Using Human History as a guide Could Our Present Civilization Fall Into a New Dark Age?

[Luiglin]

I'd put a few dollars/pounds on Voyager 1 & 2 recognisably lasting hundreds of millions of years, possibly even billions.


Don't know how I'd collect those winnings if it were true though.

They're going to bump into a brick wall soon just like in a cosmic version of the Truman Show.

 

[RJM Corbet]

... Also don't forget that so long as books exist a lot of knowledge is preserved as well. Sure the average person can't make a fire from sticks and twigs and a bit of flint; but the foundations and step by step of that process is well documented. Plus we know it CAN be done which is a huge boost to redeveloping lost understanding (often lost knowledge is specific methods or approaches to working with things that isn't documented or is rarely documented)...

There'd be some stuff preserved on paper. But the overwhelming mass of important information -- blueprints, etc -- is probably stored in computer files? There wouldn't be much to find in books? No good having your wip manuscript stored on Gmail if all google information is permanently deleted?

It wouldn't have to take us back to the stone-age. But who has their own borehole or lives close enough to a clean river to fetch water on a trolley in an emergrncy situation? Our whole civilization is dependent on computer files.

 

[RJM Corbet]

So the power would pass from the professional class to the farmers and artisans? Financiers and lawyers and bankers -- and POLITICIANS -- would suddenly find themselves dependent on carpenters and welders and others who work with their hands, actually producing and making the real-life necessities. Lol: bring it on ...

 

[Dave]

So the power would pass from the professional class to the farmers and artisans?

Most probably. The major point is that Power, Food and Water are no longer produced locally. If they are cut off from a city then, sure, we wouldn't revert to the stone age; people could make fires, use animals and physical labour, grow vegetables and dig wells - but how many people know how to do all that, or are fit enough to do that kind of work? These are skills, not just knowledge, so yes, the information could be found in books, but many libraries have have been closed, and anyway, do people have the time to learn that before they starve and freeze.

 

[Edward M. Grant]

people could make fires, use animals and physical labour, grow vegetables and dig wells - but how many people know how to do all that, or are fit enough to do that kind of work?

And can do it while simultaneously protecting themselves from the crazies?

In a real collapse scenario, city-dwellers won't even be able to think about growing food until the violence has burned itself out. And most people in the city will be dead by then.

 

[RJM Corbet]

But, HOW could a large scale failure of computer technology happen?

 

[Parson]

regular EMP flashes ---- Unstoppable viruses (less likely than the first)

 

[Overread]

The other aspect is that even if all the computers in the world turned off cars, lorries, radios and a lot of other similar technology would still work - heck steam trains would still work. We'd more likely experience several years of disruption and trouble but would be more likely to pull through and re-work things.

The bigger elements would be changes to society - ergo we might go back to owning less luxuries; to more seasonal and regional food production; back to more local production etc...

Technology failing would be a huge issue, but it would be survivable through adaptation and use of more basic technology. Heck something like a super-virus would only be limiting in so many ways.


More risk is something like a super-virus or massive climatic change.

 

[Edward M. Grant]

But, HOW could a large scale failure of computer technology happen?

A nuke on Amazon's 'cloud' servers? So much stuff has now be farmed out to a tiny number of 'cloud' services that the bad guys could take down millions of online services in one attack. Sure, it wouldn't affect completely disconnected electronics, but even many 'Internet of Things' devices rely on a 'cloud' service to control them.

We're building vast single-points-of-failure into our infrastructure thanks to 'The Cloud'.

 

[Edward M. Grant]

The other aspect is that even if all the computers in the world turned off cars, lorries, radios and a lot of other similar technology would still work

Not after their on-board computers downloaded a new firmware update which bricked them. Most of these new 'driverless' cars, for example, are going to require over-the-air firmware updates, because no-one will want the product liability from allowing them to drive with firmware that has known bugs.

