The Massive Post-Apocalypse Tome for Technologies Reboot

**OrionzRevenge** · 08-03-2014, 11:00 AM

Stiggy's Thread about Low-T evolution got me thinking about just how fragile our Hi-tech civilization is.

In Euro-centric thinking, the fall of Rome and the loss of the associated technologies lead to what is known as the Dark-Ages. It was the restoration of this lost information, with the flight from Muslim conquered Constantinople, that spurred the Renascence and what has been called the beginning of the modern era.

Our situation is much more precarious because our technologies have advanced to a high degree of specialization and vastly dispersed centers of fabrication.

In short, if our society were to suffer a collapse, we'd be fucked.

So the question is: What sorts of survival material would need to be collected into a physical book form in order to reboot civilization?

The links I've provided in my cursory listing are, for the most part, useless for the DIY situation we'd find ourselves in, but it might help spur some insight of point to a glaring area of oversight in my listing.

What else needs be added to the list?
Are there any fragments of our current technologies we can perpetuate unimpeded?
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Reading & Math Primers for kids

Herbal Medicine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbalism

Fire
http://www.instructables.com/id/7-Me...Fire-Starting/

Knapping
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knapping

Hand spinning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_spinning

Weaving
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weaving

Domestication
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestication

Agriculture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_agriculture

Edible plants
http://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Ed.../dp/039592622X

Beer-wine Fermentation
http://morebeer.com/brewingtechnique...hitchcock.html

Cheese
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cheese

Food Preservation Methods
http://www.motherearthnews.com/real-...z70ndzgoe.aspx

Beekeeping
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beekeeping

Trapping
http://www.outdoorlife.com/photos/ga...survival-traps

Fishing Technology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishing_techniques

ANCIENT TANNING METHODS
http://www.onagocag.com/tann.html

PREHISTORIC POTTERY
http://www.pottedhistory.co.uk/Prehistoric_Pottery.html

Smelting -Tin and lead-Copper and bronze-Iron
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smelting

Smithing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacksmith

Lye Soap
http://www.motherearthnews.com/homes...-lye-soap.aspx

Quick Lime ~Calcium Oxide
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_oxide

Roman Concrete
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_concrete

Stonemasonry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonemasonry

Gunpowder and Explosives
http://cavemanchemistry.com/oldcave/projects/gunpowder/

Woodwright
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Woodwright%27s_Shop

Simple Machine Principles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_machine

Wind Power
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windmill

Water Power
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watermill

Archimedes' Screw _Water Pumps
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes%27_screw

Glass making
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_glass

Paper
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papermaking

Physics & Chemistry Primers

Nature Lore (Avoiding hazards and finding resources)

**Hephaestus** · 08-03-2014, 07:31 PM

I also anticipate a coming infopocalypse. The irony is, we have people trying to preserve knowledge by digitizing it. I see that as more of a dissemination technique than a preservation technique. When the bottom falls out of our ability to keep such tech running, that shit is going to be just as lost as the scrolls turned to ashes in Alexandria.

We could run across a data cache a million years old but there's no way of knowing we'd be able to recognize it as such.

Which leads me to the glaring oversight in your data: reading primers. Having a book filled with wondrous knowledge is only slightly less useless than 128gb cache of knowledge you don't have the tech to extract or identify.

I'd also add coopersmithing (some might say it falls under woodwright, but I don't think it's a little too specialized). I'd also include orienteering and sailing skills to the mix--so netmaking and knots and other nautical bits.

The last thing I observe that I think is lacking is cooking and nutrition. You might think it implied in some of the others, but a person who doesn't know about vitamin C or goiters isn't going to realize they need citrus and iodine in their diet. Likewise without knowledge of the need for B vitamins, beri-beri could make a comeback. Our industrial food system does a pretty good job of making those passive concerns, leaving us with diabetes and heart disease instead of scurvy and goiters, but post collapse, that infra-structure would fall--as you seem to anticipate with the foraging and agriculture related topics.

