Whether and how the elaborately engineered technology of the present could be restarted if it once stopped, I do not know. The operating knowledge wouldn't disappear overnight, but restarting the massive energy system (oil, for instance) would be very difficult. Literacy could certainly be maintained, and we have lots fo books. Books last a long time as long as they don't get wet.

As I say, it depends on the depth of the fall. We could fall through war and feudalism to an early medieval level in which all our advanced technology is lost. Although, I doubt it would be this extreme. I wish I could be more optimistic about warfare, but I can't unfortunately, because there are just to many people in a small space. This hasn't happened before, on this scale and once the instability in the climate begins to bite, with drought, high temperatures, mega storms and the resultant sea level rise, these densely packed people will start to move, migrate, but where will they migrate to? Where will they get their food?

but where will they migrate to? Where will they get their food? — Punshhh

Internally? As citizens of whatever nation, assuming it still stands and isn't under some state of emergency or martial law, wherever they damn well please/can afford. What do you think FEMA is for. Assuming we're not talking about the wealthy (who are fine), the average folk will get their food where they always got it from. The wages of honest work. And with any luck, they'll do exceedingly well.

Oh, you mean in some crazy "national collapse" where assumingly the armed forces are rendered nil or otherwise occupied. Unlikely. But in that case, it might get pretty crazy. Again, unlikely.

I do think the Covid_19 situation could be a possible source of transformation. In fact, this is my biggest hope.

I think it could go either way, negatively or positively. We are at a critical juncture and I suppose that is why I raise questions.

I am struggling to grapple with my daily quest, trying to transform the negative into the positive. This same personal alchemical healing quest may be what is needed on a global level.

Perhaps the Covid_19 situation is the wake up call we all needed to question and transform our whole approach to life. — Jack Cummins

:ok: :up:

The Flaming Lips — Jack Cummins

Tell everybody
Waitin' for Superman
That they should try to
Hold on
Best they can
He hasn't dropped them
Forgot them
Or anything
It's just too heavy
For Superman
To lift

What about Red vs Blue? — Possibility

Yes. And Republican vs Democrat. Most of those antipathetic worldviews have ancient roots : Nobles vs Plebians, Conservatives vs Liberals, City Mouse vs Country Mouse, Us vs Them, etc . Those opposing forces in human culture are taken for granted in Hegel's Dialectic diagram of historical progress. But, he seemed to think that there was a directional "spirit" or "force" that constrained the zig-zagging course of history within viable limits. If one side or the other ever gained the upper hand, they would annihilate their opposition. Yet Nature seems to have some inherent balance to keep Viruses from completely eradicating their hosts. :smile:

We could fall through war and feudalism to an early medieval level in which all our advanced technology is lost. — Punshhh

I wouldn't think this would happen, if you really think about it.

We still have to understand how fragile human society was in Antiquity starting from things how rare literacy was and how perilous crop failure and draughts could be. It's going to be really hard to assume that somehow people would be as illiterate as they were in Medieval Times. People wouldn't forget how to make modern firearms, even if there wouldn't be any stealth fighters couldn't be made anymore.

What surely can happen is that scientific progress halts and simply the technology we have now will stay the same and some things get rare that now are plentiful. What can happen is that if space exploration comes to a halt, then advanced knowledge can be lost when simply nobody is doing it anymore. It surely can be so that a computer now is similar to the computer 50 years forward to the future, but those future computers won't be similar to a Commodore 64 of the 1980's, which btw was the highest-selling single computer model of all time.

An internet cafe in Mogadishu, Somalia, 2012:

Interestingly there is a technology which has been lost, or at least the skills to practice it. The ability to work stone as the stone masons did when the pyramids were built. A skill which was also practiced by the Inca's. There have been many attempts to replicate such work in recent times, all failed. Even now with our most advanced laser technology we can only just come close to the accuracy.
Inca stonework Cuzco



The Sphinx Egypt


Note the layout of the stone, proof that both civilisations were practicing the same technology.

Are we on the verge of a cultural collapse? — Jack Cummins

"In the throes" I would say.....