Ask Slashdot: Are You Apocalypse-Useful? 737
An anonymous reader writes: "Young people, when choosing a profession, are often told to 'do what you love.' That's why we have experts in such abstruse fields as medieval gymel. But let's talk hypotheticals: if there's a worldwide catastrophe in which civilization is interrupted, somebody specializing in gymel wouldn't provide much use to fellow survivors. In a post-apocalypse world, medical doctors would be useful, as would most scientists and engineers. The bad news for Slashdotters is that decades without computers would render computer science and related professions useless. What do you consider to be the most useful and mostly useless post-apocalypse professions? How long would it take for society to rebuild enough for your profession to be useful?"
Farming (Score:5, Insightful)
People can survive quite well without the care of physicians. Going without food is more difficult.
Re:Farming (Score:5, Insightful)
Beyond that, most modern medicine requires pharmaceuticals and technology. Most doctors would be pretty bad off post-apocalypse.
Also, my career is irrelevant. I can build a house. But my career is in technology. So I would have to turn a hobby into a job.
Re: (Score:2)
Also, my career is irrelevant. I can build a house. But my career is in technology. So I would have to turn a hobby into a job.
I'm glad there are people who understand this; that one's career or profession is not the only knowledge and worth they have. I, for example, work retail in a not especially post apocalyptically useful field, and IT. Selling stuff is arguably going to be useful post-apocalypse, but I am also capable of building things.
Re:Farming (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm in the same boat. Not a whole lot of demand for IT professionals, but I can design and run a permaculture style farm, build a stone house, cast scrap aluminum into a metal working shop, build sterling engines and steam turbines, deliver the level of medical care you'd expect of a combat medic, manufacture rudimentary chemicals from raw materials for use in peace and in war, hunt with a bow and arrow, trap game, fish, track and fight hand to hand. Among other things.
And, I can use rhetoric to inspire men to follow my leadership and organize them effectively when they do.
I think I'd do quite well.
Re:Farming (Score:5, Interesting)
People can survive quite well without the care of physicians. Going without food is more difficult.
Very true, because without food all living creatures die. However if you have a community of people the most important people are "Waste Management Specialists" such as garbage collectors and people who can put in and maintain water and sewerage systems. Without proper sanitation you would normally have a local or even a worldwide catastrophe unless we all want to go back to our hunter/gatherer roots.
Re:Farming (Score:4, Interesting)
People can survive quite well without the care of physicians. Going without food is more difficult.
This. But we're talking about a deep understanding of agriculture and plant biology, not modern farming with GPS-guided combines and Monsanto round-up seeds.One would need to know how farming was done in ages past.
And also since we're assuming a post-apocalyptic world in which computer programmers are useless due to a lack of electricity, I'd say even more important than farming knowledge is fighting knowledge. Having guns and ammo (LOTS of ammo) and knowing how to use them. Shooting a gun accurately may seem simple to the uninitiated, but it takes considerable training and practice. Also knowing how to fix guns (gunsmithing) will be an important skill.
The holy grail in this world would be having the chemistry knowledge and experience to make your own gunpowder and ammo. If you could do that, you'd become THE most important person a local warlord could have in his court.
down to a "T" (Score:5, Funny)
BS to cover for your 100-250K PHD in medieval stud (Score:4, Insightful)
At least it will be cool for a big EPM to take out your student loans
Re: (Score:3)
I don't think that would even stop them form collecting debt.
WHAT? (Score:5, Insightful)
The bad news for Slashdotters is that decades without computers would render computer science and related professions useless.
Says who? Are we talking about a magical scenario where all technology just stops working?
There is a massive cache of existing technology which can be repurposed to rebuild society. Whos gonna do it if not Slasdotters?
We can individually maintain libraries billions of times larger than that of ancient alexandria and provide that wealth of knowledge to others at the cost of suns rays.
Re:WHAT? (Score:4, Interesting)
There is a massive cache of existing technology which can be repurposed to rebuild society. Whos gonna do it if not Slasdotters?
There was a Discovery show about this scenario: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... [wikipedia.org]
One of the most interesting challenges was finding new uses for all the old technology laying around. Like, fixing it up to do something new, that was necessary for survival.
Re:WHAT? (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, if things are so dire that computers magically disappear for decades, the concomitant disappearance of advanced agriculture, etc., will mean the lingering miserable death of probably 90% of the developed world.
Like most doomsday scenarios, this is a masturbatory exercise. Things will end up either 1) like now, but worse in many ways or 2) utter decimation. In neither of these cases will your soldering hobby become the salvation of your village and earn you the respect and admiration long-denied you by our anti-intellectual society, granting you, finally, a day in the sun where the jocks pull you along on a rickshaw while Julie the prom queen gives you deep throat.
