6.0 KiB
The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch
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Author: u/raymestalez *
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URL: http://www.audible.com/pd/Science-Technology/The-Knowledge-Audiobook/B00J55GD0W
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Score: 21
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Created: 2015-09-02T11:08:27
Post:
Comments:
u/raymestalez [+10] (3 minutes later)
People on this sub often discuss the idea of rebuilding a modern civilization in a different universe or a timeline or after being sent back in time.
This book is technically not fiction, but it has the same kind of vibe as "The Martian" and "What If", so I think you guys will like it.
Also, I've just started reading it, so I don't know how good it is, but it looks really promising.
u/Anderkent [+4] (10 hours later)
Does it handle all the easily accessible fossil fuels being exhausted?
u/trishume [+4] (16 hours later)
Yup, great chapter on wood gasifiers, something I didn't know about before. They're awesome and a great example of the neat stuff in the book. They burn wood and output hydrocarbon gas that can run a normal car engine.
u/None [+1] (2 hours later)
Do tell us if it is good.
u/trishume [+1] (16 hours later)
It's amazing, see my other comments
u/trishume [+5] (6 hours later)
This is my favourite non-fiction book, super interesting. All sorts of neat knowledge in there that leads to a better understanding of the underpinnings and tech tree leading to a modern civilization. Gives insight into all the things that might be necessary to bootstrap an industrial civilization (on Mars say) and all sorts of neat science and history. Highly recommended.
u/None [+2] (13 hours later)
It tells you how to specifically reboot a post-apocalyptic civilization from scratch.
It does not tell you how to bootstrap a civilization on Mars or in a medieval society.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (15 hours later)
Are the three scenarios actually that different? In the first you have an environment with no available industrial base because it's been blown up. In the second and third, you have an environment with no available industrial base because it was never there.
u/trishume [+4] (16 hours later)
Mars is the most interestingly different because you can use arbitrarily advanced technology to get set up but you also have the highest level of tech necessary to survive. On Mars you need integrated circuit production (the pinnacle of difficult industrial process requiring fabricating tons of other base tech and materials) just to set up a new habitat with air, not so on Earth.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (a day later)
You'll certainly need ICs for anything serious, but couldn't you do minimal survival without? You need an airtight canister, some air, water, food, and CO2 scrubbers, which can be purely chemical.
u/trishume [+1] (a day later)
CNC-precise manufacturing for air-tightness, climate and temperature control sensors and computation circuits. Solar cells or nuclear for power, might be possible to use solar-concentrators on a steam engine though. You might get by with racks on racks of vacuum tubes though.
u/derefr [+1] (22 hours later)
In a post-apocalypse, even without an industrial base, you can still salvage much-larger-than-naturally-occurring quantities of pre-refined materials, like metals and solvents. (Heck, life on Earth is already one "apocalypse" down, and we depend heavily on the much-larger-than-naturally-occuring pools of hydrocarbons that resulted.) I would expect the guide to take advantage of such a thing, and for it to thus not translate well to a "pristine" planet like Mars.
u/MugaSofer [+1] (a day later)
Well, if you're on Mars, you'd better have some post-industrial tech or you won't be for very long.
And I guess you could claim that "Medieval societies" are opposed to progress and would stop you or somesuch nonsense.
u/trishume [+1] (16 hours later)
True, but that's not the point. It's too small to be a complete guide, what it does is provide a glimpse. It samples interesting and useful pieces of civilization and provides a broad overview.
It's written to be interesting and enlightening and a worthwhile read. If it was really attempting its joke purpose it would be a maximally dense information dump of key facts that would require hours of thought per sentence.
After reading the book I got a lot out of it. I learned about many things I never thought about before (eg production of base chemicals like saltpetre and quicklime). I revised up my difficulty estimates for building a self-sufficient civilization of any kind (Mars or Earth) and increased my understanding of Earth's civilization.
u/notmy2ndopinion [+2] Concent of Saunt Edhar (a day later)
This. Is. The book I've been looking for my whole life!
I'm really interested in writing something similar to Rebuild Medicine (after the Eschaton), so... thank you for the recommendation!
u/notmy2ndopinion [+1] Concent of Saunt Edhar (a day later)
http://discuss.the-knowledge.org/
(A thoughtful but mostly inactive forum hosted by the author)
u/Laborbuch [+1] (20 hours later)
A quick question, does it have formulae and other (mathematical, chemical, physical) concepts hard to do in audio? Since that’d be a cincher for getting it as an audiobook.
u/trishume [+2] (a day later)
Nope, it's mostly prose, it would make a good audiobook, you'd miss occasional pictures and diagrams though.
u/Rhamni [+1] Aspiring author (2 days later)
This is an extremely good book so far. Thank you very much for recommending it.
If you were a background character in a Fantasy setting where a bunch of people were stranded in a sinister ruin city/mine complex full of lost magic, what would your skill/education be and how would you die?