How long does tech last after The End?

[Captain Obvious]

Re: How long does tech last after The End?

 

This reminds me of a random thought I had once regarding dumping the campaign's smartest villain into prehistory, and seeing how long it would take him to build a time machine to come back...

 

I figure he gets the food gathering down pat pretty quickly, then he's smelting metals, building a windmill for some basic electricity generation, and has made it to the early industrial era within a month at the latest. If he can build a powered vehicle, he can probably get his time machine built within a year, if I stretch suspension of disbelief a tad.

 

But, realistically though, if you had one polymath wake up into a world devoid of tech, how long might it take them to restore major tech items to operation?

 

There was a short story in an anthology called "The Hard SF Renaissance" that ran along similar lines. The main characters were effectively immortal (in the immune to aging sense), and stranded on a planet-thing (long explanation, and not relevant to the discussion at hand), and had to re-invent the technology to get away. It took them quite a while to work something out since the planetoid was so seismically active and they couldn't build permanent structures anywhere. It took them several thousand years, but I never got the impression that any of them were supergeniuses, and they were hampered pretty badly by the surroundings.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: How long does tech last after The End?

 

Actually' date=' given my own experience. Modern cars would be useless after a semi-rough winter. The last car I had before my current one would be virtually imposible to start if I hadnt started it up for 5 days. So, any older cars would be useless come spring I think. [/quote']

 

:eek:Where do you live?

 

I've left cars unstarted for weeks and months over the winter and had no major trouble getting them going again.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: How long does tech last after The End?

 

My thinking on humanity's ability to produce technology is that it requires a critical mass of population. If human population is reduced to a few million worldwide' date=' there simply won't be enough people left to operate and manage all the extraction, production, distribution, and retail organizations necessary to maintain a high level of tech in society. Could be wrong about this, tho. Any thoughts?[/quote']

 

That is part of it, and division of labor is another part. If you spend all your time getting food, making clothes, and maintaining your shelter, you don't have any time or energy left over for learning how to work metals.

 

If you just produce food for yourself and a little extra for trade, and have someone else make your clothes, and you have help building a good sturdy house, then it's easier to learn how to work metals, and one of your neighbors is bound to be working with quality leather, and another one smelting different metals, and another making glass, etc.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: How long does tech last after The End?

 

It's a fair bet that in the first few years after the Destruction survivors will use dwindling tech resources to gather together in mutually supporting groups. *duh*

Your casualty rate, however, means that many communities will go in particular technological directions based on the available skills, resources, and references available in that community's formative years as plague is notoriously random about who it lets survive.

 

You'll most likely have some form of bulk commerce system in place as soon as a few years after founding, as each settlement determines what are it's easiest to produce/acquire resources or salvage, and start looking to trade for things that might be common elsewhere.

[Curufea]

Re: How long does tech last after The End?

 

Anything with integrated circuits will not last long if used often (hence modern cars, anything with computer circuitry etc) due to metal migration (also known as electromigration). The shear minuteness of the metal wires means the act of transferring electricity down them will cause the metal to shift and eventually fuse.

 

Likewise any kind of EMP (say a nuclear blast) will fuse them.

[Zeropoint]

Re: How long does tech last after The End?

 

Actually, given my own experience. Modern cars would be useless after a semi-rough winter. The last car I had before my current one would be virtually imposible to start if I hadnt started it up for 5 days. So, any older cars would be useless come spring I think.

 

That's odd. My 2002 Subaru Forester will start just fine after sitting around for a month. I'd expect that any modern car would start just fine after a winter, as long as you had a charged battery.

[Toadmaster]

Re: How long does tech last after The End?