Re:WHAT? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:WHAT? (Score:5, Insightful)
Even without computers. Computer Science is a damn useful skill.
Computer Science is the Science of Computation.
So in this theoretical world where technology is gone, which will mean that we won't know how to make electricity by spinning a magnet in a bunch of wires, or how to make a battery with Zink and copper in an Acid. Then sending this electric current threw some sand to make a transistor. Then we arrange these things into Not gates, And Gates, Or Gates. We seem to know quartz can vibrate so we can remake a counter.... We can save stuff with magnetizing it on rust suck on something sticky.
So the idea were we cannot have a computer made from scratch within a few years, as we already know about them and how the basic components work, is rather silly.
However in the mean time, these computer scientists can use these skills to manage a labor work force. Giving them simple jobs, aligning them so they can perform complex actions. For example in college cafeteria. I found there was a long line for the utensils, Because all the forks were group together, the spoons were grouped together then the knives were grouped together. The computer science people saw that this line was being inefficient as only 1 person was at the table at once because they almost always needed the fork. So we moved the forks, spoons and knives into clusters next to each other and were able to improve the line speed threefold.
Computer Science disciplines the mind to think of things in terms of efficiency, and patterns, as well figuring in the unpredictable actions from people, and their more predicable actions in masses.
So in this theoretical Apocalypse work the computer scientist is still a useful person in such a world.
Now this said, in order to get such an world, you will need to kill off all the information and including the smart people. So you will need to kill of all the computer scientists, engineers, and other educated people to really create such a world.
The magical scenario is "gradual social decay." (Score:5, Insightful)
In either a sudden collapse, or gradual decay, much will be lost. Let me remind you that when the Roman civilization decayed, technologies as simple as the making of cement were lost.
Cement.
Not exactly what we'd consider "high tech." It demonstrates just how fragile our scientific advancements are. They can be wiped out by a few generations of relative illiteracy for the great mass of survivors. In three generations, electric lights are a distant legend and those ubiquitous round copper disks find their most frequent use as quick, easily made arrowheads.
Re:The magical scenario is "gradual social decay." (Score:4, Insightful)
In either a sudden collapse, or gradual decay, much will be lost. Let me remind you that when the Roman civilization decayed, technologies as simple as the making of cement were lost.
Cement.
Not exactly what we'd consider "high tech." It demonstrates just how fragile our scientific advancements are. They can be wiped out by a few generations of relative illiteracy for the great mass of survivors. In three generations, electric lights are a distant legend and those ubiquitous round copper disks find their most frequent use as quick, easily made arrowheads.
Yeah they were knocked back a couple hundred years you knock us back a to 1800 and we would still be able to make electricity Ben franklin was playing with it a decent part of his life. Beyond that the average person in the roman era was illiterate and there has very little written down as apposed to today where every town has at least one public library, the elementary and middle school libraries have a set of one set of encyclopedias each at least, then there is you high schools with chemistry, biology, physics labs and a often a auto shop each with all of the information and much of the equipment need to to bootstrap your way into the early 1900s. Then there are the community colleges which would bring you up to say the 1950 level of tech. Anywhere with a state college or descent sized privet college could probably push you back up to the 1970s if not mid 80s. We despite all of our educations systems failing have at least enough literate people and redundant copies of most enough knowledge to boot strap our tech fairly quickly. Hell anyone with a couple of TB hdd and a few solar cells could mirror more then info information to preserve at elast our access to knowledge.
Re:The magical scenario is "gradual social decay." (Score:4, Insightful)
In either a sudden collapse, or gradual decay, much will be lost. Let me remind you that when the Roman civilization decayed, technologies as simple as the making of cement were lost.
The Romans didn't know how to make cement. They knew how to make concrete by using a specific volcanic sand from a particular area, mixed with lime.
They didn't know why it worked, nor how to identify other sources, nor how to make it from less pure sources. They were cooks who knew how to use flour, but didn't know how to make flour once their initial supply ran out. Cut off the trade in magic sand and the concrete made from other sources was weak, worthless for building.
Plenty of communities across post-Roman western Europe knew how to make cement mortar. It just wasn't anywhere near as a strong as Roman concrete because no-one else had the right magic sand either, nor knew why less-magic sand worked, or didn't work, hence the right way to cook it to make it more-magic. So it tended to be restricted to things like mosaics, not entire buildings.
Re:WHAT? (Score:5, Insightful)
>There is a massive cache of existing technology which can be repurposed to rebuild society.