**OrionzRevenge** · 08-03-2014, 08:31 PM

Originally Posted by Hephaestus

I also anticipate a coming infopocalypse. The irony is, we have people trying to preserve knowledge by digitizing it. I see that as more of a dissemination technique than a preservation technique. When the bottom falls out of our ability to keep such tech running, that shit is going to be just as lost as the scrolls turned to ashes in Alexandria.

We could run across a data cache a million years old but there's no way of knowing we'd be able to recognize it as such.

Which leads me to the glaring oversight in your data: reading primers. Having a book filled with wondrous knowledge is only slightly less useless than 128gb cache of knowledge you don't have the tech to extract or identify.

I'd also add coopersmithing (some might say it falls under woodwright, but I don't think it's a little too specialized). I'd also include orienteering and sailing skills to the mix--so netmaking and knots and other nautical bits.

The last thing I observe that I think is lacking is cooking and nutrition. You might think it implied in some of the others, but a person who doesn't know about vitamin C or goiters isn't going to realize they need citrus and iodine in their diet. Likewise without knowledge of the need for B vitamins, beri-beri could make a comeback. Our industrial food system does a pretty good job of making those passive concerns, leaving us with diabetes and heart disease instead of scurvy and goiters, but post collapse, that infra-structure would fall--as you seem to anticipate with the foraging and agriculture related topics.

Good points, we don't know where in time or situation we'll find the discoverers of the Tome. It would have to start with the education primers and the DIY sections would have to rely heavily on illustrations and simple language.

This has an overall Humanitarian appeal to it and I'm not a survivalist zealot. When I see shows about bunker hoarders I think it useless unless you have massive amounts of money to invest.

But in near-future terms, you could make yourself the indispensable wizard of a recovering community if you possessed vital knowledge.

Mother Earth News has been doing the leg-work for these sorts of DIY from complete scratch technologies for decades now, and the military has invested a lot of trial & error into their survival manuals.

Example: Saltpetre for Gunpowder. You can extract it from human & animal waste collection pits, but you have to know how to do it. Books Like Improvised Munitions Black Book gives line drawing illustrations and brief text explanations for doing such.

This, I imagine, would be the basic format of such a tome.

**pensive_pilgrim** · 08-03-2014, 11:25 PM

Originally Posted by Hephaestus

I also anticipate a coming infopocalypse. The irony is, we have people trying to preserve knowledge by digitizing it. I see that as more of a dissemination technique than a preservation technique. When the bottom falls out of our ability to keep such tech running, that shit is going to be just as lost as the scrolls turned to ashes in Alexandria.

Disseminating data is the best way to preserve them, though. The more copies there are, the less likely it will be lost. I don't see how we're just going to lose the ability to read magnetic hard drives and tapes, either. It's really simple to operate a computer and doesn't require huge amounts of infrastructure - hell, I could probably fill up a kindle with all that stuff and power it with a lemon, assuming I had no access to batteries, generators, solar panels...

**Osito Polar** · 08-04-2014, 12:52 AM

Don't worry. We're on this one. Hackerspaces are great places to learn all sorts of stuff to make you a more well-versed geek. Knowledge need not exist in specialized silos.

http://thecrucible.org -- they teach most of the stuff on this list

If anyone wants to learn about fermenting, I could send you a SCOBY to start a kombucha colony. It's a very easy way to learn about raising friendly bacteria to help you make food. Pretty much it's like a floating mushroom that you grow in a tank of sweet tea, possibly mixed with herbs or fruit juice.

**Hephaestus** · 08-04-2014, 02:51 AM

Originally Posted by pathogenetic_peripatetic

Disseminating data is the best way to preserve them, though. The more copies there are, the less likely it will be lost. I don't see how we're just going to lose the ability to read magnetic hard drives and tapes, either. It's really simple to operate a computer and doesn't require huge amounts of infrastructure - hell, I could probably fill up a kindle with all that stuff and power it with a lemon, assuming I had no access to batteries, generators, solar panels...

