(OT) Monte Cook's most recent rant.....

[Xeriar]

Riiiiggghhhhttt...

Once you have fire and twine, the problem practically solves itself!

Twine's purpose should be obvious - bows for hunting, etc.

Fire is cool, fire is the secret. With fire, you gather a bunch of wood, dry it out, cover it in clay (with a small hole), and burn the wood, which will turn into coke.

With coke, you can smelt iron and forge steel, although working with stones is going to be pretty crude at first, it's not impossible. Heaven have mercy upon your lungs, though.

However, coke-making really isn't a job for one person. At least I wouldn't care to do it alone. You will need a lot of it.

Regardless, watch Connections by James Burke. Pretty damn awesome serious.

 

[Ds Da Man]

I doubt it would be the starvation killing people, but people killing people. You really don't give yourselves enough credit. Killing a deer, did it many times. Not that hard, especially if I had to live on that deer. Tools, it would have to be one hell of an event to get rid of all the steel and metal currently on this Earth. I wouldn't be worried about food, clothing, or shelter. The only thing I would worry about is other people. They already kill over stupid crap that really doesn't matter. Also, anarchy leads to monarchy. The strongest and smartest will survive, and take over. The rest of the stuff about tech dissappearing would suck, but I could do quite a bit, and with some minor tools I could make quite a bit. Could I make a computer? Heck no! Could I make my own gun, yes, (albeit, not as pretty, nor as functional as todays).

 

[mythusmage]

Here's a question for you. What about a slow apocalypse?

What would be the effects on society should the human population drop to, say, 60 million in a couple of centuries? How much technology would we retain? How much could we retain? How would we deal with the changes wrought by the disaster?

The changes in borders, land use, population distribution. What about governmental collapse (which has already occurred in parts of the world)?

Would we even recognize the event until it was too late to prepare for the aftermath. Or would we muddle through as we've done before?

Some stuff to think about.

BTW, anybody who thinks Man is a rational beast doesn't follow the stock market.

 

[Zappo]

Here's a question for you. What about a slow apocalypse?

Depends on whether resources are destroyed too or not. If not, I guess we could all gather in a resourceful (ie, urbanized - the most important resource is going to be technology) continent, such as Europe or some part of the USA (the whole USA is too much for 60 million people). There we'd sustain ourselves well enough.

OTOH, the only reason for such a decrease I can think of is some sort of disease, which kills fast but not fast enough to be a real sudden cataclysm. So, those 60 million people would tend to live far away, so as not to catch it from someone else. In 200 years, a real culture of avoiding contact could develop. With all that time, communication technology would progress to the point where physical contact is practically unnecessary, artificial fecundation would be the norm, and a lot of automation for industries and agriculture would be developed. Overall, not really an apocalypse. Just a lot of fields and factories without a single person inside, manned by robots, empty roads, and large houses where a single person lives (and DMs D&D for his friends all the same, except that they are in holographic projection). I read a sci-fi novel where there was a planet where people lived like that, for fear of diseases.

If technological resources are slowly destroyed together with the people, then you have a problem. You don't have the abundance produced by 6 billion people behind you. Gathering everyone in a relatively small area rich of natural resources is mandatory. Developing automation to create more technological resources without using precious manpower is needed. In 200 years, I guess there would be no problem.

In no case I see the technological level getting lower. It happens too slowly, people have time to adapt.

Now, I told ya I would tell why I'm discussing this topic so much. The reason is, my setting submission starts out as a technological, no-magic world where a very weird sort of apocalypse takes place... and I wanted to see if the consequences I envisioned were correct. Seems like 90% of the population dying from disease, famine and strife (and other more weird factors) was a good estimate.

