Diary of a Network Geek

The trials and tribulations of a Certified Novell Engineer who's been stranded in Houston, Texas.

2/25/2011

DIY Civilization Kit

Filed under: Deep Thoughts,Fun,Life, the Universe, and Everything,News and Current Events,Red Herrings — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Hare which is terribly early in the morning or 6:32 am for you boring, normal people.
The moon is a Third Quarter Moon

Could you rebuild civilization?

No, seriously, could you?
Maybe I spend too much time on the fringes of political and economic thought and news, but I hear stories about how experts think we may be heading for disaster on a very large scale.  Food riots and oil shortages and barbarism just around the corner to listen to some of these more extreme pundits.  The collapse of civilization itself!
Well, what if that happened?  What would you do?  Could you organize people enough to rebuild civilization?  What would you need to make a small village prosperous enough to become the kernel that would grow into something we would recognize as civilization again?

Well, thankfully, I’m not the only one obsessed with answers to questions like this.  There are a bunch of engineers and other like-minded, clever folks who are putting together a DIY Civilization “Kit”, with open source plans for all the basic technologies that one might need to get a self-sufficient town working again.  It’s quite an ambitious project, but, I think one that is worthwhile.   Even if we never need it to rebuild society, it may prove a useful thought-experiment to help make independent towns in developing countries.
In any case, it’s an interesting project, I think, and worth a look.

2 Comments

  1. If civilization includes government, I’m all for having a hot spare for rebuilding when this one gets (future tense debatable) corrupted. Our founding fathers envisioned a parity volume, but that one might have a bad controller too.

    Comment by tinyhands — 2/25/2011 @ 2:57 pm

  2. Well, I was picturing a “benevolent dictator for life” scenario, with me at the top of that pyramid. Of course, the post-apocalyptic wasteland will have plenty of room for other kingdoms. 😉

    Comment by the Network Geek — 2/25/2011 @ 3:06 pm

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