 

[Mirannan]

I'd like to make a point about the whole EOTWAWKI thing. It's this:

A lot of the knowledge humanity has accumulated over several thousand years is fundamental and is going to be very difficult to get rid of. Newton's laws. The theories of gravity and thermodynamics, at least in basic terms. The germ theory of disease. Various theorems of mathematics. Double-entry bookkeeping. Stirrups. Horse collars.

And so on. Given a little time to experiment, although I'm not all that mechanically gifted I reckon I could build a steam engine. I think we all underestimate just how much more Joe Average knows about various things than the average person (or even a very learned one) knew in the Middle Ages. And there are still enough people who about practical stuff such as farming to keep us going, IMHO.

Except major cities. Come the apocalypse, almost anyone who stays in one for more than a couple of days is dead.

 

[Onyx]

I'd like to make a point about the whole EOTWAWKI thing. It's this:

A lot of the knowledge humanity has accumulated over several thousand years is fundamental and is going to be very difficult to get rid of. Newton's laws. The theories of gravity and thermodynamics, at least in basic terms. The germ theory of disease. Various theorems of mathematics. Double-entry bookkeeping. Stirrups. Horse collars.

And so on. Given a little time to experiment, although I'm not all that mechanically gifted I reckon I could build a steam engine. I think we all underestimate just how much more Joe Average knows about various things than the average person (or even a very learned one) knew in the Middle Ages. And there are still enough people who about practical stuff such as farming to keep us going, IMHO.

Except major cities. Come the apocalypse, almost anyone who stays in one for more than a couple of days is dead.

I was about to make a very similar point. Your average victory gardener probably knows more about getting crop yields and keeping the soil healthy than the most successful farmer of the 19th century. Many people have home machine shops, know how to do electrical and plumbing work, have advanced degrees in engineering and chemistry, etc. If the world had to go agrarian for a few decades, there would be enough to cannibalize and repurpose to keep 1st world people from starving or living in cesspools.

 

[Parson]

Hm, Parson thinks about the people who put a brick in the bowl of the stool to save water, or who bought a muffler belt, or who think milk comes in jugs. I think you might go broke betting on Joe Average in the short term.

 

[Onyx]

Hm, Parson thinks about the people who put a brick in the bowl of the stool to save water, or who bought a muffler belt, or who think milk comes in jugs. I think you might go broke betting on Joe Average in the short term.

Is it ironic that a brick does displace water, decreasing the amount of water per flush and the fill level in the bowl?

But everyone doesn't need to be an expert in everything - we would just need enough people who do understand toilets to take teach everyone else.

 

[Dave]

I don't have quite as much faith in 'education' - and I'm not criticising schools here - there is much that schools don't teach, and shouldn't need to teach. I've read recent research (which I can't reference and is possibly anecdotal) that young people can't name wild flowers (while our grandparents would name them all) - a symptom of our disconnect with nature. I've also read that young people can't do DIY and always need to get a tradesman in to do the work. @Onyx says most people have a home machine shop. That is not my experience in the UK, and certainly not for 'twentysomethings'. Having said that, my own kids are not completely useless - my daughter went to a girls school where she was taught to wire a plug. However, look at this thread https://www.sffchronicles.com/threads/570168/ and the all the skills we learnt that are now totally redundant.

 

[RJM Corbet]

Finding a McGyver fix is one of life's true pleasures

And @Parson -- yes, a brick in the toilet cistern DOES help save water, lol ... or you can just bend the rod of the float downward a bit (but carefully), so it cuts off the water inflow at a lower level ...

 

[awesomesauce]

A nuke on Amazon's 'cloud' servers? So much stuff has now be farmed out to a tiny number of 'cloud' services that the bad guys could take down millions of online services in one attack. Sure, it wouldn't affect completely disconnected electronics, but even many 'Internet of Things' devices rely on a 'cloud' service to control them.

