production until the 20th century. Once again, I ask you to stop and consider that: even with early 20th century technology such as factories, electricity, steam trains, crop and herd improvement, combine harvesters, threshing machines, medicine and so forth, one farmer still couldn’t support one unproductive in addition to himself. cite? > [@](#): > > The only possible way that your statement might be true is if by “quite a while” you mean 3 months or s0. If you arrived in the Pacific Northwest in the middle of the Salmon run, then one fisher could support 2two unproductives for a month or so, and store enough food for maybe another few months month. > > But history teaches us that it’s simply impossible for a HG society to support two unproductives for each productive. It’s impossible for any pre-industrial society to even reach parity between unproductives and productives. cite? Some cultures seem to be able to do it with spears and burlap sacks > [@](#): > > Yet you think that somehow we can achieve with hunting and gathering what western agricultural technology didn’t even achieve until 100 years ago. I think you should read some of the stuff that I cited. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2012, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-to-restart-technology-from-scratch-but-with-all-the-knowledge-we-have/609131/183 "2012-02-10T07:27:56Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > Remember the OP states you don’t even get the clothes on your back, much less any of the gear. > > **Stranger** actually gives a slightly easier scenario. You get clothes and as much food as you can fit in your pockets, and you only have to survive for a few days while finding time to read. No need to rebuild human civilization. Okay, but to be fair my OP scenario was also intended (I didn’t reread it just now but this is how I recall it anyway) to be a situation where we would send the “best and brightest”, who would have massive resources expended toward training them for years before sending them naked on their one-way trip. So whether any of us could do it right now is beside the point of the OP, although it’s a perfectly valid alternate scenario (and alternate scenarios are also interesting). ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2012, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-to-restart-technology-from-scratch-but-with-all-the-knowledge-we-have/609131/184 "2012-02-10T23:39:41Z")
Just think of the early European settlers in what’s now America. Many of them (whole colonies, even-- Think Roanoke) died out, and many more nearly did, but for help from the natives (think Plymouth). And that was with seeds for good crops, and beasts of burden and other livestock, and all the technology that they had packed into their ships. And we’re positing people with _none_ of that. Even with our population being the best and brightest, survival from scratch is _hard_. ---
**Author:** ![ch4rl3s](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c4cdca/32.png) [@ch4rl3s](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ch4rl3s)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2012, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-to-restart-technology-from-scratch-but-with-all-the-knowledge-we-have/609131/185 "2012-02-15T14:04:06Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Okay, but to be fair my OP scenario was also intended (I didn’t reread it just now but this is how I recall it anyway) to be a situation where we would send the “best and brightest”, who would have massive resources expended toward training them for years before sending them naked on their one-way trip… One of the things we’re going to have to train them on is to remember. I was discussing this thread with a friend, and he pointed out that the way we use our brains has changed. Before the wide spread use of books and writing materials people had to remember important facts. That has changed. And with the internet, we have moved from remembering everything to recalling a brief outline and remembering where to look up the information. It was already mentioned early on in the thread that we were going to lose a lot of valuable information just because we hadn’t written it down fast enough. Oooooh! We need to tattoo the volunteers within an inch of their lives to make up for the fact that we won’t be bringing books with us. Then we’ll need to write that, and everything else we remember, on clay tablets right away. [QUOTE=Chronos] Just think of the early European settlers in what’s now America. Many of them (whole colonies, even-- Think Roanoke) died out, and many more nearly did, but for help from the natives (think Plymouth). And that was with seeds for good crops, and beasts of burden and other livestock, and all the technology that they had packed into their ships. And we’re positing people with none of that. Even with our population being the best and brightest, survival from scratch is hard. [/QUOTE] It’s not an easy proposition. But the examples of colonies that died out, (or nearly did,) had various factors to their trouble. Including things like: Not having access to good land because the natives were already there. Stupidly not choosing good land that was nearby. Not knowing how to live off the land while their crops got established. And of course, just plain bad luck with weather and natural disasters. