Could civilization as we know it be rebuilt?

[raccoon]

The following selection from ORYX AND CRAKE really makes me think.

(Two young men, Crake and Jimmy, are talking.)

"Let's suppose for the sake of argument," said Crake one evening, "that civilization as we know it gets destroyed…Once it's flattened, it could never be rebuilt."

"Because why? (Jimmy said.)

"Because all the available surface metals have already been mined," said Crake. "Without which, no iron age, no bronze age, no age of steel, and all the rest of it. There's metals farther down, but the advanced technology we need for extracting those would have been obliterated."

"It could be put back together," said Jimmy…. "They'd still have the instructions.”

"Actually not," said Crake. "It's not like the wheel, it's too complex now. Suppose the instructions survived, suppose there were any people left with the knowledge to read them. Those people would be few and far between, and they wouldn't have the tools. Remember, no electricity. Then once those people died, that would be it. They'd have no apprentices, they'd have no successors. Want a beer?"

"Is it cold?"

"All it takes," said Crake, "is the elimination of one generation. One generation of anything. Beetles, trees, microbes, scientists, speakers of French, whatever. Break the link in time between one generation and the next, and it's game over forever."

"Speaking of games," said Jimmy, "it's your move."

(Atwood, Margaret. Oryx and Crake. New York: Doubleday, 2003.
ISBN 0-385-50385-7)

[MorningGlow]

1. Great book

I love to read Atwood's books, like O&C and Handmaid's Tale, the way I read Stephen King--to give myself a good scare but know that it isn't real.

Our civilization will not go as far down the tubes as posited in O&C. However, it's collapsing, in its own way, right now. Can it be rebuilt? Doubtful. Should it be rebuilt? Absolutely not. Should we build something better in its place? Ahhh... :) :hi:

[raccoon]

6. I scanned some other stuff from the book, which I'll be posting now and then.

It was a thought-provoking book. And a good read.


:hi:

[baldguy]

2. The new mines would be our landfills.

They wouldn't have to dig deeper into the earth for raw materials - we've already done that. They'd salvage our cities for iron, steel, copper, aluminum and whatever else you can think of.

And any 10-yr-old Boy Scout with an Electricity Merit Badge can build a generator.

[CrispyQ]

5. David Brin wrote a novel where one character did just that.

His family bought landfills & they made their living salvaging what we're throwing away. In the book, one of the characters made an observation how even though paper is biodegradable, there were tons & tons of paper that had been covered & protected from the elements, so once he got past the top few pages in a pile, it was almost like new. He marveled at a society that could be so wasteful. It was quite fascinating.

In the same book, huge communities of people lived on man-made islands.

I can't remember the title of the book, but I read it in the early 90s.

[NoPasaran]

3. Seems to me that if civilization was destroyed there'd be lots of scrap metal

[Posteritatis]

13. I'd be more worried about the coal and oil than the metal

Very, very little of the metal's actually been destroyed, but the fuel sources necessary to reindustrialize would be a problem.

[wuushew]

16. Also, when the coal runs out production of new steel vanishes

Coke is what made steel cheap and affordable. It would take a lot of work to rise above 18th century technology without bountiful fossil fuels next time.

[Terry in Austin]

26. Then it's back to charcoal

That's what they used to smelt iron and make steel before it was cheap and affordable.

Charcoal from hemp, of course. Five tons/acre, two crops a year. Leave the wood for building stuff.

[seemunkee]

4. One of my favorite mind games

You suddenly find yourself back in the 10th century, what parts of the modern world could you reproduce? technology, medicine, machinery?

[CrispyQ]

7. Yikes! I'm not sure I could even find my next meal!

If I had to forage an open field for edibles, I'd be screwed. We are so dependent on technology we have no idea how far removed from nature we are!

[sammythecat]

12. A favorite of mine too.

In my own case, I come up with nothing. I would have no possessions, no income, there'd likely be a big problem with language, and I can't come up with a single "trick" that would impress anyone enough that they'd believe my story (if I could tell it). I'm pretty sure that after a day or so I'd be considered a useless and possibly dangerous lunatic. Shunned and alone, with only the clothes I'm wearing, I'd probably die of exposure or get killed trying to steal food.

However, give me an AK-47 and about 10,000 rounds of ammo and kids today would be studying the incredible reign of sammythecat I (aka God), Imperial Sovereign of the Holy Roman Empire, a turning point in our history like none other.

[seemunkee]

14. Math

You would know more math than was is likely known by the entire populace.
Hobby horse type bicycle would be a pretty advanced machine.
A Stirling engine would be possible and a lot easier than internal combustion.
A problem with electricity is the ability to make wire.

