Rebuilding Civilization

[JCavSD]

Why would you want to go back to the "civilized" world .

Flush toilets.

 

[ron_m80]

I can't speak to the cultural psychology of chimps, but it certainly seems plausible that our beliefs influence our actions on a cultural scale. We should be thoughtful regarding what and how we believe, because in this area more than any other we truly reap what we sow. If we're to rebuild a society I'd hope that we'd rebuild more wisely than we built.

I wonder how well we can improve upon what we have. I think that is what we have been trying to claim we have done, yet our lives move further and further down the path that makes us sicker and unhappier, yet we live longer and relish an easy life at the cost of the greatest things. A reset to society will simply be another reset, just like all the others in the past but at a new time.

It is an interesting senario, I think it is optomistic to think that society would only be set back 100 years. I wonder if the smart folks would be able to group up fast enough. I bet most of them would eventually die off fending for incompetent pods of people, or worse, being forced into slavery by idiots that at least know who they need to do the smart work.

 

[JCavSD]

I wonder how well we can improve upon what we have. I think that is what we have been trying to claim we have done, yet our lives move further and further down the path that makes us sicker and unhappier, yet we live longer and relish an easy life at the cost of the greatest things. A reset to society will simply be another reset, just like all the others in the past but at a new time.

It is an interesting senario, I think it is optomistic to think that society would only be set back 100 years. I wonder if the smart folks would be able to group up fast enough. I bet most of them would eventually die off fending for incompetent pods of people, or worse, being forced into slavery by idiots that at least know who they need to do the smart work.

I don't know that we're actually sicker and unhappier. Even a cursory glance at world history turns up period of extreme discomfort and distress by our current standards. Thanks to modern medicine I've lived far past my prime, and I'm currently sipping a gin & tonic and goofing around online...and that's pretty freakin' good in my book.

Yea, I'm not sure how well the "smart" folks would do. I suppose smart comes in many flavors, and the value (or maybe viability?) of any given flavor depends largely on circumstance.

 

[beau5278]

It is an interesting senario, I think it is optomistic to think that society would only be set back 100 years. I wonder if the smart folks would be able to group up fast enough. I bet most of them would eventually die off fending for incompetent pods of people, or worse, being forced into slavery by idiots that at least know who they need to do the smart work.

I don't see "smart folks grouping up"to be much of an issue,people that would survive the best are the ones that have enough knowledge and land to provide for the one's that they care about,the only thing that would be important is to not have too many people that would be dead weight.On that note,I see people in the large cities that would be in the most trouble,once their food runs out,it would only be a matter of time until they did also.

 

[JCavSD]

Here's an interesting vid by ThunderF00t that's somewhat relevant. Modern technology has had a powerful influence on our culture. The internet has been a boon for knowledge sharing (and to some degree the sharing of misinformation). The loss of our ability to quickly and easily access information could be considered as crippling as the loss of knowledge. Both breadth and depth of knowledge are key to developing a viable society...so grab as many books (and index cards) as you can.

[video=youtube;D7dupg8h7ZU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7dupg8h7ZU[/video]

 

[stvpourciau]

Well, i have the "Complete Works of William Shakespeare In Chronological Order". So, I think that's a good start.

Stockpiling "how to" manuals is excellent and all but if you want to rebuild civilization, then I'd like to save some of the art that has made us Civilized. Monkeys learn to use tools as well; art and science are the only things that separate us from the chimpanzee..

 

[Raymond1000]

I have a friend who hates George R. Stewart’s Earth Abides. Some plague kills of 99.999% of the population. Ish, the protagonist, was some sort of researcher. But this is no Lest Darkness Fall. Ish doesn't use the library to reestablish 1949 levels of technology. (Which is why my friend hates it.)

Instead a random collection of average people gather into a tribe. They live by scavenging while the scavenging is good. As the old stuff is used up, they devolve into a Paleolithic lifestyle.

In this scenario, that sounds realistic. A post collapse gathering of Renaissance men reinventing the industrial revolution does not. By the luck of the draw you’d end up with more ditch diggers than physicists. Because, well, there are more hod carriers than physicists.