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2012, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-to-restart-technology-from-scratch-but-with-all-the-knowledge-we-have/609131/186 "2012-02-15T20:52:17Z")
> [@ch4rl3s](#): > > One of the things we’re going to have to train them on is to remember. I was discussing this thread with a friend, and he pointed out that the way we use our brains has changed. Before the wide spread use of books and writing materials people had to remember important facts. That has changed. And with the internet, we have moved from remembering everything to recalling a brief outline and remembering where to look up the information. > > It was already mentioned early on in the thread that we were going to lose a lot of valuable information just because we hadn’t written it down fast enough. Oooooh! We need to tattoo the volunteers within an inch of their lives to make up for the fact that we won’t be bringing books with us. Then we’ll need to write that, and everything else we remember, on clay tablets right away. Ever see prisonbreak? You could use micro-printing to tattoo and read it all with a magnifying glass. > [@](#): > > It’s not an easy proposition. But the examples of colonies that died out, (or nearly did,) had various factors to their trouble. Including things like: > Not having access to good land because the natives were already there. > Stupidly not choosing good land that was nearby. > Not knowing how to live off the land while their crops got established. > And of course, just plain bad luck with weather and natural disasters. Why do people keep pointing out that tehre is a significant amount of luck involved. If we want to include luck then we might as well say "well it all depends on whether they get dropped in the middle of the sahara or someplace that has all the natural resources that we will need. if you want to assume middle of the desert, then thought experiment over. So in order for the thoght experiment to proceed you MUST assume plentiful natural resources. ---
**Author:** ![ch4rl3s](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c4cdca/32.png) [@ch4rl3s](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ch4rl3s)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-to-restart-technology-from-scratch-but-with-all-the-knowledge-we-have/609131/187 "2012-02-16T11:56:52Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Ever see prisonbreak? You could use micro-printing to tattoo and read it all with a magnifying glass. We won’t have magnifying glasses for a while. But, it seems a reasonable idea for information you won’t need immediately. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Why do people keep pointing out that tehre is a significant amount of luck involved. If we want to include luck then we might as well say "well it all depends on whether they get dropped in the middle of the sahara or someplace that has all the natural resources that we will need. if you want to assume middle of the desert, then thought experiment over. So in order for the thoght experiment to proceed you MUST assume plentiful natural resources. I included it for completeness. I’ve been the first to say we have to assume we survive the first winter, etc. I’ve also been one of the first to say that we would hold out for good conditions; appropriate plants, animals, minerals, etc. I’ve also said that if they’re going to propose conditions that aren’t survivable we won’t go. The question is could we shorten the time to todays technology any. If the answer comes back that civilization was never possible in the first place, we know that’s wrong, so it wasn’t a valid test. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-to-restart-technology-from-scratch-but-with-all-the-knowledge-we-have/609131/188 "2012-02-16T16:01:51Z")
> [@ch4rl3s](#): > > We won’t have magnifying glasses for a while. But, it seems a reasonable idea for information you won’t need immediately. You could mummify or preserve the skins of the colonists so that later generations will be able access the knowledge. > [@](#): > > I included it for completeness. I’ve been the first to say we have to assume we survive the first winter, etc. I’ve also been one of the first to say that we would hold out for good conditions; appropriate plants, animals, minerals, etc. I’ve also said that if they’re going to propose conditions that aren’t survivable we won’t go. The question is could we shorten the time to todays technology any. If the answer comes back that civilization was never possible in the first place, we know that’s wrong, so it wasn’t a valid test. I didn’t mean you. I just mean taht newcomers to ther thread all point out the same problem. That we might not make it through the first winter because we get dropped off in teh wrong part of the world. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2012, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-to-restart-technology-from-scratch-but-with-all-the-knowledge-we-have/609131/189 "2012-02-18T07:08:20Z")
> [@ch4rl3s](#): > > The question is could we shorten the time to todays technology any. If the answer comes back that civilization was never possible in the first place, we know that’s wrong, so it wasn’t a valid test. Ha, good point. I was sure when starting this thread that it was a given that the time to modern civilisation would be shortened–just a question of whether it would be a little or a lot. But I do have a nagging wonder now if we wouldn’t be able to get here because our modern morals would prevent us being as dehumanising to large numbers of people as it would be necessary to be. Maybe we’d just settle into some sort of Bronze Age stasis? ---
