At the risk of hijacking the thread... I liked the comment on the
ycombinator:
PeterisP
There exists a viewpoint that in case of a cataclysm (which would
involve man-made objects disappearing*) we would never, ever
progress past 18th century tech again.
The argument is that getting from animal-powered devices to
solar/nuclear/whatever powered devices while at the same time
switching from 90%-agricultural workforce to anything more
progressive can happen only if there is a cheap source of energy
available - and we already have mined and spent all of easily
available fossil fuels.
Even if all kinds of fancy devices are available and constructed by
rich enthusiasts, the lack of cheap steam power ensures lack of
cheap steel/etc, and all the technologies don't get the mass
adoption required for their improvements, there are almost no
advantages for industrialization, so the world gets stuck in
feudal-agriculture systems as the local optimum.
which suggests the Knowledge Ark
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_ark> would be largely a waste of
time.
* refers to a preceding comment.
Robert C
On 3/21/13 11:00 AM, Owen Densmore wrote:
From HN, a pointer to a delightfully clever essay that would be loved
by Nick and others who are often bewildered by the hacker alphabet
soup of acronyms and buzz words.
Well, what _does_ happen when you got to a web page?
https://plus.google.com/112218872649456413744/posts/dfydM2Cnepe
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5408597
This has the possibility of a new book that somehow makes it all
reasonably clear. Maybe.
-- Owen
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