What if we had to restart technology from scratch, but with all the knowledge we have?

[ch4rl3s]

@Damuri_Ajashi

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.

Yes, a lot of people never have a use for it now-a-days. But the reason they had books of trig tables before hand held calculators was so the people who used them every day in practical applications didn’t have to calculate them every time. If you’re doing physics or engineering you’re using trig functions practically every hour. (And that’s assuming you have days where you’re building what you already designed and don’t use them at all.) Holy Cow, trig functions are useful. I can hardly imagine that we would ignore them. I can hardly imagine that we would dare lose that information.

The first thing I would want with a vacuum computer would be a trig calculator. (Don’t need that much complexity for +,-,*,/. An abacus and a slide rule are much simpler for those.)

[ch4rl3s]

@Jeneva

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.

Experience is a better teacher than lectures, anyway. They should be working alongside us as we continually improve technology, explaining what we are doing now, describing the next steps and how they will improve on what we have now, and then helping build it with us. And learning how to use it practically. Hopefully that will give them a sense of accomplishment and confidence that will carry over to the designs we give them that we won’t be helping with.

And grandparents preserve and pass down information. The first generation not only has to get a lot done, they have to stick around as long as possible. (glass, microscopes, test tubes, petri dishes, penicillin… I think those would be useful.)

[QUOTE=Jeneva]
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.
[/QUOTE]

I expect we will lose information for a while, then start gaining it again… don’t know on what time scale, though.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Jeneva

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.

Child labor was much more important when life expectancy at birth was less than 40 but if you made it to 20 you were expected to live to 60.

Under these facts it didn’t make sense to spend aq lot of time educating young children that were likely to die before they could make use of any of that knowledge. If nothing else, we would start off with a large advantage in life expectancy just from understanding germ theory and knowing how to make pennicillin. Our child and infant mortality rates would be much much lower than early civilizations. Investments in early childhood education would likely pay dividends for many many years. I’m not saying that every child would be taught calculus but almost everyone would learn to read and write and we would select those who would learn calculus and engineering based on their talents just as we would select those who would learn blacksmithing and sorcery based on their talents.

@ch4rl3s

Yes, a lot of people never have a use for it now-a-days. But the reason they had books of trig tables before hand held calculators was so the people who used them every day in practical applications didn’t have to calculate them every time. If you’re doing physics or engineering you’re using trig functions practically every hour. (And that’s assuming you have days where you’re building what you already designed and don’t use them at all.) Holy Cow, trig functions are useful. I can hardly imagine that we would ignore them. I can hardly imagine that we would dare lose that information.

The first thing I would want with a vacuum computer would be a trig calculator. (Don’t need that much complexity for +,-,*,/. An abacus and a slide rule are much simpler for those.)

I know engineers use it a lot but I was just loking for an example of something that I learned and had absolutely no use for the moment I took the final. I am saying that we would be able to preserve knowledge for which we have no practical use just as we have folks who teach advanced astrophysics or austrian school economics.

@ch4rl3s

I expect we will lose information for a while, then start gaining it again… don’t know on what time scale, though.

I vote for really really tiny tattoos on the settlers along with some method of tanning their skins so that they would last long enough so that someone could transcribe them onto something more permanent.

[ch4rl3s]

@Damuri_Ajashi

Child labor was much more important when life expectancy at birth was less than 40 but if you made it to 20 you were expected to live to 60.

But, the population was larger by then, as well. Starting with such a small population it could be important to use all the labour we can.

@Damuri_Ajashi

If nothing else, we would start off with a large advantage in life expectancy just from understanding germ theory and knowing how to make pennicillin.

Germ theory and sanitation, yes. Big advantage.
I would love to develop pennicillin early on. That may be a matter of luck in finding the right mold spores. I don’t know how likely it is to find something like that. (unless, someone smeared himself with it before we left…) We may have to make do with disinfectants like alcohol for some time. And we’ll have trouble distilling it for a while, too. (this is the real reason we need glass and metal right away, damn it! especially if we aren’t going to have coffee or chocolate… wait… no coffee or chocolate? sorry folks; excursion’s off.)