**Author:** ![Dunkelheit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dunkelheit/32/248_2.png) [@Dunkelheit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunkelheit)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2012, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-to-restart-technology-from-scratch-but-with-all-the-knowledge-we-have/609131/190 "2012-02-18T12:34:20Z")
Looking at the state of the world, I don’t know that modern morals preclude being dehumanising to large numbers of people. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2012, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-to-restart-technology-from-scratch-but-with-all-the-knowledge-we-have/609131/191 "2012-02-18T23:18:30Z")
> [@Jeneva](#): > > Looking at the state of the world, I don’t know that modern morals preclude being dehumanising to large numbers of people. I think though that the fact that large numbers of us can look upon places where there are sweatshops or where women are oppressed, and bemoan those situations, is indication that we have (at least in the West) gotten to a stage that our ancestors would not have comprehended. Go back a few hundred years, and few (especially those with control of the means of production of technology) would object to what we see as sweatshop conditions today. ---
**Author:** ![Dunkelheit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dunkelheit/32/248_2.png) [@Dunkelheit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunkelheit)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2012, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-to-restart-technology-from-scratch-but-with-all-the-knowledge-we-have/609131/192 "2012-02-20T17:24:42Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I think though that the fact that large numbers of us can look upon places where there are sweatshops or where women are oppressed, and bemoan those situations, is indication that we have (at least in the West) gotten to a stage that our ancestors would not have comprehended. Go back a few hundred years, and few (especially those with control of the means of production of technology) would object to what we see as sweatshop conditions today. And yet those sweatshops still exist, and are even perpetuated by Western corporations. So while some of us may have come some distance from our ancestral acceptance of oppression, slavery, etc., I think if circumstances demanded it we’d find ourselves returning to that state quite easily. Like an adult version of Lord of the Flies. ---
**Author:** ![ch4rl3s](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c4cdca/32.png) [@ch4rl3s](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ch4rl3s)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-to-restart-technology-from-scratch-but-with-all-the-knowledge-we-have/609131/193 "2012-02-22T03:25:27Z")
> [@Jeneva](#): > > [QUOTE=SlackerInc] > I think though that the fact that large numbers of us can look upon places where there are sweatshops or where women are oppressed, and bemoan those situations, is indication that we have (at least in the West) gotten to a stage that our ancestors would not have comprehended. Go back a few hundred years, and few (especially those with control of the means of production of technology) would object to what we see as sweatshop conditions today. And yet those sweatshops still exist, and are even perpetuated by Western corporations. So while some of us may have come some distance from our ancestral acceptance of oppression, slavery, etc., I think if circumstances demanded it we’d find ourselves returning to that state quite easily. Like an adult version of Lord of the Flies. [/QUOTE] People will do what they think is necessary to survive. (Assuming they also believe that’s the goal.) I’ve already proposed child labour. But, institutionalized slavery should be very unlikely for a very long time. (And hopefully, past the point where it would be useful. Although the conditions under which it would be useful might be an interesting topic.) There wouldn’t be enough people for one group to enslave another for several generations. And everyone should have the same incentive for the group to prosper. The bubonic plague helped end the hold lords had over serfs in the middle ages. With so few labourers, their labour was very valuable. We’ll be in the same situation. We would be more likely to have a situation where we end up with the rare criminal and can’t afford to feed him while he sits doing nothing than a situation where we’re thinking of enslaving another group to do our work. We’ll be busy trying to build the machines to do our work better. ---
**Author:** ![Dunkelheit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dunkelheit/32/248_2.png) [@Dunkelheit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunkelheit)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2012, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-to-restart-technology-from-scratch-but-with-all-the-knowledge-we-have/609131/194 "2012-02-23T01:04:04Z")
> [@ch4rl3s](#): > > People will do what they think is necessary to survive. (Assuming they also believe that’s the goal.) > > I’ve already proposed child labour. I certainly have nothing against child labour, within reason. Childhood as we know it was a Victorian invention; historically, children have learned how to do things by working alongside adults on tasks appropriate to their size and level of maturity. Especially in a scenario where every member of the community is needed to contribute to its survival and development, child labour is extremely important. It also makes it easier to pass on the hands-on knowledge they’ll need to survive as adults (and pass on to future generations as well). ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2012, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-to-restart-technology-from-scratch-but-with-all-the-knowledge-we-have/609131/195 "2012-02-23T07:16:10Z")
