Re:The Scariest, Most Boring Armageddon
by irremediable on Sunday January 31, 2016 @01:20PM
(#11007282)
Yeah... I'm more inclined towards your view. It's hard to know for certain, but I think people would redevelop things -- after all, they already developed them once, from a significantly weaker position.
There's the possibility that I'm succumbing to the anthropic principle (if people hadn't developed these things, I wouldn't be here to remark they had), but IMO that's offset by independent reinventions of several basic technologies by civilisations starting from much less than our "post-apocalypse" civilisation would have.
The problem is, with just one hydroelectric dam, others will want it. Thus others will fight you for it, and in the process, it will be destroyed or the people that know how to maintain it will be killed.
Re:The Scariest, Most Boring Armageddon
by fweespeech on Sunday January 31, 2016 @01:42PM
(#11007391)
1800s-era Hydroelectric Dams are buildable with basically nothing but very basic technology and alot of manpower.
No one would kill for them in the general case simply because other people could build it.
This isn't some SUPERMODERNTECH but a very basic one we've been exploiting for thousands of years, just the ability to convert it to electricity wasn't really possible until the 1800s.
It will be a long, slow road to recovery but all you really need to be able to do is setup one hydroelectric dam and you have enough energy to rebuild civilization.
We could build those with 1800s technology and, frankly, many of the innovations of the 1800s today are possible by just recycling the bones of a large city.
So I don't think this doomsday scenario will be as bad as the OP fears. We just may get booted down to the 1700-1800s and take 300 years rebuilding.