Post-Apocalypse: Back to the Stone Age

[Ji ji]

Modern scientific knowledge goes nowhere without technological applications.
Technological applications require several factors. Among others:

- food surplus
- metal availability
- energy availability

The first factor can definitely lack after a catastrophe. For instance, it can be that atmosphere is darkened by powders and plants are for the large part dead (and consequently there is little fauna and lot of deserts).
The second factor is not so simple, but it should be crucial. It's difficult to imagine a human global society that go back to stone age. More likely, it should be iron age.
The third factor is simple. Electricity is provided by huge power plants, requiring a lot of workers to function. They needs lots of maintenance, unavoidable supply (for nuclear power, but for charcoal or diesel plants too), technicians.
The very knowledge could disappear! Without electricity, the whole digital information baggage become unattainable. Large scale catastrophe can stamp out paper books, that are fragile. New generations are likely to learn abilities more contingent than reading and, when only few readers are left, spreading this ability among others will be painful slow.

Without industry and blast furnace, fire weapons still function, but soon they will lack ammunition. And it's impossible to create new guns or ammunition.

Overall, however, no society can prosper or even mantain old technolocigal development without demographical weight. And no technology can support people when cultivable lands become deserts. Human beings should come back to tribes or chefferies, hunting little game, and fighting among them for the scarse available resources.

[Jonas]

Originally Posted by Ji ji

Modern scientific knowledge goes nowhere without technological applications.
Technological applications require several factors. Among others:

- food surplus
- metal availability
- energy availability

You do need a certain level of food surplus and the specialization it offers for a given tech level so to speak but its not as much one may think. Keep in mind even ancient civilizations were able to support some level of specialization on what today we'd consider a razor thin margin of surplus food otherwise..they'd never have developed in the first place.

The first factor can definitely lack after a catastrophe. For instance, it can be that atmosphere is darkened by powders and plants are for the large part dead (and consequently there is little fauna and lot of deserts).
The second factor is not so simple, but it should be crucial. It's difficult to imagine a human global society that go back to stone age. More likely, it should be iron age.

If most of the planets surface is a desert then you have bigger ramifications to worry about then if your humans can rebuild or not. Such as potential mass extinction of game animals for hunting or livestock for example. Also how can you have an iron age without any sort of agriculture without postulating the intervention of Alien Space Bats given even reliable Iron working requires some level of specialization thats beyond nomadic tribal groups.

The third factor is simple. Electricity is provided by huge power plants, requiring a lot of workers to function. They needs lots of maintenance, unavoidable supply (for nuclear power, but for charcoal or diesel plants too), technicians.
The very knowledge could disappear! Without electricity, the whole digital information baggage become unattainable. Large scale catastrophe can stamp out paper books, that are fragile. New generations are likely to learn abilities more contingent than reading and, when only few readers are left, spreading this ability among others will be painful slow.

As long as the concept of moving conductor through a magnetic field still exists to produce electricity its not going away given how useful it is. Survivors may have to rely on makeshift power sources such as a homemade wind turbine, water mill or, old engine blocks converted over to producer gas or even homemade copper oxide photocells but there's many ways to produce it that don't rely on large maintenance intensive power plants and can easily be made at home. Especially from all the salvage likely left over from when a large technologically advanced society falls apart.

Another note is that books are both far tougher and much more numerous then people give them credit for, and that literacy would actually be one of the key things any group of survivors would likely preserve precisely for the reasons you mention. Frankly any group in that bad of a situation who willingly lets such a huge and easy to teach skill slip through their grasp due to considering it 'non-essential' almost deserves what would happen as a result. Likely eventual domination by those who didn't do something so foolish and short sighted.

Without industry and blast furnace, fire weapons still function, but soon they will lack ammunition. And it's impossible to create new guns or ammunition.

Keep in mind that you don't need industry on a large scale nor do you need fancy tools to keep things going if your willing to accept certain limitations such as the lack of mass production. You would be surprised what can be turned out of a small cottage style workshop with simple hand tools at a slow but steady production rate. For example take a look at the Kyber pass in regards to weapons and ammunition, some of the things they can produce with simple hand tools and a lot of skill is downright impressive. And before you mention said skills need reading I should point out that the master/apprentice system can and did for a long time rely on just physical instruction and practice when literacy wasn't all that common.

Overall, however, no society can prosper or even mantain old technolocigal development without demographical weight. And no technology can support people when cultivable lands become deserts. Human beings should come back to tribes or chefferies, hunting little game, and fighting among them for the scarse available resources.

Except irrigation which can and has done just that very thing for a very long time in many different places including in the middle east, there's fishing near coastal/shore area's and then there's the classic use for agriculturally marginal land for livestock (which produces 'natural' fertilizer as well) and that's just off the top of my head.

You are correct though that population crash is the most brutal and direct way to reduce a society's tech level..until it manages to stabilize and begins to recover.