> [@Jeneva](#): > > I certainly have nothing against child labour, within reason. Childhood as we know it was a Victorian invention; historically, children have learned how to do things by working alongside adults on tasks appropriate to their size and level of maturity. Especially in a scenario where every member of the community is needed to contribute to its survival and development, child labour is extremely important. It also makes it easier to pass on the hands-on knowledge they’ll need to survive as adults (and pass on to future generations as well). All great points, as long as it’s not factory sweatshop labour or highly gendered IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Shooby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f475e1/32.png) [@Shooby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shooby)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2012, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-to-restart-technology-from-scratch-but-with-all-the-knowledge-we-have/609131/196 "2012-02-23T07:52:05Z")
This is probably one of the best threads I’ve ever read. Thanks to everyone for contributing. One thing that doesn’t seem to have been explored fully: how exactly will the Heroic Hundred record their knowledge for future generations? Is it really so easy to create a rudimentary ink and paper? Even so, what methods of storage are available to ensure that this relatively fragile stuff will survive intact? And perhaps most importantly, who will have the extraordinary amounts of time and sheer will to actually teach the following generations how to read and write? Not only read and write, but to understand concepts (like calculus, physics, chemistry) that have virtually no meaning in their daily life. If surviving takes so much time and effort, I can’t see their being this golden unbroken line of meaningless education of concepts that will take many many years to come to any sort of practical use. Note that each generation has to not only succeed in teaching these esoteric concepts, but to teach them well enough for the next generation to teach it themselves later. And children in this setting would probably not be especially receptive in learning completely impractical things that their own parents only know through hearsay. The immediately useful things (a lot of biology and medicine, for instance) will be passed on, I’m sure, but literacy might fall by the wayside. If that happens, what chance does higher level math or physics or chemistry have? And even the things that do survive (like sterilization procedures) will probably start to resemble rituals rather than applications of scientific knowledge. Hell, most people I know that go through high school science classes tend to have a procedural interest in them at best - how to get at the answers? - than an honest curiosity at how things work. And this is in a society where the applications of this knowledge are all around us, and whose mastery can give great rewards. Without this relatively massive incentive for understanding these concepts, what chance do the Heroic Hundred’s descendants really have for maintaining more than the most rudimentary scientific knowledge base? ---
**Author:** ![ch4rl3s](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c4cdca/32.png) [@ch4rl3s](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ch4rl3s)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2012, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-to-restart-technology-from-scratch-but-with-all-the-knowledge-we-have/609131/197 "2012-02-23T13:02:48Z")
> [@Shooby](#): > > This is probably one of the best threads I’ve ever read. Thanks to everyone for contributing. I’ve been enjoying it immensely, as well. > [@Shooby](#): > > One thing that doesn’t seem to have been explored fully: how exactly will the Heroic Hundred record their knowledge for future generations? Is it really so easy to create a rudimentary ink and paper? Even so, what methods of storage are available to ensure that this relatively fragile stuff will survive intact? rudimentary paper and ink are pretty easy. Once we have the water wheel, saw mill, grinding wheels up and running, we’ll have sawdust, and a means to grind it to pulp. But, I suspect we would start writing with clay tablets just like our ancestors did. You can’t stack as much information per pound, but it lasts longer. > [@Shooby](#): > > And perhaps most importantly, who will have the extraordinary amounts of time and sheer will to actually teach the following generations how to read and write? Not only read and write, but to understand concepts (like calculus, physics, chemistry) that have virtually no meaning in their daily life. If surviving takes so much time and effort, I can’t see their being this golden unbroken line of meaningless education of concepts that will take many many years to come to any sort of practical use. Note that each generation has to not only succeed in teaching these esoteric concepts, but to teach them well enough for the next generation to teach it themselves later. And children in this setting