 

Actually' date=' given my own experience. Modern cars would be useless after a semi-rough winter. The last car I had before my current one would be virtually imposible to start if I hadnt started it up for 5 days. So, any older cars would be useless come spring I think. [/quote']

 

When I moved to Arizona in 1998 I left my '69 Toyota Land Cruiser parked at my dad's house. I moved back to California in 2000 and I picked it up and took it home that summer. So it sat outside with a blue tarp over it for a little over two years, in fact it had sat for almost 3 years because the clutch went out before I moved. All I did was charge the battery, dripped a little fuel in the carburator and it started right up. The 3 year old gas smoked a bit more than usual but it ran ok.

 

 

Edit

Ok, I hardly drive anymore and when I do we usually take the pickup (gas costs too much to drive the Land Cruiser for the 'ell of it). I've driven it once since moving in March and that was probably in May, so its been sitting 4-5 months. Out of curiosity I just went out and started it, I got it going in under 1 minute just by pumping the gas and turning the key..

[Toadmaster]

Re: How long does tech last after The End?

 

I'm wondering, in all your posts you mention no maintenace. Where have all the people been for the past 40 years?

 

I realize you are eliminating 99% of the population but 1% or even 0.1% still leaves quite a few people. Important items like power and water are not going to be ignored by successfulsurvivor groups. They will locate close to the power / water supply, do what they can to eliminate waste (cut excess power lines / water lines) and scavenge / stockpile / manufacture spare parts.

 

I'm not saying every survivor group will do this, some will fail to paln and some will not be lucky enough to have utility engineers, mechanics, gunsmiths, farmers etc, but then again those groups probably will not be successful so won't be a factor 40 years after.

[McCoy]

Re: How long does tech last after The End?

 

:eek:Where do you live?

 

I've left cars unstarted for weeks and months over the winter and had no major trouble getting them going again.

 

That's odd. My 2002 Subaru Forester will start just fine after sitting around for a month. I'd expect that any modern car would start just fine after a winter' date=' as long as you had a charged battery.[/quote']

 

When I moved to Arizona in 1998 I left my '69 Toyota Land Cruiser parked at my dad's house. I moved back to California in 2000 and I picked it up and took it home that summer. So it sat outside with a blue tarp over it for a little over two years, in fact it had sat for almost 3 years because the clutch went out before I moved. All I did was charge the battery, dripped a little fuel in the carburator and it started right up. The 3 year old gas smoked a bit more than usual but it ran ok.

 

 

Edit

Ok, I hardly drive anymore and when I do we usually take the pickup (gas costs too much to drive the Land Cruiser for the 'ell of it). I've driven it once since moving in March and that was probably in May, so its been sitting 4-5 months. Out of curiosity I just went out and started it, I got it going in under 1 minute just by pumping the gas and turning the key..

You're lucky the gas didn't turn to varnish. There's a fuel additive that is suggested for vehicles that are going to remain unused for some time.

[McCoy]

Re: How long does tech last after The End?

 

This reminds me of a random thought I had once regarding dumping the campaign's smartest villain into prehistory, and seeing how long it would take him to build a time machine to come back...

 

I figure he gets the food gathering down pat pretty quickly, then he's smelting metals, building a windmill for some basic electricity generation, and has made it to the early industrial era within a month at the latest. If he can build a powered vehicle, he can probably get his time machine built within a year, if I stretch suspension of disbelief a tad.

 

But, realistically though, if you had one polymath wake up into a world devoid of tech, how long might it take them to restore major tech items to operation?

Lot is going to depend on luck.

 

Hard to make electricity without a magnet. Copper, tin and a loadstone, might be able to build a handcrank generator. Scaling up from there to a hydroelectrical dam will require iron, which takes coal, and possibly more man-hours than a human lifetime. Plus a single flood can wipe out a lifetime's work.

 

Think the best your polymath can do is bronze age metals, Renasance wind or water mills, and maybe enough chemical batteries for a few tricks with electricity. From found objects I don't see a light bulb, much less transistors, in a single lifetime.

[bobrunnicles]

Re: How long does tech last after The End?

