Ensuring post-apocalyptic survival at TL8?

[Figleaf23]

Originally Posted by riprock

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One can indeed substitute capital for many medical services. Anyone who decides to take an aspirin rather than pestering a physician has substituted the capital of aspirin for the services of the physician.

This is not the same as saying the substitution of capital for labor never runs into limits.

This case invokes such limits, on a very practical level.

I think the serious anthropologists who studied it say that humans prefer to live in self-contained tribes of 100 to 200. Obviously, this is not always an option in modern societies: even the Amish enclaves have to face the outside world every so often.

In pop-sci terms, the Dunbar number can be made to promise almost anything for your company, just so long as you buy Malcolm Gladwell's next book. Practically speaking, I opine that most people work better within a small "tribe" of closely trusted persons, and that most people like to shut out the larger society whenever possible.

I have recently observed a university with more than 10,000 students. Everyone tries to define a little "tribe" or "village" of less than 200 souls and behaves as if the rest of the university - and the rest of the city - is not part of the tribal world.

Interesting ... but inconclusive. Is the 200 number as tendered supposed to represent units functioning within a greater society or are they supposed to be stand-alone societies at that number?

Yes, but how often does one need surgery when living in a resource-rich planned community with lots of automation?

Frequency is irrelevant. When high level medical service is needed, it's needed. And even more so when you're talking about a small population with each individual holding a substantial portion of the group's know-how.

I should have been much more specific; I should have said something like, "I have a list of cases wherein high-tech professionals managed to accomplish feats which had been previously dismissed as 'impossible' by substituting capital for labor."

Yes, that would have been less subject to quibbles.