We're building vast single-points-of-failure into our infrastructure thanks to 'The Cloud'.

This isn't a long term failure that's going to lead to the collapse of human culture as we know it. Massive cloud service goes down, and there's a bunch of scrambling in the background to stand up servers, provision fiber, etc. It's a couple weeks to months of minor to major inconvenience, having to use your manual light switches and go shopping in a supermarket instead of asking Alexa to deliver, maybe in some cities, people have to treat traffic lights as 4 way stops or you can't use your credit card on a certain company's terminals, but we're not talking nuclear meltdowns. And everything really important has (or should have) secure offline backups. (I'd bet on credit card companies having backups before, say, traffic infrastructure, though.)

I think cutting submarine cables would be more devastating to communications infrastructure than losing a cloud hosting service, even a big one.

 

[Toby Frost]

I think it was either Harry Turtledove or Eric Flint who said that, following a disaster, it wouldn’t be too hard to get back to a Victorian level of technology. The problem would be pushing it much further. And you’d need paper books to help you get to the Victorian level. For years there was a rumour that the British government kept a number of steam locomotives in working order, in preparation for a disaster that would prevent the use of more complex trains. I think it’s an urban (well, rural) myth.

It’s worth mentioning that in the ultra-bleak and pretty believable drama Threads, electricity is restored 10 years after a nuclear war. Of course, nine tenths of the population are dead by then, and for those who survive it’s a totally miserable existence of back-breaking labour and early death, probably in conditions of slavery to whoever’s got a working shotgun, but hey ho.

 

[SilentRoamer]

A nuke on Amazon's 'cloud' servers? So much stuff has now be farmed out to a tiny number of 'cloud' services that the bad guys could take down millions of online services in one attack. Sure, it wouldn't affect completely disconnected electronics, but even many 'Internet of Things' devices rely on a 'cloud' service to control them.

We're building vast single-points-of-failure into our infrastructure thanks to 'The Cloud'.

I just wanted to correct you here. A Cloud based online networking solution doesn't contain a single point of failure. The whole idea behind the Cloud is they use geographically diverse multi failure redundant systems. So you would need to nuke multiple server farms across the globe.

The destruction of submarine cables as @awesomesauce points out would result in far worse communication problems but even then you could expect a certain level of connection to be restored using satellite uplink and other methods.

The only real way to kill off the internet and global connectivity would be an atmospheric detonation resulting in a significant EMP - although even then I expect there to be military infrastructure that is EMP blast proof.

 

[Overread]

that young people can't name wild flowers (while our grandparents would name them all) - a symptom of our disconnect with nature. I've also read that young people can't do DIY and always need to get a tradesman in to do the work.

A few thoughts

1) The lack of natural studies in school is a major failing in my view. There's a huge disconnect from nature in the education system basically because natural studies don't generate income for the majority of urban jobs. So we get to an education system where once you get to the "serious stuff" to learn natural studies is pushed to one side. We learn process like photosynthesis but not the names or identification of plants nor animals.

2) My father recalls that "back in the day" DIY didn't exist and people got in a tradesman to do the work instead. However I think that the lack of young people doing DIY today is more a symptom of the lack of home ownership and a heavier reliance both on rental properties and the high risk of having to move to a new job. Basically DIY works best when you own the property you live in and have some form of stability (ergo you're going to live there for many many years).
When you're in rental there's less desire to do the work yourself and more desire to have any work that must be done be done by a professional (indeed many estate agents would require the work be done by a professional).

3) There's also a huge shift away from physical hobbies for many people. Woodworking and other hobbies require space and time and many people are happier with a phone/console/TV style approach to hobbies today. However whilst this is tied into home ownership its also likely a phase and many of those hands on hobbies could well come back again. At present most hobby groups/clubs tend to be either aimed at kids or at the over 50s - the whole 20-50 bracket is very under represented in many areas (most photography clubs I've seen its rare for anyone under around 40-50