would probably not be especially receptive in learning completely impractical things that their own parents only know through hearsay. > > The immediately useful things (a lot of biology and medicine, for instance) will be passed on, I’m sure, but literacy might fall by the wayside. If that happens, what chance does higher level math or physics or chemistry have? And even the things that do survive (like sterilization procedures) will probably start to resemble rituals rather than applications of scientific knowledge. Hell, most people I know that go through high school science classes tend to have a procedural interest in them at best - how to get at the answers? - than an honest curiosity at how things work. And this is in a society where the applications of this knowledge are all around us, and whose mastery can give great rewards. Without this relatively massive incentive for understanding these concepts, what chance do the Heroic Hundred’s descendants really have for maintaining more than the most rudimentary scientific knowledge base? Almost everything we’ll be doing to bootstrap technology will involve physics, chemistry, and/or calculus. That water wheel I’ve been proposing? A typical undershot wheel, the easiest to engineer, with flat blades gets only about 30% efficiency. (The water slaps against the blade, turning it’s momentum largely to sound and heat.) Using calculus to design a curved blade, the water flows along the blade and comes to a stop, thereby imparting most of it’s momentum to the wheel. You can increase the efficiency to above 70%. We are going to be expecting great feats of engineering out of the next generations. And all of this will be done to increase our productivity, which greatly enhances our survivability. We’re going to need acids for batteries, etc. Knowing the laws of motion, (how to calculate forces,) atomic theory, (how to make chemical compounds,) etc. These will be the things we most need. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2012, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-to-restart-technology-from-scratch-but-with-all-the-knowledge-we-have/609131/198 "2012-02-23T20:05:42Z")
> [@Shooby](#): > > This is probably one of the best threads I’ve ever read. Thanks to everyone for contributing. > > One thing that doesn’t seem to have been explored fully: how exactly will the Heroic Hundred record their knowledge for future generations? Is it really so easy to create a rudimentary ink and paper? Even so, what methods of storage are available to ensure that this relatively fragile stuff will survive intact? > > And perhaps most importantly, who will have the extraordinary amounts of time and sheer will to actually teach the following generations how to read and write? Not only read and write, but to understand concepts (like calculus, physics, chemistry) that have virtually no meaning in their daily life. If surviving takes so much time and effort, I can’t see their being this golden unbroken line of meaningless education of concepts that will take many many years to come to any sort of practical use. Note that each generation has to not only succeed in teaching these esoteric concepts, but to teach them well enough for the next generation to teach it themselves later. And children in this setting would probably not be especially receptive in learning completely impractical things that their own parents only know through hearsay. > > The immediately useful things (a lot of biology and medicine, for instance) will be passed on, I’m sure, but literacy might fall by the wayside. If that happens, what chance does higher level math or physics or chemistry have? And even the things that do survive (like sterilization procedures) will probably start to resemble rituals rather than applications of scientific knowledge. Hell, most people I know that go through high school science classes tend to have a procedural interest in them at best - how to get at the answers? - than an honest curiosity at how things work. And this is in a society where the applications of this knowledge are all around us, and whose mastery can give great rewards. Without this relatively massive incentive for understanding these concepts, what chance do the Heroic Hundred’s descendants really have for maintaining more than the most rudimentary scientific knowledge base? > [@ch4rl3s](#): > > I’ve been enjoying it immensely, as well. > > rudimentary paper and ink are pretty easy. Once we have the water wheel, saw mill, grinding wheels up and running, we’ll have sawdust, and a means to grind it to pulp. But, I suspect we would start writing with clay tablets just like our ancestors did. You can’t stack as much information per pound, but it lasts longer. > > Almost everything we’ll be doing to bootstrap technology will involve physics, chemistry, and/or calculus. That water wheel I’ve been proposing? A typical undershot wheel, the easiest to engineer, with flat blades gets only about 30% efficiency. (The water slaps against the blade, turning it’s momentum largely to sound and heat.) Using calculus to design a curved blade, the water flows along the blade and comes to a stop, thereby imparting most of it’s momentum to the wheel. You can increase the efficiency to above 70%. > > We are going to be expecting great feats of engineering out of the next generations. And all of this will be done to increase our productivity, which greatly enhances our survivability. We’re going to need acids for batteries, etc. > > Knowing the laws of motion, (how to calculate forces,) atomic theory, (how to make chemical compounds,) etc. These will be the things we most need. I had a trigonometry teacher in high school who never had any use for it other than to teach it and I learned it even though I knew that I would never have a use for it. I could probably teach it from a textbook if I had to. ---