Ish has a flash of smarts and teaches his people to make and use the bow and arrow. At first they are toys. But as ammo gets rare and unreliable, they become a tribe of hunting archers. By the end of the book Ish is an otiose tribal deity, and the bow counts as high technology.

 

[Bo T]

"Some plague kills of 99.999% of the population."

That would leave 3000 people in the US. Probably a fairly healthy 3000. Your paelolithic tribe, while perfectly plausible, would be wiped out or absorbed, a couple of hundred years later, by a Renaissance group that was established elswhere. I think hod carriers are a minority in the US. And our literacy rate is above 90% for adults so the majority would be able to use knowledge from books.

 

[abcdef]

Sorry.....

http://suntzusaid.com/

 

[Raymond1000]

"Some plague kills of 99.999% of the population."

That would leave 3000 people in the US. Probably a fairly healthy 3000. Your paelolithic tribe, while perfectly plausible, would be wiped out or absorbed, a couple of hundred years later, by a Renaissance group that was established elswhere. I think hod carriers are a minority in the US. And our literacy rate is above 90% for adults so the majority would be able to use knowledge from books.

I’m sure that over time people would get right back to tribe building and kingdom building amid the ruins. Since the book ends with Ish’s death, we will never know.

Toting a hod is no growth career today. Neither is ditch digging. They have been replaced by the fork lift and the backhoe. There were a lot more of both in 1949, when Earth Abides was published. As a kid in the fifties I carried hods. One hod for toting cement. One for toting bricks. I dug a few ditches, too. Not that it matters. I pulled both examples out of my ass. I really don’t remember much about the character’s back stories.

Of course these survivors had basic reading skills. What they lacked were research skills. Not to mention a capacity to apply what they discovered. These abilities are less common than knowing how to read a newspaper.

 

[Thomas Linton]

What can we learn from the last time civilization collapsed?

Rome had mail service, police, paved roads, fire dept., indoor plumbing, iron nails, central heat, banking system (including international letters of credit), routine bathing, military field sanitation, libraries, census-taking, concrete.

Civilization collapsed slowly and unevenly, but at the depth of the Dark Ages, there were no large political polities in Europe - except for Moorish Spain. The "King of Germans," lived in a largish log hut with a wood fire burning on the dirt floor and a hole in the roof for smoke and stink. In Europe, no one built a doomed roof or bathed regularly for over 1000 years, but the Roman roads survived. (Well over 1000 years later, field sanitation in our Civil War killed more than all other causes combined 'cause, for example, we didn't "get" putting the latrine down-grade from the well.) So the extent of decline was severe - not just a little. Would it have been worse if the Muslim states had not saved classical literature? Probably. It was a long crawl back.

We would need to know what wood is good for what use. FF helps with that IIRC. Otherwise, we might try Elm for firewood and pine for fence posts.

 

[ron_m80]

Well said Thomas Linton. Historyshows clearly what happens when societies and culture lose their way in time. To know the past is to control your future, maybe?

 

[JCavSD]

Well said Thomas Linton. Historyshows clearly what happens when societies and culture lose their way in time. To know the past is to control your future, maybe?

At the least we'd get a better shot of consciously directing our present into an agreeable future.

More importantly, Penthouse or Playboy? I'd be grabbing me a stack of Penthouse.

 

[upnorth]

Maybe if the world lost all reference to the past, it would take a whole lot longer for it to destroy itself again.

Unfortunately the O.P. was asking which books to save, which means that all the various religious texts will be kept. Thus kick starting the endless cycle once again. I'd like a few books on psychoative plants of North America and have a good laugh for a while.

 

[sasha]

I would bring the books wrote and told by the greek philosephers(sp). The odyssy and the story of troy. 1001 arabian tales, I can't remember the name but there are a few good stories from old china. Throw in there a few books from chiness philosephers as well. A few chess boards to pass the time and a few mechanical books.. Like steam and basics engineering and math books lots of math books. Now would I be allowed to bring playing instruments Arts always been a huge part of our being, We need music and art. Most important is to get people to think be open to new ideas.

 

[Havokk]

A sense of community or of each other. This is a pervading sense of belonging in which each member has a sense that he is doing something for a greater good of the group.