 

When I moved to Arizona in 1998 I left my '69 Toyota Land Cruiser parked at my dad's house. I moved back to California in 2000 and I picked it up and took it home that summer. So it sat outside with a blue tarp over it for a little over two years, in fact it had sat for almost 3 years because the clutch went out before I moved. All I did was charge the battery, dripped a little fuel in the carburator and it started right up. The 3 year old gas smoked a bit more than usual but it ran ok.

 

 

Edit

Ok, I hardly drive anymore and when I do we usually take the pickup (gas costs too much to drive the Land Cruiser for the 'ell of it). I've driven it once since moving in March and that was probably in May, so its been sitting 4-5 months. Out of curiosity I just went out and started it, I got it going in under 1 minute just by pumping the gas and turning the key..

 

Of course with a manual transmission you can always bump start a car assuming the gas still has some life left in it - had to do this many a time in the UK. Get some friends to push it down the road in neutral, then at a speed that just feels 'right' put it in a high gear and release the clutch. Downhill works best as there will be a jolt as it turns over and you have to maintain momentum.

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: How long does tech last after The End?

 

I realize you are eliminating 99% of the population but 1% or even 0.1% still leaves quite a few people. Important items like power and water are not going to be ignored by successfulsurvivor groups. They will locate close to the power / water supply' date=' do what they can to eliminate waste (cut excess power lines / water lines) and scavenge / stockpile / manufacture spare parts..[/quote']

 

Much depends on just how many of the aforementioned survivors have a better-than-typical knowledge of maintenance (car repairs, electrician, carpentry, blacksmithing, etc.) AND, over the space of forty-odd years, can successfully pass this know-how on to others.

 

I recall reading in a number of places that one needs a minimum-sized population to make adequate allowance for specialized trades - such as teaching the young basic literacy and so forth. Too few, and you need EVERYBODY working in the fields just to fend off starvation.

[cyst13]

Re: How long does tech last after The End?

 

I think Ian raises an extremely cogent point about transmitting info to the next generation. Consider the psychology of the people who survive a cataclysmic virus. They would have watched most/all of their loved ones die. Indeed, this virus is of the encephalitic variety, so it causes violent rages in its victims. Having gone through a major trauma like that, how sociable would they be feeling? Would they have they requisite patience and empathy necessary to be good teachers? Also, their own children would likely be dead, so they'd be passing their skills onto strangers for little/no pay. Education would suffer.

[Cancer]

Re: How long does tech last after The End?

 

I admit that back on 12/31/1999 where I was there were enough survivalist nutcases who'd been hoarding food, supplies, and above all ammunition that I expected them to come out and start raiding their neighbors immediately after midnight when the Y2K Crash rendered the rest of civilization helpless.

[megaplayboy]

Re: How long does tech last after The End?

 

Well, by definition, the end of civilization would tend to bring with it, the end of civilized behavior, so I'd expect the crime blotter for the days, weeks and months after the Fall to be record-breaking.

 

"barter or die" would probably become the operative exchange system("trade with us in good faith, or we'll kill you and take what we need to survive").

[Curufea]

Re: How long does tech last after The End?

 

I admit that back on 12/31/1999 where I was there were enough survivalist nutcases who'd been hoarding food' date=' supplies, and above all ammunition that I [u']expected[/u] them to come out and start raiding their neighbors immediately after midnight when the Y2K Crash rendered the rest of civilization helpless.

The same was the case in 999 as well - merchants would give away their gold, church congregations were overflowing, etc...

[Highwayman]

Re: How long does tech last after The End?

 

Lot is going to depend on luck.

 

Hard to make electricity without a magnet. Copper, tin and a loadstone, might be able to build a handcrank generator. Scaling up from there to a hydroelectrical dam will require iron, which takes coal, and possibly more man-hours than a human lifetime. Plus a single flood can wipe out a lifetime's work.