[sammythecat]

22. All good ideas that could work, BUT,

along with any of these ideas, you would first have to overcome language problems and overcome those problems quickly because time is a factor here. You'd have to have some good luck to find yourself among people curious, compassionate, and patient enough to feed and support you while you tinkered around reinventing electricity or a Stirling engine.

Plus, you'd need assistance with both of these projects. You'd have to convince others to provide you with materials and their time, as well as convincing them that either of these things would be of some benefit to them. There would also likely be some people who thought you a dangerous nut or a witch. You'd have to somehow quell those notions quickly and convincingly in order to buy yourself time.

I'm not sure how 10th century Europeans (I'm presuming I'm in Europe) could make practical use of electricity in a short enough time frame to get me out of my predicament. There's probably a way, I just can't think of any.

I like the idea of the Stirling engine. The usefulness would be readily apparent if you managed to make one, but would their primitive technology allow them to make these engines large enough and, most importantly, economically enough, to make them useful and desirable, and not just a very expensive, and very difficult to produce, novelty. Remember, I don't want to be like Van Gogh, and others, who have great ideas recognized after they're already dead.

Another thing, did they have the means to keep these engines lubricated? They've got to be reliable to be of any use, reliable and cheap enough to take the place of draft animals, water wheels, and sails.

on edit: I think this would make a fun and interesting OP. I'd love to see what others could come up with. I'm sure there must be an answer, but I don't know of one that would really give me a lot of confidence I could pull it off.

[Terry in Austin]

27. Mind games of this sort

These are likely to prove very practical sooner than we might expect! I have quite an enthusiasm for them, too.

For a picking-up-where-we-left-off point, I would guess something later than the 10th century. Maybe about 1750 -- the energy and material resources are essentially the same as 950, but there's that much more knowledge accumulated about what to do with them.

[rrneck]

8. I read

about an experiment years ago to replace the fauna in a small area on the great plains. As I recall they knew the types of grasses etc. that grew there, so they cleared a spot and planted them. The experiment failed. It seems that there needed to be a large list of "precursor" organisms to create the right conditions for those species to survive.

There's no such thing as a fresh start.

[L. Coyote]

9. Civilization WAS destroyed. That's how we got here!!

[Raskolnik]

25. To what civiliation are you referring? n/t

[hunter]

10. No, our civilization could not be rebuilt, nor should it.

In very basic ways our civilization is unsustainable. If we continue to behave like locusts, we will die like locusts.

I personally believe a sustainable, high technology, and literate society is achievable, but a lot of the things we take for granted now as "civilization," such as automobiles and airlines, will be absent. But people will have much more time to be thoughtful, caring, responsible, and happy human beings. If we are not flying in a mad rush across continents and oceans to get somewhere that's not much different than the place we left, we will have time to enjoy the electric railroad service and high technology sailing; the transportation will be something to enjoy for itself, and not something we must endure to get somewhere.

The biggest threat we face at the moment is food shortages and political instability caused by climate change, and we have to stay on top of that, or shortages of raw materials to keep technologies running will be among the least of our problems. In any collapsing civilization there are plenty of "raw materials" abandoned where they sit. For example, there's no shortage of housing or retail space in our own collapsing economy -- the county I live in has acres and acres of empty housing, industrial, and retail space, but there's simply no economic or political mechanism for utilizing it.

We must look forward to creating a civilization that is sustainable, and not look back to squeezing out the last bit of life from this unsustainable civilization.

[TheWraith]

11. Atwood's hardly the first to make that argument.

First reference I can remember is in the novel "Spinneret" by Timothy Zahn, 1985.

Really, this is kind of a zero-sum thought experiment; there's no way to know for sure what the outcome would be unless civilization actually falls, which I'm not expecting. I tend toward an optimistic view, though--as long as there's materials available, there's ways to do things, even if it's on a smaller scale, salvaging the scrap of the old world.

[leftofthedial]

15. why in the world would anyone want to rebuild civilization as we know it?

that would be a disastrous lost opportunity and failure of the imagination.

[Raskolnik]

24. Well, for one, I bet that a lot of people would fondly remember heat, abundant food,

modern medicine, incredibly fast transportation, worldwide instant communication, and living past 35. Other than those kinds of things, though, I'm sure people would be glad to rid of civilization as we know it.

[leftofthedial]

28. so you'd "rebuild" our current health care system and transportation infrastructure?

whatever floats your boat.

[Raskolnik]

29. I don't think you have much of an understanding of what we take for granted.

Go back just three hundred years. How would one go about getting from Cairo to London? How about from Tokyo to St. Petersburg? How about just getting from east coast of North America to the west coast? Would any of those journeys have been safe? Would any of them have taken less than several weeks (if not months)? Would any of those journeys have been possible as a matter of routine for anyone other than the ultra-elite? Good god, do you have any idea what a wonder of the world our interstate highway system is?