That is my conclusion as well. Lone soldiers are good for action movies but rebuilding society is going to take, well, a society.

 

[JCavSD]

Most important is to get people to think be open to new ideas.

I agree that this is a critical aspect if we are to rebuild successfully. Western civilization suffered centuries of cultural and intellectual setback due largely to a brutal narrowing of cultural norms...largely driven by greed and the desire for power in the guise of religion. If we had a second chance (or third or fourth) a setback like this might be the dealbreaker. Carry forth literature that will promote growth of knowledge.

 

[555]

That is my conclusion as well. Lone soldiers are good for action movies but rebuilding society is going to take, well, a society.

And group projects aways end up with the few carrying the many, to where society falls apart from it's own weight and history repeating itself once again.

Many have tried to change it and failed. Human nature, the good with the bad is the one constant through the ages, that has out lived societies since man first walked the Earth. For there to be a common good (ya, try and get a consensus on that one), a common way of thinking will have to replace the natural instinct in the animal. wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, gluttony, etc. for example.

Common good scares me because in an attempt to achieve it, societies end up killing off their own people for purity of thought and or race. In an a attempt to remove diversity from it's culture to make what those in power think, is a perfect society.

[video=youtube;OnxkfLe4G74]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnxkfLe4G74[/video]

 

[untamed]

And group projects aways end up with the few carrying the many, to where society falls apart from it's own weight and history repeating itself once again.

Many have tried to change it and failed. Human nature, the good with the bad is the one constant through the ages, that has out lived societies since man first walked the Earth. For there to be a common good (ya, try and get a consensus on that one), a common way of thinking will have to replace the natural instinct in the animal. wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, gluttony, etc. for example.

Common good scares me because in an attempt to achieve it, societies end up killing off their own people for purity of thought and or race. In an a attempt to remove diversity from it's culture to make what those in power think, is a perfect society.

I am trying to understand what you are trying to say, but it seems that that's too "mountain" answer for a very localized "ant hill" question. Another way to put it is we're talking about the beginnings of trying to learn the ABC's, not yet gunning for a Phd.

We're are still talking about a start (Rebuilding Civilization) of the "cycle" you pointed out aren't we? Let's play amateur anthropologist then.

If we consider the beginnings of almost any culture in every part of the world, whether certain peoples chose a nomadic lifestyle or a settling down into informal "settlements" (later on to evolve into more complex "villages" i.e. - Indus River valley in India/Pakistan, Fertile Crescent in the Middle East, the Nile settlements in Egypt etc.), the notion was always to exploit the seasons and the location, its natural only to think that the there was not only safety in numbers, but also stability, creation of common values, intellectual development (i.e. - your "language" will develop a lot more if you're not the only one using it, then you can create trade/barter standards), a vertical and horizontal political system (i.e. - the head, the council, the seniors, the men, women then children) and a cementing of a common identity (i.e. - "The People from East of the River" archetype). Thus, the group who was able to to establish this was far more successful in establishing itself and the "common good" of its citizens.

I don't dispute what you say that human nature, because of its inherent complexity and the natural evolution of things will muck this up again sometime in the future (again, a "cycle"), but I think you'll have to agree with me that the more successful and higher-ordered organisms (an ant colony for example) in nature are those that have achieved this sense of coherent "oneness" as a group.

www.rivervalleycivilizations.com/

 

[JCavSD]

wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, gluttony, etc.

Hey hey hey...do I knock your hobbies???

Common good scares me because in an attempt to achieve it, societies end up killing off their own people for purity of thought and or race. In an a attempt to remove diversity from it's culture to make what those in power think, is a perfect society.

Agreed that this is a concern. Seems that some think that a "perfect" society is a uniform society...and tough luck for those that can't squeeze into the same uniform. This is why we bring with us literature that may help build a broader foundation.

...it seems that that's too "mountain" answer for a very localized "ant hill" question.

If given the opportunity to choose, is it wise to build one ant hill on top of another on top of another until the whole thing ends up in a pile? Looking at this question as "localized" may be short sighted. Could be useful to look at the question from a broader perspective.