@Damuri_Ajashi

I know engineers use it a lot but I was just loking for an example of something that I learned and had absolutely no use for the moment I took the final. I am saying that we would be able to preserve knowledge for which we have no practical use just as we have folks who teach advanced astrophysics or austrian school economics.

I realize theoretically that there are people who have no use for trig… It’s just shocking to me to think about it, though. Our entire infrastructure is based on it. The general population doesn’t have to use it, but, it’s integral to our modern world.

There are things we won’t have use for at first, though. Logic gates, computer programming, atom smashers, (though if we remember our quantum chromodynamics, we won’t need experiments to verify particles and forces and such, we can just build what we already know works.)

@Damuri_Ajashi

I vote for really really tiny tattoos on the settlers along with some method of tanning their skins so that they would last long enough so that someone could transcribe them onto something more permanent.

If we had found a wormhole or some such and were planning such a trip. I would be pushing for every advantage we could get. miniature tattoos, seeds for modern crops, livestock, guns, vehicles, medicine, tents, etc. Heck, forget the tattoos and just take books and computers. I wouldn’t actually be planning an experiment in “how long will it take to recreate what we have now.” I would be advocating for taking it all with us…

That however, doesn’t seem to be in the spirit of the question, which was taking “Just what you can carry in your brain.” And while the “taking it with us” scenario would be an adventure to do, it doesn’t strike me as nearly as interesting a thought experiment. So, reluctantly, I vote that tattoos, seeds, livestock, smearing yourself with penicillin, sort of seem to be out. (Although, “Just what you can carry in your brain,” doesn’t rule out titanium micro-dots implanted inside our skulls.)

(and the point I most want you to take from this post…)

I think we were doing just fine without them. We wouldn’t be stuck at waterwheel technology for several hundred years. Once we have metal, we don’t just have tools, we have electricity from our waterwheel, and then electric motors shouldn’t be far off. If we get electric motors in the first generation I think we leapfrog to pre-industry right then.

[SlackerInc]

I’m not saying that every child would be taught calculus but almost everyone would learn to read and write and we would select those who would learn calculus and engineering based on their talents just as we would select those who would learn blacksmithing and sorcery based on their talents.

Wait…sorcery? Um, what?

BTW as the OP I am going to exercise my prerogative to rule that tattoos or any body alteration not created by our own natural biological processes will not survive the jump. So anyone with a pacemaker etc. or even lacking natural 20/20 vision would not be eligible. That reminds me of something else: aside from picking healthy people with excellent abilities and training, shouldn’t there perhaps be an attempt to do DNA screening to bring as diverse a gene pool as possible while not bringing recessive genetic diseases and such?

[ch4rl3s]

@SlackerInc

BTW as the OP I am going to exercise my prerogative to rule that tattoos or any body alteration not created by our own natural biological processes will not survive the jump. So anyone with a pacemaker etc. or even lacking natural 20/20 vision would not be eligible.

What about laser eye surgery? That just reshapes the cornea. Doesn’t provide any “unfair” information. It just gives a good starting advantage. Or knee surgery? As long as we don’t replace pieces with anything that could be used later, just repairing a miniscus shouldn’t cause problems. I’m not concerned with anything that wouldn’t give us a technological advantage.

@SlackerInc

That reminds me of something else: aside from picking healthy people with excellent abilities and training, shouldn’t there perhaps be an attempt to do DNA screening to bring as diverse a gene pool as possible while not bringing recessive genetic diseases and such?

