The End of Civilization – The How? Part 4

If the colored LCD test fails and continue to fail after a significant amount of time, The fourth and final stage of the apocalypse begins, This is the transition from the world we all know today to the resurgence of a world we have long forgotten.

Contrary to popular belief this scenario is nothing new. Every significant historical event prior to the birth of Jesus Christ deals were a form of apocalyptic destruction. It is however possible that you belong to a racial tribe that instigated this event and have not felt its negative effects. Examples ranging from the Flood, Volcanic Eruptions, to outright genocide, to the coming of a superior army intent on slavery, rape, and pillage is nothing different from the scenario of modern apocalypse. The Degeneration of military science may prove applicable as a form of cultural revolution and warfare in each and every possible scenario, hence it is necessary to discuss that further in another post.

I once had an argument with a particular European regarding the US intervention in the middle east, this person claims that it is outright blatant imperialism to control middle eastern oil. I agree with this point in fact, what I don’t agree is how a person who came from a country whose modern wealth and glory is based upon being able to span the globe and colonize nations till the ends of the earth for over 800 years. The same argument I have with an American and resulted in a different response, I said, I would he rather have a playboy decadent American fat cat billionaire capitalist control middle eastern oil than a despot military dictator with a hostile intent of imagined world domination. I gave this example because I wish to drive a point that historically human nature has not changed. Humans regardless of background will resort to political, economic, and military leverage to control the finite world resources available to all of us. Capitalist at least sell them to us for a profit as opposed from taking our resources at gunpoint.

That is human nature, and that is a fact, a fact that is apparent at the individual, corporate, and political level. We will attempt to do what we believe will suit our interest. In an apocalypse scenario where the employment of violence to achieve and fulfill our personal needs and wants is a norm, it should be prudent to review the current events of nations still in this stage of their civilization. If every single individual in the world will only concede to taking what we need as opposed to what we want, then the world would have been utopic from the beginning. Unfortunately history and current events have proven that this is an idealistic impossibility, and will forever remain true even in the apocalypse scenario.

So with those premises in mind we enter a stage I would like to call; regenesis. It is the end of the world as we know it but contrary to popular belief it is also the start of a new world. A world that existed before when civilizations were young, desperate, and cruel. Humanity became the dominant specie of this planet because of our tools. Our creativity and ingenuity has allowed us to perform acts that extend our biological limitations, from seeing through walls, lifting 100 times our body weight, to flying to the moon. All cultures even the so-called barbaric ones, have a social, military, religious, and political structure that served their needs. That time at the 4th stage of the apocalypse is again true, so we must again progress both as an individual and as a civilization by recovering as much of that technology that we that have lost.

We have a special advantage compared to these individuals, we no longer have to argue on the shape of the atom, on what the stars are, if the world is round, we already know this for a fact. We no longer would have to sacrifice our fairest maidens and stoutest men for a favorable harvest, or to appease bad weather. These knowledge must never be forgotten as we reacquire the technologies and discoveries that we have lost due to the apocalypse. Those who survive not only have an obligation to rebuild, but it is their NEED to rebuild to ensure their continuing survival. Returning to the ways of the land may work well in the beginning, but for the same reasons agriculture, domestication, firearms, and jet planes were invented they will be need to be reinvented again.

I will post a list of the ten most important inventions and 10 most important discoveries of man, (IMHO) these 20 things should be relearned and harnessed to jump start the new civilization, we must NOT lose these things forever, a lot of these were made in ancient times and were lost during the dark ages, but luckily survived elsewhere in the world.

If you survive the apocalypse, rebuild, relearn, rediscover, common sense would dictate that once the world have stabilized after a few dozen generations, whoever controls and saves as much knowledge from the peak of our civilization will be the new center of civilization for all of mankind.

This is the most likely scenario on the chronology of failure of civilization is as follows; I will stress the importance of which particular technology needs to be saved during this time before it regresses into the next phase; The first technology we will lose is the advancements of the digital age. The internet, computers, satellites, hand held devices… these will be the first to go. Its failure will have a catastrophic effect on the global financial and communication systems. These things depend on electricity, electrical distribution, and a lot of very fragile and sensitive hardware. These things are so sensitive that if one transistor, capacitor, Integrated Circuit, etc breaks down until that part can be identified and replaced the entire machine breaks down. If your relying on blogs such as this one for survival when the apocalypse arrive, then it is a major problem. It would be asking for the moon if your electricity, server, fiber optic, local loop, satellite link up connection still run in perfect order. Items such as your GPS tracking system, Iphones, Notebooks, require several thousand engineering geniuses to build, maintain, and operate; Communications infrastructure is so widely interconnected that major breakdowns in some places (such us undersea fiber optic cables) would severely damage the operational capacity of the entire system. Such breakdowns will wipe out digital currency, destroy trade, hamper military operations, and most importantly the loss of factual information arriving in a timely manner. The things that are most needed to keep here are your digital currency and database management, A single computer can run digital inventory that will take humans days or weeks to do. However, without electricity such a computer would also be useless.

The next era is the mechanical age. Machines that run on gears,axles, and pistons and other mechanized gadgets would be the next technology we need to keep alive. Wear and Tear damage will make it difficult to replace a lot of parts for these mechanical devices, but its main adversary is petrol. The failure of global trade and industry would mean that gasoline; the fuel for most of these machines would be in a very short supply. Motor vehicles, Heavy Machinery, and Electric Generators all run on petrol. if you are decide to rebuild in a location where crude oil and refining its distillates is a technical impossibility, then conservation and scavenging is a must. It is a temporary solution and will never last long enough for the next generations to utilize, We can however save them the formula for distillation, its methods, its uses, and lastly the importance of the internal combustion engine.

The next stage, almost in line with the mechanical age is the industrial age, though history started that industrial production started with steam, and people on production line. This is a concept that we must never forget, Industrial factories today built everything from super jet liners to condoms. Canned / Preserved food are made this way, so are firearms and ammunition. We must maintain or at least recover industrial capabilities even if it is powered completely by human labor. Handmade artistic items such as a folded/tempered Samurai and a Ferrari could beat most mass produced items in technical specifications, but the ability to produce them in significant numbers would be a major disadvantage. The quantity over quality question has been resolved in Operation Barbarossa campaign of WW2. The Germans have better everything, but the Russians have more of everything. It resulted in early German victories until their supply and replacement situation could no longer handle the Russian War machine that sends unpainted T-34 off the production line direct to the front. The Marian reforms of the Romans (107 B.C.) standardized Roman military training, weapons, and tactics creating a production line for soldiers. It proved to be the superior form of military science until 1916.

The last but not the least era is the agricultural revolution. Irrigation, Domestication of Animals, Fishponds, Communal Farming, Food Preservation are some of the most important developments of mankind. The apocalypse scenario may start most communities to start as nomadic hunter/gatherers similar to our very distant ancestors however once a defensible base of operations with control of prime real estate is established, these developments should immediately be restored. It is idle to argue the importance or need of such, what is however arguable is the need and impossibility of creating significant amounts of arable land that can be defended by a limited number of personnel. At this point we will again go back to historical examples on this particular situation. Since this is the state of the world that lasted for almost 4000 years it will require be discussed in the next post.

The degradation of technological advancement of mankind will most likely follow this format and improvisations and progress will again start similar to human history for the last 6000 years. It will be the regenesis of our civilization on steroids. The community that has the most in-depth understanding of human development as a civilization and is able to keep and implement that knowledge should be the long term objective of any survivor society in the apocalypse.



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