Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Worse case scenario
From: frank@evax2.engr.arizona.edu (Frank Manning)
Date: 8 Apr 92 13:27:34 MST
Reply-To: frank@evax2.engr.arizona.edu
Distribution: world,local
Organization: University of Arizona, College of Engineering and Mines, Tucson

In article <40911734@hpindda.cup.hp.com> alanm@hpindda.cup.hp.com (Alan
McGowen) writes:

>/ hpindda:sci.environment / frank@evax2.engr.arizona.edu (Frank Manning):
>
>>In any case, a low technology level would be highly unstable. Anyone who
>>could regain past knowledge would have competitive advantages over others.
>>That in itself would speed up technology redevelopment.
>
>It depends on how shattered technological civilization becomes. If we
>assume, as Frank tacitly does, that it is set back no further than to about
>WWI levels  of technology, then it wouldn't be very hard to rebuild it. But
>if you imagine a world which changes from 10+ billion people to maybe 100-
>million in 50 years through famine, warfare, epidemics, and ecosystem
>collapse, [i.e. my S3 or even S4] it isn't obvious that the Dark Ages
>wouldn't look like fat city to the  survivors.

I'm not sure it matters how far back you go, even to pre-Dark Ages. I would
still maintain that technological ignorance would be unstable -- it would
be the proverbial marble on the inverted bowl, when you consider that
remnants of prior technology would be lying around all over the place and
preserved in landfills.

But as I conjectured earlier, authoritarianism would be a wild card.
Official anti-technology and anti-creativity bias would be the equivalent
of an active control system that keeps the marble at the top of the bowl.
An example is Castro's Cuba today, which seems to be technologically
regressing in the absence of external support from the Soviets.

Another example, if I may be allowed to lump technology and creativity
together, is ancient Egypt. As Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi said, "For nearly
3,000 years, works of art made in Egypt looked the same...because what
society valued then was order and consistency."

In contrast:

    "Some of the greatest art the world have ever seen was produced in
    Florence in the 15th Century, not just because there happened to
    be some talented people living there at the time, but because the
    bankers and powers of the city wanted it. They wanted to create a
    commmunity so impressive that it would be known as the second
    Athens. And so they did; they saw to it that it happened."
     
That's the key -- entrenched authority. And that's what worries me a little
about environmentalists. What happens if they become the authorities and
decide apriori that technology, biotechnology in particular, cannot ever
solve particular problems, and is to be relegated to the realm of science
fiction? Will environmental calamity become a self-fulfilling prophesy?

>It's unlikely that they would hang onto C manuals for a grand 
>restoration. More likely they would think of them as tinder or toilet
>paper.

Offhand I can't think of a better use for C manuals.

-- Frank Manning, NON-C Programmer              -- Jeez, I hope C-philes
-- College of Engineering and Mines             -- can take a joke.
-- Civil Engineering 100, University of Arizona --
-- Tucson, AZ  85721    frank@evax2.arizona.edu --

Reference: Roark, Anne C. "Creativity: It May Be More Than Biology," _Los
Angeles Times_, p. 1, 9/29/89
Newsgroups: sci.environment