If you know what the devices holding the data are, and how to access the data, then yes. But if you don't then it's a bit more difficult to gain traction on that literacy. Having books on a flash drive is less accessible than having physical books. The access is more fragile--though the persistence is not.

You have a less pessimistic view of how much can be lost. Meanwhile, there are artifacts around the world that are impressive in scope and design with no known purpose, yet, clearly, they were important for something to some people at some point in time.

Let's take an entertaining example: let's say you stumbled across an alien data device. It held an enormous library of alien knowledge in compact package. How would you know? How would you know how to access it?

With a sufficiently devastating event, the survivors of the species would be in a similar position. If literacy is plausibly at risk, then certainly computer literacy and technological competency is at risk.

Originally Posted by OrionzRevenge

This has an overall Humanitarian appeal to it and I'm not a survivalist zealot. When I see shows about bunker hoarders I think it useless unless you have massive amounts of money to invest.

But in near-future terms, you could make yourself the indispensable wizard of a recovering community if you possessed vital knowledge.

I agree. I think that the best thing to hoard isn't supplies, but knowledge and skills. They are more valuable in both the near and long term.

**OrionzRevenge** · 08-04-2014, 05:24 PM

Originally Posted by Osito Polar

Don't worry. We're on this one. Hackerspaces are great places to learn all sorts of stuff to make you a more well-versed geek. Knowledge need not exist in specialized silos.

http://thecrucible.org -- they teach most of the stuff on this list

If anyone wants to learn about fermenting, I could send you a SCOBY to start a kombucha colony. It's a very easy way to learn about raising friendly bacteria to help you make food. Pretty much it's like a floating mushroom that you grow in a tank of sweet tea, possibly mixed with herbs or fruit juice.

Thanks, I'm glad to see there is an interest in this sort of stuff. I have to confess that my background in Microbiology let me down as I had to Google SCOBY. Sounds awesome.

The Crucible folks look like they are doing a very worthwhile job of it, and having a knowledge of knack and technique would be something very difficult to translate into simple text.

The more I look into this the more daunting the challenge seems to even equip an unfortunate future with the basic skill-set of Homo erectus with only 2/3rds. our brain mass.

I have D/L the six volumes of Foxfire and Mother Earth News' 40 year collection (1970-2009) along with survival manuals. I also have found a couple of sites (groups) that explore primitive technology.

http://www.primitiveways.com/
http://www.wildwoodsurvival.com/survival/index.html

There is also a BBC series about life skills on a Tudor Monastery Farm that really gets down & dirty with the primitive skills.

If nothing else, the exploration hammers home just how desperate life was for our ancestors with nearly every waking moment given over to toil. We should make every effort not to have to return.

**Osito Polar** · 08-04-2014, 05:34 PM

Sorry -- to clarify SCOBY is a Symbiotic Colony Of Bacteria and Yeast. Production of vinegar, sourdough, ginger beer, kefir and kombucha require it.

Yes, I would argue that passing along this sort of knowledge involves DOING the thing you're trying to learn. A lot of the skills aren't really that difficult to acquire, difficult to master sure but most of the time to work metal usefully or to build a functional rocket launcher (my project from this weekend, taught an 8 year old how to do this) you don't need a ton of knowledge.

**OrionzRevenge** · 08-05-2014, 06:01 PM

**OrionzRevenge** · 08-11-2014, 04:53 AM

Some more videos

How to Make Pine Pitch Glue
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R4yExwKhS4

Birch Container: Pine Pitch & Spruce Cord
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4c8ftFjus0

How to make natural cordage from nettles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQHvqWCN5Eo

Making A Bow And Arrow And Fire With Stone Age Tools -Ray Mears
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik7GbPEqljg

That Ray Mears Dude, apparently has a British TV series about Bushcraft.