Hyperdepression and technological regression

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

I was under the impression that there was some kind of deforestation crisis in England that lead to the widespread adoption of coal and may have been a spur to the industrial revolution, but that may be old history by now.

England's forests had been under careful management for centuries by then, on order to maintain a supply of charcoal and also timber for shipbuilding. The problem was that there just weren't enough forests to meet demand, even with large-scale importation of timber from Scandinavia and the Americas.

Any deforestation crisis would've been the result of short-term consumption over long-term considerations and would've been a result of the massive demand that forced the switch to coal, not the primary cause of the switch.

[Willy]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Any deforestation crisis would've been the result of short-term consumption over long-term considerations and would've been a result of the massive demand that forced the switch to coal, not the primary cause of the switch.

The problem was the increasing demand by the british navy. Wood was therefore replaced by coal for heating purposes, it was not ideal because british coaöl has a high sulfur content and other minerals blended in that created air pollution. Since the new mines needed to be dry new pumps and means to power them were needed, the steam engine made a breakthrough.
Same goes for shipbuilding, oak needs centurys to grow large enough to be useful for ships at least warships with 90cm+ sideplanks and corniferes for masts decades. First there was experiments with copper and ironplanking than ships started to be of iron, the sail was replaced in a similar way.

To that time big woods were so seldom in england that a common saying was: that if judas was visiting england there wouldn´t be enough wood to make a gallow. We are used to green pastures for sheeps in scotland for example, they are a follow of extensive deforistation and the sheeps prevent new trees.

Similar it´s in the mediterranean, rome, greece and other nations needed wood for fleets the result is the machia a deforested bushland and naked rock at the coast, we find it beautiful, but it´s just the result of chopping down the woods for ships. You wouldn´t find big woods in libanon, historically known for it´s wood industry and cedars. The extreme overuse leading to a annihilation of even bushes is the easter island.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Willy

Same goes for shipbuilding, oak needs centurys to grow large enough to be useful for ships at least warships with 90cm+ sideplanks and corniferes for masts decades. First there was experiments with copper and ironplanking than ships started to be of iron, the sail was replaced in a similar way.

The English had been importing conifer mast timbers from Scandinavia for quite some time by then, having long since outstripped their own forests' ability to produce tall straight trees.

To that time big woods were so seldom in england that a common saying was: that if judas was visiting england there wouldn´t be enough wood to make a gallow. We are used to green pastures for sheeps in scotland for example, they are a follow of extensive deforistation and the sheeps prevent new trees.

England still had quite extensive royal forests that were maintained and managed so as to supply timber for the Royal Navy. However, demand outstripped supply, which did not mean that they'd cut all the trees down - it meant that the forests couldn't grow enough trees to keep up with ever increasing demand.

The extreme overuse leading to a annihilation of even bushes is the easter island.

So far as I know we're still not exactly sure what caused the complete deforestation of Easter Island.

[Inky]

Originally Posted by borithan

Yes, for a high school essay!

Not sure how optimistic is really is, rather than realistic. Popular culture (and government planners) often seem to presume that in the face of disaster people panic and/or devolve into violence and lawlessness. Actual experience of disasters tends to show people tend to come together and cooperate quite effectively. It is what we humans have needed to do to survive throughout history after all (an interesting Behind the Bastards episode on it, on the concept of "Elite panic").

I found it quite interesting how as much as the book title *suggests* it is about the triffids... it really isn't. They are basically proto-zombies, something that is barely a threat *unless* everything is falling apart around them. Yes, they are venomous, but they aren't that fast, and lack any real intelligence, and were actually a source of plant oil before the collapse. Most of the people they kill, die because they are blind and can't defend themselves against a 7 foot tall ambulatory poisonous plant. The book is a basically a post apocalypse story and examination of how society copes with it, and (possible spoiler for later in the story)

Spoiler:  

it is revealed that the apocalypse (everyone going blind) is actually the result of a misfiring of an orbital weapon (not the mysterious meteor shower people think it is). None of it has anything at all to do with the triffids, they just do well as a circumstance of the societal collapse going on around them.

Don't remember the bio-engineered plague though...

Yay!

Yes, I agree. I've read about a few studies (don't have links, though) that concluded that the "every man for himself" scenario is actually fairly unlikely (luckily, because I've also read about several studies that concluded that it would be a terrible idea for all concerned and attempting to co-operate and get organised as fast as possible would be everyone's best chance of survival). When I said "optimistic", I just meant compared to the scenarios you most often get in dystopian fiction.

Very true about the triffids. They're one of the most startling things in the story, but they're not the cause, just a side effect, they escaped from their pens because of the disaster and started running wild. In any kind of collapse, there probably would be things like that - things that were normally contained but got lost sight of because of the disaster. People often speculate about what would become of the nuclear power stations if there was a disaster, for instance. And, on a smaller scale, when there's a war in a city you often see news stories about the animals having escaped from the zoo and roaming the streets!

Spoiler:  

As for the plague, that happens only some time after the initial disaster, just when everybody thought they were getting a handle on things. And the book never entirely confirms the "bio-engineered" part, I don't think, though I'm not sure. It could have been a normal one, with all the migrations and the disruptions to the water supply it wouldn't have been surprising, but there were hints that some of the other orbital weapons might have crashed since nobody was maintaining them any more and that the plague had come out of one of those.

[Pomphis]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

If I were make technological regression happen on Earth more or less nonviolently I'd blame it on virtual reality. Most of the population spends so much time online in virtual paradises that there's a demographic collapse and then the automated maintenance and manufacturing systems start to break down...

I once read a SF story in which alies wanted to exterminate humanity to colonize earth. So they secretly provided perfect VR technologyand waited a few decades

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

If I were make technological regression happen on Earth more or less nonviolently I'd blame it on virtual reality. Most of the population spends so much time online in virtual paradises that there's a demographic collapse and then the automated maintenance and manufacturing systems start to break down...

This comes up in one section of The Man Who Awoke (1933) by Laurence Manning.

Another story I read has the protagonist discover that most of the supposed humans on Earth are actually robots, because most people have gone off into idealized pocket universes.

[Tom Mazanec]

Originally Posted by borithan

Yes, for a high school essay!

Not sure how optimistic is really is, rather than realistic. Popular culture (and government planners) often seem to presume that in the face of disaster people panic and/or devolve into violence and lawlessness. Actual experience of disasters tends to show people tend to come together and cooperate quite effectively. It is what we humans have needed to do to survive throughout history after all (an interesting Behind the Bastards episode on it, on the concept of "Elite panic").

I found it quite interesting how as much as the book title *suggests* it is about the triffids... it really isn't. They are basically proto-zombies, something that is barely a threat *unless* everything is falling apart around them. Yes, they are venomous, but they aren't that fast, and lack any real intelligence, and were actually a source of plant oil before the collapse. Most of the people they kill, die because they are blind and can't defend themselves against a 7 foot tall ambulatory poisonous plant. The book is a basically a post apocalypse story and examination of how society copes with it, and (possible spoiler for later in the story)

Spoiler:  

it is revealed that the apocalypse (everyone going blind) is actually the result of a misfiring of an orbital weapon (not the mysterious meteor shower people think it is). None of it has anything at all to do with the triffids, they just do well as a circumstance of the societal collapse going on around them.

Don't remember the bio-engineered plague though...

Yeah, I don’t remember it either.