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From Reload Kit Earth Edition, the civilization survival guide
What if you woke up tomorrow in a place where there were no man made objects left or most of them had been destroyed? Imagine coming out of your shelter after a meteorite destroyed our world as we know it - all you have is fields of grass and the help of other survivors. Would you be able to recreate civilization as you knew it from before with your bare hands and the knowledge you have memorized? Or would you be doomed to live out your days as a primitive cave dweller without even as much technology as a saw?
Reload Kit Earth is a website dedicated to the idea of creating an emergency capsule for recreating civilization from scratch in case of a major catastrophe. The final product is a 'Reload Kit' which will contain the information, tools and essential resources necessary to reestablish our current technological standard.
Reload Kit Earth is a collaborative wiki project which any registered user can edit and contribute to. To get started just head to one of the kit component pages and start writing, or discuss their contents on their respective talk pages:
- Assumptions and Scenarios - This section refines and extends the problem description.
- The Guide - This section is the "manual to civilization" that will be included in the kit.
- The Knowledge - This section details the knowledge repositories to be included in the kit.
- The Tools And Resources - This section details the equipment and resources in the kit.
You may read on for a more complete rationale below.
Contents |
[edit] Why do we need a 'Reload Kit'?
Technology has a tendency to build on itself. It may have taken a very long time for humankind to invent the fire, but in relative terms it didn't take long to go from fire to steam engines. The industrialization introduced simple machines to make it easier to weave cloth, yet today, less than 200 years later, we have gone from those weaving machines to super fast micro computers and space exploration. Our technological advances come quicker and quicker, and the reason is obvious: the primary tool for researching new technology is previous technology.
We are climbing a technological ladder. For every step we take we improve our civilization a little. At the same time, that very step is necessary in order to take the next step on the ladder.
But our technological advances are in essence fragile. They are information itself together with tools and resources which do not exist naturally. What would happen if we lost this information and we were set back to a point where we had to start over with only what nature gives us? Or in other words, what if the ladder gave out underneath us?
We might find that it's impossible to get back up without climbing from the bottom again. This is not a pleasant situation if the climb is thousands of years long.
Hence this website. The Reload Kit could save us from having to undertake this climb from the bottom should something go horribly wrong. It's a backup plan for civilization.
[edit] What is a Reload Kit?
The Reload Kit Earth would be some form of protected container which would hold the most essential documentation, tools and resources needed to bootstrap and restore civilization. The exact contents have yet to be determined, and they would likely change over time. Here's a basic idea for what a Reload Kit may contain though:
- An instruction manual. This would be a manual to civilization. It would contain instructions for how to go from two empty hands and a bare Earth to a world almost as developed as ours in 2008. This website will create this manual on the following page and its sub-pages: The Guide.
- A snapshot of the current state of the art in science, engineering, medicine, culture and every other component of our civilization's collective knowledge and experience. For example, this may include - either in hard copy or digitally stored - encyclopedias, medical learning books, recorded university lectures and so forth. The exact contents of the snapshot will be developed here: The Knowledge.
- The essential tools. Perhaps it turns out that if all you have is dirt and rocks, then creating the first pick axe is an enormous undertaking. If so, a couple of pick axes should be included in the Reload Kit. Likewise, it may be determined that civilization can't be recreated without enough food to support the workers who will do it, and that a plough would greatly ease the burden of feeding the new civilization. Then somehow a plough, or the tools needed to create one, will have to be fit in the kit. The choice of tools to include will be made here: The Tools And Resources.
- The essential resources. Maybe a little bit of gold and silicon will go a long way towards creating the first post-apocalypse power plant, which is needed to gather more resources. Then these seed resources should be included. This will be discussed on the same page as the tools: The Tools And Resources.
[edit] Assumptions
The Reload Kit will be designed based on a set of assumptions. Without these assumptions the scope of the project will be practically infinite with countless variations. The assumptions that are made are essentially pessimistic to assure that the Reload Kit will work in many different scenarios.
The assumptions are further discussed in the Assumptions and Scenarios section.
[edit] Assume Nothing Remains
- Our civilization as we know it and all its refined resources and tools are gone.
Truly massive destruction has occurred. There is almost nothing left of our former advanced culture except for people. An example scenario would be that nuclear winter has killed most of the planet's population and kept the few survivors locked away in shelters for so long that what wasn't destroyed by the nuclear weapons instead corroded away over the years of seclusion.
Granted, this is unlikely to happen. How could possibly everything be destroyed? In all likelihood there will be remnants of our current society left behind. The problem is that we can't know now what will be left and we therefore have to work from the standpoint of a worst case scenario. Absolute pessimism should be used when considering what will be available after the catastrophe to ensure that there will not be a situation where the Reload Kit has almost everything and yet fails.
[edit] Earth Does Remain
- Earth has survived and has all or almost all of its natural resources intact.
This may seem opposed to the previous poin, but we make this assumption as well or the Reload Kit would become infinitely expensive. Even that our civilization has been destroyed, we will still have access to most resources of Earth as they are available today. There will still be iron to mine, fish in the sea and the possibility of agriculture.
A few minor precautions may be taken for likely Earth damages including radiation, flooding and charred lands. But essentially our planet is as it has always been.
[edit] Some People Survived
- We have at least 200 people left willing to recreate civilization.
If there are no humans left the Reload Kit serves no purpose. For the same reason it is also assumed that a sufficient number of people survived - enough to prevent humankind from going extinct. Discussion of the possible ranges will be part of the project but is assumed to start at 200 people.