I did suggest we would ensure genetic diversity. I didn’t mention genetic screening, but it makes good sense. One question, though, which diseases do we screen out? sickle cell anemia, while horrible if you have two genes for it, otherwise provides protection from malaria… Tay-Sachs disease may protect against tuberculosis… Cystic Fibrosis may protect against cholera… Did you know that every human has a specific genetic mutation that causes a muscle disease of the jaw? And without it our skulls couldn’t be big enough to hold our modern brains. Screen out the wrong disease and we could doom our expedition.

Diseases like Huntington’s that generally onset late in life likely survive because they don’t stop people from reproducing and might be safe to screen out. They aren’t a big threat to pure survival of the species, but they would be a threat to our goal of preserving technological knowledge. Several recessive diseases that onset with debilatating effects early in life likely survive because they provide other protection if you have just one copy.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@SlackerInc

Wait…sorcery? Um, what?

Just checking.

BTW as the OP I am going to exercise my prerogative to rule that tattoos or any body alteration not created by our own natural biological processes will not survive the jump. So anyone with a pacemaker etc. or even lacking natural 20/20 vision would not be eligible. That reminds me of something else: aside from picking healthy people with excellent abilities and training, shouldn’t there perhaps be an attempt to do DNA screening to bring as diverse a gene pool as possible while not bringing recessive genetic diseases and such?

Have you seen octopussy?

If tattoos are off the table then can we bring along someone with eidetic memory who can spend he rest of his life transcribing all that stuff?

[SlackerInc]

@Damuri_Ajashi

Just checking.

Have you seen octopussy?

If tattoos are off the table then can we bring along someone with eidetic memory who can spend he rest of his life transcribing all that stuff?

Heh.

I have not seen Octopussy, no. Have seen a few Bond films but not the majority.

I’m cool with the eidetic memory thing as long as it is not artificially aided.

[ch4rl3s]

@SlackerInc

I’m cool with the eidetic memory thing as long as it is not artificially aided.

“Protect Bob at all costs!”
“Why?”
“He’s the library.”

on another note: a friend of mine, a steamfitter by trade, told me he could get a steam engine up and running before I got the electric motor going. Sounds like a challenge to me. I’ve been discussing this thread with him, and he’s given me many points to ponder… he also started very pessimistic about the whole venture.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

Wow, I’m surprised to ehar that because An electric motor is not that difficult to do once you get your hands on a magnet, I made one for my third grade science fair project and it didn’t even make it out of Ms. DeSimone’s class into the school-wide science fair because 3 other kids had done the same thing and they used colored oaktag while mine was in a shoebox.

I would have thought that machining a steam engine would be a lot more difficult.

[ch4rl3s]

@Damuri_Ajashi

Wow, I’m surprised to ehar that because An electric motor is not that difficult to do once you get your hands on a magnet, I made one for my third grade science fair project and it didn’t even make it out of Ms. DeSimone’s class into the school-wide science fair because 3 other kids had done the same thing and they used colored oaktag while mine was in a shoebox.

I would have thought that machining a steam engine would be a lot more difficult.

Actually, I’m of the same opinion. You don’t have to engineer a boiler so it won’t explode, uses less material, etc.

I’m thinking that this could be a bias based on his knowing how to build a steam engine and having less idea how to make an electric motor. Or, he could be assuming he would have sheet metal before I have sufficient copper wire.

[I made a small electric motor myself in a school science class with little more than a magnet, coils of wire, (and something to coil them around.) Of course, a science project motor like that won’t really do any work.]

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@ch4rl3s

Actually, I’m of the same opinion. You don’t have to engineer a boiler so it won’t explode, uses less material, etc.

I’m thinking that this could be a bias based on his knowing how to build a steam engine and having less idea how to make an electric motor. Or, he could be assuming he would have sheet metal before I have sufficient copper wire.

[I made a small electric motor myself in a school science class with little more than a magnet, coils of wire, (and something to coil them around.) Of course, a science project motor like that won’t really do any work.]

I have a handcrank lantern/radio that can last for several minutes with about a minute of vigorous cranking. If I could attach it to a waterwheel, I could keep the radio going until the gears wore out.