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Mar. 25th, 2021 06:09 amI think I've mentioned this before, but sometimes I find myself musing on what it would be like to find myself in a foreign time and place. Aside from the basic issues such as likely dying quickly due to not having any basic survival skills, not having all the necessary antibodies to local illnesses, or not being able to handle the food/water due to bacteria or what have you, aside from all that, I think about the likelihood of not only communication, but recreating technology. The classic example would be a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, written ages ago. I recall reading a young adult's abridged version at a young age, so I don't remember a ton, but I do remember him having enough knowledge to dig up the minerals needed to create gun powder.
So few of us know enough to survive in the properly kept "wild" in the likes of national forests and such, but assuming we could at least find someone to help us, how much could we figure out how to make? I thought about the inner workings of the flush toilet as I had to fix the bobber in the tank this evening. I could probably figure out the basics of recreating the flush tank, which could be useful for other uses of water when you think about it, but how many things require other sources of technology to even start? Stainless steel doesn't exist without a very specific number of steps and materials. Blacksmiths have existed for pretty much always, but even a useful form of iron didn't exist until during the Roman empire. And forget about most any kind of rubber.
Many things could be substituted, of course. Maybe one could create basic machines with carved wood or clay, or something, but how many would even be useful? A flush toilet, for instance, only has value if there exists some network of pipes in which to flush it, and why would you even care about all that extra work if you could just dig a hole? Honestly, a lot of things we create today are only useful because of the infrastructure not only makes them possible, but sometimes necessary. We have all these pipes to move water everywhere, but several thousand years ago, Archimedes created a simple screw device to raise water up.
Makes me wonder how many things I could recreate given different circumstances and also how many would even be worthwhile.
So few of us know enough to survive in the properly kept "wild" in the likes of national forests and such, but assuming we could at least find someone to help us, how much could we figure out how to make? I thought about the inner workings of the flush toilet as I had to fix the bobber in the tank this evening. I could probably figure out the basics of recreating the flush tank, which could be useful for other uses of water when you think about it, but how many things require other sources of technology to even start? Stainless steel doesn't exist without a very specific number of steps and materials. Blacksmiths have existed for pretty much always, but even a useful form of iron didn't exist until during the Roman empire. And forget about most any kind of rubber.
Many things could be substituted, of course. Maybe one could create basic machines with carved wood or clay, or something, but how many would even be useful? A flush toilet, for instance, only has value if there exists some network of pipes in which to flush it, and why would you even care about all that extra work if you could just dig a hole? Honestly, a lot of things we create today are only useful because of the infrastructure not only makes them possible, but sometimes necessary. We have all these pipes to move water everywhere, but several thousand years ago, Archimedes created a simple screw device to raise water up.
Makes me wonder how many things I could recreate given different circumstances and also how many would even be worthwhile.
