Ask HN: Does a Civilisation OS Exist?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33155458

by jamiegreen • 4 years ago

7 5 4 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

The threat of nuclear war seems to be rising rapidly:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Dod9AWz8Rp4Svdpof/why-i-think-there-s-a-one-in-six-chance-of-an-imminent

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/09/biden-armageddon-russia-nuclear-threat-pentagon

Is anyone aware of a 'Civilisation OS'? E.g. instruction manuals for rebooting civilisation from scratch in the event that some large % of it is destroyed?

I am thinking about something like nested txt files covering everything from how to make a fire to how to smelt aluminium to how pencils are made.

If it doesn't exist already, anyone want to work on it?

thesuperbigfrog• 4 years ago

1. Get or build an off-grid-powered, rugged cyberdeck:

https://hackaday.com/2022/09/04/2022-cyberdeck-contest-the-b...

https://www.makeuseof.com/best-raspberry-pi-cyberdecks/

2. Put needed information on cyberdeck:

Wikipedia: https://planetofthepaul.com/wikipedia-download-usb-flash/

How To Invent Everything: https://www.amazon.com/dp/073522014X/

And whatever other info you want

mikewarot• 4 years ago

It looks like you're seeking a technical solution to a social problem. If there's no stable society, all the tech in the world is useless.

The key is to have a circle of friends who you've worked with in the past to route around problems like natural disasters, societal failures, accidents, etc. This is your local community network.

If things go bad, who can you count on, and who will count on you?

Technology that would be useful in a local failure of society would be centered around distributed communications and logistics. Perhaps setting up stand alone mesh networks with a small server to help coordinate activities would be quite helpful. Look into the ways people help in the disasters that already happen, and you'll likely find things to lend support towards, and/or adopt for yourself.

muzani• 4 years ago

I would imagine we'd copy civilization from places that weren't affected (e.g. parts of Africa). They should probably still retain knowledge up to quantum physics, dams, electric trains, microservices, tanks, agriculture, and all of TV Tropes.

Maybe they'd be missing space travel, electric cars, and AI generated waifus but research wise it might just take half a century to get back to 2020 levels.

For someone who is on ground zero, it sounds like the most useful thing would be to establish communication with unaffected areas for knowledge transfer.

eternityforest• 4 years ago

There are piles upon piles of survivalist books. I'd rather they were slightly less of a thing though, because most seem to be by and for people who want a total collapse and would probably prefer if we never rebuilt the present technological society.

I suspect the biggest technical problem with rebuilding would be chip fabs and other ultra high tech things, but the social problem would be bigger. I don't know what the social problem would be, but it would obviously be really big if civilization just collapsed.

Making pencils shouldn't be a problem if there's enough of a society left to find any graphite, all you need is a friend of a friend with a history book in the basement that says how they were made.

The other issue is any unlearnable/unteachable steps. There are millions of devices I could confidently use having never seen before, if I could study them with youtube vids.

Pre-tech era methods were full of things that were not fully technique based and relied on skills that can't be described. I could never paint a realistic face even if I had five years to study every book on technique available, and people used to do everyday things with processes like that.

Maybe it would be worth looking at historical processes, like how rope was made and such, and adapting them to be executable with pure book learning and basic tools, instead of "You have to keep just the right tension here and this should look about like that and...".

But I'm more interested in how we can prevent collapses entirely, and what we'd need to stockpile to be able to rebuild and continue, and who might try to interfere with that.

LargoLasskhyfv• 4 years ago

http://collapseos.org/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_re_metallica

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Field_Manua...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Resistance_(book)

Besides that, anything about plants, how to identify, collect/seed/grow/harvest, and prepare and preserve them (Have jars? Know how to use them?).

The same for animals, hunting, butchering, smoking/salting for preservation, and so on.

You need to eat to be able to 'reboot to safe mode' for a while, and from there on reinstall some back-up, or clean up the mess, piece by piece.

Btw., what do you want with linked txt files? I'd rather prefer printouts on laminated or otherwise waterproofed paper, spiral bound, softcover, not paperback.

Do you expect to be able to recharge your gadgets for reading the txts when they've been hit by an EMP?

https://www.wbdg.org/resources/high-altitude-emp-effects-pro...

When there is no working electric grid anymore? (For whichever reason, doesn't have to be an EMP)

When the logistic chains are mostly or even totally gone? (Making any SarsCov2 related shortage look like a walk in the park)

Oh, err,.... drinkable WATER! Starting with something like these https://outdoorsmagic.com/article/katadyn-befree-versus-life...

Ask HN: Does a Civilisation OS Exist?

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