 

Think the best your polymath can do is bronze age metals, Renasance wind or water mills, and maybe enough chemical batteries for a few tricks with electricity. From found objects I don't see a light bulb, much less transistors, in a single lifetime.

 

Sounds like his best bet is to become god-king of the local cavemen and get them to build his dams, mine his metals, and do the rest of the grunt work.

 

Then all he has to do is lead them to some hidden valley or Hollow Earth pocket or somesuch that was unknown to the world at large when he left, tell them "stay put until I come back," and step out of his time machine in the 21st century into a hidden high-tech civilization that worships him as a god...

[Markdoc]

Re: How long does tech last after The End?

 

Lot is going to depend on luck.

 

No, it's going to depend on smarts. That, and muscle.

 

Hard to make electricity without a magnet.

.

So? There's enough magnets and copper lying around in abandoned engines to make as many as you want.

 

Copper' date=' tin and a loadstone, might be able to build a handcrank generator.[/quote']

 

Again you don't have to make this stuff - it'll be lying around (at least at first) Go to a scientific supplies warehouse (finding one without google might take a while though ) and you can take away a handcart full.

 

We're talking about 40 years. A handcrank generator is made mostly out of painted iron and glazed copper - it'll last many, many decades.

 

Scaling up from there to a hydroelectrical dam will require iron, which takes coal, and possibly more man-hours than a human lifetime. Plus a single flood can wipe out a lifetime's work.

 

Think the best your polymath can do is bronze age metals, Renasance wind or water mills, and maybe enough chemical batteries for a few tricks with electricity. From found objects I don't see a light bulb, much less transistors, in a single lifetime.

 

Maybe - but my dad made a small hydro generator (we used it to pump creek water up to water the garden during periods of hosepipe restrictions) using concrete, found materials and standard auto workshop tools. Mind you, my dad was awesome - he did it because he thought it was cool rather than to lack of electricity.

 

Given the existence both of books, tools and vast stores of salvageable material, I expect people would do better than that. In developing countries people make all kinds of stuff (yes, including windpowered electricity generators) out of what is basically trash and maintain heavily-used motor vehicles for 40 or 50 years with simple handtools.

 

People are more adaptable than we give them credit for. Of course those who can't or won't adapt, die

 

cheers, Mark

[BoneDaddy]

Re: How long does tech last after The End?

 

A really damned huge solar flare, the kind necessary to wipe out not only transistors but also to fuse alternators into decorative copper donuts: what other side effects? Would it leave every blessed ferrous metal on the planet magnetized? A world without alternators gets pretty damned complicated, in terms of scrounging. A world where every ferrous metal is magnetized is likewise a pain in the ass to build things in, especially things with moving parts. You could wind up with magnets all over the place, and people trying desperately to make generators out pvc, wood, and scrap aluminum.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: How long does tech last after The End?

 

A really damned huge solar flare' date=' the kind necessary to wipe out not only transistors but also to fuse alternators into decorative copper donuts: what other side effects? Would it leave every blessed ferrous metal on the planet magnetized? A world without alternators gets pretty damned complicated, in terms of scrounging. A world where every ferrous metal is magnetized is likewise a pain in the ass to build things in, especially things with moving parts. You could wind up with magnets all over the place, and people trying desperately to make generators out pvc, wood, and scrap aluminum.[/quote']

 

Get it hot enough and you can hammer the magnetism out of it.

[Cancer]

Re: How long does tech last after The End?

 

Actually, get it above its Curie temperature, and you don't need to hammer it. As long as the magnetic incident is transient (and doesn't impose that powerful field permanently) that's all you need to do; on cooling, the magnetic domains in the metals will be randomized. You can find more here....

 

FWIW, I don't think it's possible to have a magnetic event that powerful without something else going on. Creating a neutron star makes for an impressive magnetic pulse, but that only happens when you're in a Type II supernova, and there's Other Significant Stuff happening there.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: How long does tech last after The End?