**Author:** ![Dunkelheit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dunkelheit/32/248_2.png) [@Dunkelheit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunkelheit)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-to-restart-technology-from-scratch-but-with-all-the-knowledge-we-have/609131/199 "2012-02-24T18:14:07Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > All great points, as long as it’s not factory sweatshop labour or highly gendered IMO. Indeed. I’m thinking more along the lines of kids who work on family farms or on tribal tasks, helping to produce/gather food and other resources, learning how to make and use the tools that are required for everyday living, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Dunkelheit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dunkelheit/32/248_2.png) [@Dunkelheit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunkelheit)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-to-restart-technology-from-scratch-but-with-all-the-knowledge-we-have/609131/200 "2012-02-24T19:20:18Z")
> [@Shooby](#): > > This is probably one of the best threads I’ve ever read. Thanks to everyone for contributing. > > One thing that doesn’t seem to have been explored fully: how exactly will the Heroic Hundred record their knowledge for future generations? Is it really so easy to create a rudimentary ink and paper? Even so, what methods of storage are available to ensure that this relatively fragile stuff will survive intact? > > And perhaps most importantly, who will have the extraordinary amounts of time and sheer will to actually teach the following generations how to read and write? Not only read and write, but to understand concepts (like calculus, physics, chemistry) that have virtually no meaning in their daily life. If surviving takes so much time and effort, I can’t see their being this golden unbroken line of meaningless education of concepts that will take many many years to come to any sort of practical use. Note that each generation has to not only succeed in teaching these esoteric concepts, but to teach them well enough for the next generation to teach it themselves later. And children in this setting would probably not be especially receptive in learning completely impractical things that their own parents only know through hearsay. I agree that it will be difficult to retain knowledge that isn’t immediately useful. The Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey is a good example (though fictional) of how a society can lose knowledge that way when faced with more immediate concerns. For various reasons, among the things they lost knowledge of was paper, so they wrote their history and household records on tanned hides, which don’t last forever, but are probably easier to work with than clay tablets. When we encounter this world, they have only just rediscovered the means of making paper from wood pulp. They didn’t have to go all the way back to the stone age, not starting out “naked in the wilderness” as in the OP, but from a society that was high-tech enough to colonize another planet, they “devolved” (somewhat deliberately, somewhat by circumstance) to a medieval/feudal sort of culture for several thousands of years. Higher maths and other esoteric bits of knowledge were restricted to the Crafts which used them and passed down from master to apprentice, but the general population was not educated in them. They had autonomous Crafthalls that specialized in mining, smithing, farming, animal husbandry, weaving, stonework, healing, etc., mostly things useful to the population in their current lifestyle. They also had a Harper craft which wrote educational songs for teaching children, as well as disseminating information between populations. It’s very similar in structure to the ancient Irish culture with its relatively autonomous family-based clans and also relatively autonomous bardic and priestly/scholarly classes. They also have a relatively autonomous class of people who ride fire-breathing dragons to protect the population from an inimical organism that falls from the sky, but presumably our colonists won’t have that sort of thing to deal with. 😉 Fortunately they managed to whip up these creatures from local wildlife before losing the advanced genetic modification technology they’d brought with them. That is likely to be the best available way to retain knowledge without having to teach everything to every single member of the population: to have specialized groups dedicated to preserving specific areas of knowledge. The risk is that if the master-to-apprentice passing of information isn’t done completely enough, things will still be lost, or misunderstood by future generations. Of course, as already mentioned upthread, the difficulty will be preserving this knowledge in the early days when nobody has the luxury of sitting around thinking and studying because every hand is needed for survival. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-to-restart-technology-from-scratch-but-with-all-the-knowledge-we-have/609131.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-to-restart-technology-from-scratch-but-with-all-the-knowledge-we-have/609131.md?page=11)