None of which works when the electricity dies.
... And who exactly is in the best position to figure out a way to produre more when that happens? There wont be a need to run a whole datacenter but only the required equiptment at a time which should be doable even with salvaged solar panels and batteries. And besides nuclear plants dont need refueling any time soon, heck, you could even use nuclear power to grow food indoors if we are in a nuclear winter scenario.
Re:WHAT? (Score:4, Insightful)
every abandoned car on earth would have an alternator. just need to rig something to spin it and you have electricity, say make a windmill.
heck all the cars also have batteries i would have to imagine at least some of those would still work as well.
electricity wouldn't be too hard to get.
Re:WHAT? (Score:5, Informative)
>There is a massive cache of existing technology which can be repurposed to rebuild society.
None of which works when the electricity dies.
There are a huge number of electrical generators in existence - almost every vehicle on the planet has one for example. Anything that can run a motor can produce electricity. Electricity would be precious perhaps, but absent? Hardly.
Re: (Score:3)
So running a conductor through a changing magnetic field will no longer produce a charge?
Putting two lead oxide plates in an acid batch will no longer cause a chemical reaction?
My goodness, I was unaware that a catastrophe large enough to cause an apocalyptic event would change the fundamental laws of physics.
You sound young.
Re: (Score:3)
>So running a conductor through a changing magnetic field will no longer produce a charge?
Sure, if you want to light a flashlight bulb. Rather a far cry from generating 10A at a regulated 120 VAC @ 60Hz, sport.
Mind you weve had water powered wheel for millenias and widespread electrification of western world took place on the early half of the 20th century. Not a insurmountable task for modern professionals especially if their and the lives of their loved ones depend on it.
Re:magical scenario where (Score:4, Insightful)
In the 1700s, people started seriously experimenting with electricity, magnetism and general chemistry (as opposed to alchemy).
By the late 1800s we had thermionic valves and semiconductor rectifiers.
In 1949 we figured out how to combine semiconductors in order to make a "transfer resistor" (trans-istor). Followed rapidly by integrated circuits and avalanching into sophisticated nanometer circuitry.
There are still people alive who grew up on farms thinking that diodes and triodes were pretty neat new technogy and you can almost construct stuff like that using bear skins and stone knives. The hardest part, in fact, is the glass-blowing technology required, assuming you don't opt for some other similar vacuum-tight container.
A lot of modern civilization wouldn't be that hard to re-construct if we had the resources available. The knowledge is what took us so long to get here, and unless we lose all the knowledge and the knowledge about the knowledge, recovery wouldn't be a problem. What would hurt more is if we lost our transportation services. Most of what goes into modern electronics is not locally produced where I live.
So one of the most valuable professions might very well be landfill-miner, since the easiest way to get materials would be to extract them from what is now often buried as garbage.
Re: (Score:3)
Whos gonna do it if not Slasdotters?
Competent people?
no they would of been killed by the mad maxian rednecks, we will only come out of our basements after we have run out of d&d campaigns and eaten the last of out twinkies which will take a while.
Some of the oldest trades become useful. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Some of the oldest trades become useful. (Score:5, Interesting)
I am such a child of the eighties (as in, I grew up halfway expecting an apocalypse). Identification of edible plants and mushrooms, not to mention medicinal plants (and a fairly good start on for real medicinal as opposed to folkloric medicinal). Spinning, weaving, preparation of fibers and a fair bit on natural dyeing (hey, we will get an economy going eventually, right?) Gardening. Domestication of natural yeast, bread making starting from whole grains (and I've threshed and winnowed grains, just not a ton), how to make a wood burning oven from clay, and experience cooking in such a thing. (And a fairly good idea how to make a simple kiln, and I've worked with native clays and fire things in such a kiln, just never made one from scratch.) I've done a bit of smithing, and I was about to say I don't know enough (outside of theory) about refining ores, but if we're talking post-apocalyptic, there is likely a fair bit of metal stock to be had. Decent at fish-traps, too. Some basic masonry. Cheese and yoghurt making. Tofu making, for that matter, which is much the same thing. (And I could probably fraction of the MgCl from seawater as a coagulant.) (I also could produce alcoholic beverages from a variety of substance... though the quality might be iffy. And I know many brewers who are really good.) ...and this is getting a little ridiculous, so I'll stop with the list though it's far from complete. However?
"Not to mention someone capable of swinging a sword and lopping the heads off marauders intent on dragging off the young women and torching the village."