 

You have to admit that having Sol go Type II Supernova would be pretty tough to take around here if you didn't get your parasol popped in time.

(Now I'm imagining the Sun curled up on the couch after flunking second year, binging on one tub after another of Ben & Jerry's Hydrogen Hacienda 'till its bloated off the main spectrum...)

[Toadmaster]

Re: How long does tech last after The End?

 

Much depends on just how many of the aforementioned survivors have a better-than-typical knowledge of maintenance (car repairs, electrician, carpentry, blacksmithing, etc.) AND, over the space of forty-odd years, can successfully pass this know-how on to others.

 

I recall reading in a number of places that one needs a minimum-sized population to make adequate allowance for specialized trades - such as teaching the young basic literacy and so forth. Too few, and you need EVERYBODY working in the fields just to fend off starvation.

 

A successful survivor group will have these things, it has to be pretty much accepted or the group would have perished and you would have no game.

 

Many imagine that people would regress back to stone or bronze age tech. In reality I think most groups would maintain some semblence of modern society or die. I mean if the community doesn't have people with the knowledge to farm, build irrigation, provide heat etc they will die. They will not suddenly remember how to flint nap arrow heads, make fire with 2 sticks etc. Sure you might have some groups that do this because of the local knowledge base (a caveman reinactor ) but if a group can not maintain the essential services they will die when the canned food, matches, clean water etc runs out.

 

Now these same things also provide for many of the plot devices in a game. The local doctor has died of old age, he has trained a number of apprentices who can maintain the general health of the community but a new doctor is needed to complete their training. The last spare parts for the wind generators have been used, the PC's are tasked with finding more parts before the generators break down again. Etc

[Captain Obvious]

Re: How long does tech last after The End?

 

Many imagine that people would regress back to stone or bronze age tech. In reality I think most groups would maintain some semblence of modern society or die. I mean if the community doesn't have people with the knowledge to farm, build irrigation, provide heat etc they will die. They will not suddenly remember how to flint nap arrow heads, make fire with 2 sticks etc.

 

I don't think any area would end up with a true stone age tech level (except those that are still on the verge of it anyhow). Places in the US that ended up regressing that far wouldn't have flint arrowheads, in all likelihood...very few people remember how to do it. More likely, they'd make arrowheads out of broken glass or cut them from sheet metal with snips. Likewise with other post-apoc stone age technologies....

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: How long does tech last after The End?

 

Many imagine that people would regress back to stone or bronze age tech. In reality I think most groups would maintain some semblence of modern society or die. I mean if the community doesn't have people with the knowledge to farm' date=' build irrigation, provide heat etc they will die. They will not suddenly remember how to flint nap arrow heads, make fire with 2 sticks etc. Sure you might have some groups that do this because of the local knowledge base (a caveman reinactor ) but if a group can not maintain the essential services they will die when the canned food, matches, clean water etc runs out.[/quote']

 

Perhaps but, post-catastrophe, there could also be a gradual erosion of knowledge bases as well, especially in a small group. For instance, I doubt if ypour aforementioned doctor would necessarily have the time or the means to successfully pass on ALL of the useful stuff that he knows. He may be able to educate students up to the functional equivalent of paramedics / midwives, but not, I believe, much beyond this level. Not in a smallish group, where there would likely be way too many other demands on their time.

 

Which also suggests that some knowledge would simply fall by the wayside. There might be honest attempts to let subsequent generations know that things like micro-surgery, gene-splicing, organ transplants, etc. all actually existed. But, these things would probably become little more tthan follklore in a small isolated community. Odds are that the means to do any of these things would not endure - simply too much is required in terms of resources and skills.

 

Even assuming that the original possessors of such knowledge very carefully avoid accidents or anything else that could lead to a (comparitively) premature death (with subsequent loss of their skills), I think that a substantial loss of knowledge would be inevitable. It would not be all at once, necessarily and, over the course of several generations, inhabitants may not even fully realize how much they have lost.