 

[mythusmage]

Something for the "Man Can be Bloody Irrational" Thread

Over on the Reuters website I found an article about a recent conviction in South Africa. An HIV+ man was found guilty of raping his girlfriend's 9 month old daughter. According to the story there is a belief in South Africa that AIDs can be cured by having sex with a virgin. They also mentioned another HIV+ man who raped his girlfriend's 11 year old daughter under the belief it would cure his AIDS.

The judge on the first case regretted he was not able to sentence the perpetrator to death.

(Think the Book of Vile Darknesswent a bit overboard now?)

 

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Hey Joshua! Me descended from Texans? You bet! The Dallas Cowboys are America's Team, baby! Really, though, I have a whole branch of my mother's side of the family that have settled in Texas for gosh--at least 160 years or so! If I recall, there were some settlers that moved into Texas in the 1820's or 1840's. Either way, though, they've been there for a very long time. I have whole sets of family that have been born, lived, and died in Texas. I have a whole lot of fine Texas heritage!

Thanks Joshua!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[Desdichado]

My greatest regret is that my youngest son (as opposed to my other two children) was born in Michigan instead of Texas.

Still, if my wife has her way, he won't even remember Michigan.

 

[LightPhoenix]

I love these sorts of posts, because they always end up being survivalist pissing contests... even so, here are my thoughts.

1) If there's a disaster that happens to destroy everything and makes us go back to clovis points and fire hardened spears, forget it. It's likely killed most if not all life. Rediculous scenario.

2) If there's a disaster that happens to destroy all electronics (for example, an immense EMP burst), that still doesn't mean we're back to using bows. We'd be in a heap of trouble, but no where near the sort that would require making fires with sticks and all that garbage.

3) If there's a disaster that happens to wipe out the majority of humanity (a la the virus from Jeremiah), there's an immense amount of resources available to support people for a good amount of time - certainly long enough to set up a small farm to grow organic food. The only "problem" would be proteins... which, assuming the virus (or whatever) doesn't kill off all the livestock and assorted animals, would hardly be a problem. There'd be enough resources to trap and kill animals easily. And there'd be MORE than enough animals to go around.

[EDIT] And yes, flintnapping is quite difficult.

 

[Teflon Billy]

Re: Re: Re: (OT) Monte Cook's most recent rant.....

It is COAWARDLY to attack the Wold Trade Centers.

Well, that I think it isn't is kind of the point of my first post.

Their targets were peaceful. Their victims civilians. What they did was the equivalent of shooting the grandmother of the biggest mob family in the world.

...which is what makes it (as I mentioned in my original post) despicable and evil. Not cowardly.

I guess I equate courage with a certain amount of "daring", and sorry; but to deny that stealing a bunch of 747's and flying them into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center took a heaping helping of honest-to-God daring is ridiculous.

Yeah, the reprisals are going to be so big that it had to take a man that was courageous.

So...you agree with me? Or you don't.

But really, she (and the towers) were not the threat and no matter how big a man's anatomy, it still makes him have a little brain and coward.

Not the threat? Look, I'm not denying that this was an act of terrorism, and terrorism (almost by definition) is comprised of symbolic attacks. This was the granddaddy of symobilic attacks on the US for perceived (rightly or wrongly) slights against the Arab world.

Tey weren't trying to destroy "Military Units" (if that's what you meant by "not the threat")...the US has, through years of weapons development and military spending made that route suicidal.

These were terrorists, committing acts of terrorism. The only kind of offensive strike available against the US a this point in history.

And, like most attacks where civilians take the brunt of it (Dresden, Vietnam, Hiroshima) it was both Evil and Despicable.

But not cowardly.

 

[Davelozzi]

Re: Something for the "Man Can be Bloody Irrational" Thread

According to the story there is a belief in South Africa that AIDs can be cured by having sex with a virgin

Now that is one dangerous and self-defeating belief if ever there was one.

As for the apocalypse, never mind people, I'll leave that to the rest of you. But as for domesticated animals, I'll say cats will be absolutely fine, they're cunning and their savage side is just below the surface. Dogs are screwed.