Again, go back just three hundred years. How would one go about treating an infected tooth? How about a kidney stone? What happened when someone had a leg crushed under a horse?

It's silly to think that our current civilization can't be improved upon, but it is utterly ridiculous to think that there are not immense benefits to our current civilization that would have seemed beyond imagination to average people only a few hundred years ago, that we take for granted every day.

[leftofthedial]

30. The OP didn't say "rebuild a civilization" or even "rebuild civilization."

It said specifically "rebuild civilization AS WE KNOW IT" (emphasis mine)

I don't think you have much of an understanding of WTF I'm talking about.

[Raskolnik]

31. Yes, modern civilization "AS WE KNOW IT" has immense benefits that you don't seem to recognize.

You mentioned transportation and medical infrastructure. I pointed out that those systems AS WE KNOW THEM are almost inconceivably better then they were only a few hundred years ago.

[leftofthedial]

33. you're not even talking to me.

What "a few hundred years ago" has to do with anything I've said escapes me.

By all means rebuild a civilization capable of the technology you keep yammering about. But don't recreate Kaiser-Permanente in order to give me the band aid for my skinned knee. Kaiser-Permanente, HMO's, PPO's, insurance company for-profit ownership of health care and fifty million Americans with no insurance is "medical infrastructure" AS WE KNOW IT.

If you want to rebuild that, you are a fool.

[Raskolnik]

34. You are closing your eyes and plugging your ears to avoid recognizing the benefits of civiliation

AS WE KNOW IT. Clearly, you want to talk about health care policy, but that isn't the topic of discussion. We are talking about civilization, which is much larger than your personal experiences with an HMO.

[leftofthedial]

36. You want to rebuild HMO's. You want to rebuild decaying infrastructure

supporting 100 million fossil fuel burning cars.

You want to create a world full of divisive superstitions and religions that preach hate and intolerance.

You want to rebuild fractious nations with armies and terrible weapons of personal and mass destruction.

You want to rebuild a banking system designed to enrich the one at the expense of the many.

You want to rebuild a corporate agribusiness that grows little but poison and poor health.

You want to rebuild a "civilization" that allows most of the people on the planet to live in poverty and hunger.

Fine. We know what you stand for. You stand for our civilization as we know it, as I've described it.

I'd prefer to build a different civilization--one based not on greed, fear, hatred, intolerance and superstition.


And stop putting words in my mouth. I never said a word against the development of civilization.

[Raskolnik]

41. Ahh, you want to build a *utopian* civilization.

How has that worked out every time it's been tried in the history of the world?

[leftofthedial]

42. a) it hasn't really been tried.

b) it's not possible. People are fallible. But we have a few thousand years of examples of what doesn't work to help guide us.

[raccoon]

43. And don't forget modern birth control methods.

In a pre-industrial society a lot of them wouldn't be available.

[arcadian]

17. That's it man, game over man, game over! What the fuck are we gonna do now? What are we gonna do?

Hey, maybe you haven't been keeping up on current events, but we just got our asses kicked, pal!

[Xenotime]

18. Exactly. I support the V.H.E.M.T with the notion of just letting everyone die off.

And let the earth heal.

[raccoon]

19. You may be interested in the book, "The World Without Us."

Tells what would happen in the world if all the people suddenly disappeared/were raptured away.

It's nonfiction.

[AngryAmish]

20. You first. Do it this weekend.

Otherwise you are a coward.

[Deja Q]

37. Seconded.

[Xenotime]

45. Bullshit. Most people are sophiscated enough to adopt this movement.

[dysfunctional press]

21. why don't you put her in charge...?

[Cleita]

23. Then there is the legend of the Phoenix who even though destroyed

always rises from the ashes. The metaphor would be that civilization would be rebuilt from the scraps of the fallen civilization. It's always been that way and I don't know why things would be any different this time around.

[NeedleCast]

32. Yes

Although if were going to happen in the short terms, they would have to figure out how to do it with a lack of fossile fuels.

[deaniac21]

35. Would the dog have caught the rabbit if it had not stopped to pee?

[Deja Q]

38. Yes.

The rabbit tripped on a pebble and sprained its ankle.

The pooch, free of pee, had tasty hasenpfeffer for supper. :9

[deaniac21]

46. As Jean-Luc used to say to Commander Riker,

"Number 1, I order you to take a number 2".

[ThomWV]

39. You presume that "things' are what make up a civilization. That is wrong.

It is thought and language on which civilizations are built and in fact it is the very scarcity of resources that demand that thought, language, and their civilizing effect grow in deciding our future. I thought that would be pretty obvious.

[IDemo]

44. We have a winner

Nicely said. :thumbsup:

[and-justice-for-all]

40. How many exitinctions has there been..

and how many times has life returned anew?

But civilization as it is now, would of course return much differently. The only true way to avoid extinction is to go where no one has gone before...