I suppose I no longer really count as a young woman, but I'm a martial artist and a martial arts instructor* and jian is probably my best weapon. (Though a good jian requires pretty decent metalurgy - spear might be a better place to start.) And I'm a member of a Chan Buddhist order that emphasizes studies on medicine and the natural sciences. I'd happily teach those young women (and men, and, really, anyone else who can manage not to be an asshole) but I do think the idea that after some kind of societal breakdown women will be commodities and/or victims gets a bit overplayed. (Though... bah. Birth control. Really really need birth control. And while there are many low tech things that can help a lot, few of them are both reliable and reversible.)
* Though my day job is being a neurobiologist. Yup, most biologists are nuts.
Re:Some of the oldest trades become useful. (Score:5, Funny)
Or organ/skin condoms.
As the joke goes, in 1500 the thought of using a sheeps intestine as a condom to prevent pregnancy. In 1873 the improved on the idea by removing the intestine from the sheep first.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Blackpowder is easy to make if you know how, and flintlocks likewise. Hell, percussion caps aren't hard to make, really. Which means that swinging swords probably won't be necessary.
Note that the assumption that nothing will be left of the old civilization is probably a bad one. There probably won't be any large power plants, but a car's alternator hooke
...and without the oldest trades (Score:4, Interesting)
The challenge is that scientists and engineers do not necessarily have the skills most critically required in the first decade or two of a new civilization
Not true. Many of the oldest trades no longer exist so you need someone to develop the techniques and skills again. As a physicist I've never made a steam engine or a large scale electrical generator but I know the basic principles behind them and given time could get one working or figure out how to repair one which breaks. Put that together with a chemist who can figure out how to extract copper and steel from ores and a biologist who can figure out the best crop rotations and dietary requirements and you have the skills needed to greatly increase your survival odds in the first few years.
The advantage of scientists and engineers is not that we are trained for some task but that we have the training to figure out how to do many, many different tasks. We routinely build and do things that nobody knows how to build or do because they have never been built or done before. In modern society it is more efficient to have individuals trained for each special task but without that scientists and engineers will be the ones who will need to reinvent everything which is missing and in the longer term teach the next generation.
post apocalyptic is not medieval (Score:3, Insightful)
someone capable of swinging a sword and lopping the heads off marauders intent on dragging off the young women and torching the village.
I doubt a post-apocalyptic world will be much like the mediaeval times portrayed in Game of Thrones. In fact the medieval world wasn’t much like that.
Swords were very expensive and used only by the nobility. The peasants use staffs or slings - i.e. sticks and stones, or long bows at certain periods.
As others have pointed out, there can be expected to be plenty of rusting machinery available, so the economy & warfare would be different. It's a lot cheaper to get iron by melting a car engine bloc
Re: (Score:3)
Lets be realistic, the nature of the collapse will drive everything that follows. So astronomical impacts similar to prior mass extinction events, well, random chance and how close to the point of impact will most drive those who survive and those that don't. Something slower and still of the astronomical variety passage through a dust cloud severely curtailing sunlight for a short period and then with a longer follow up period of diminished sunlight. In this case the biggest driver will not be individual
Re:Some of the oldest trades become useful. (Score:4, Insightful)
no skill involved
uh, haven't gotten around much, have you?
Re: (Score:3)
Gunpowder is ridiculously simple to make as are bullets for modern guns.
Blackpowder is easy to make but blackpowder would gum up a modern gun in seconds if it works at all.
Casings and primer and smokeless powder are extremely difficult to make. They aren't something
you are just going to be able to whip up in your backyard. Especially not safely.
Re: (Score:3)
if a large portion of the population is killed, food won't be an immediate concern as the canned goods on the shelf of homes and super markets will last for years while production gets sorted out.
Rather than just dying, the more likely scenerio is that a large portion of the population quickly starves to death
using up all those canned goods before doing so.
Apocalypse speculator (Score:4, Funny)
I'm an Apocalypse speculator. You might think I'd be at the bottom of the list; but we have been in business since ancient times. We're probably in the top 5 oldest professions. The people who run Slashdot are whoring out to something here, so apparently they will do well also.
Soldier (Score:5, Insightful)
Knowing how to shoot and shoot well would be an invaluable skill.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Knowing how to shoot and shoot well would be an invaluable skill.
Bullets can't grow crops, filter water, or patch up a broken limb. All they can do is provide those things temporarily at the expense of others until a bullet ends up in you. Even if someone with a gun manages to be a protector of sorts it will only be a matter of time before everyone else decides that they aren't pulling their own weight. Someone with no skill tilling a field will do more for the survival of their group than the best soldier.
Re: (Score:2)
I guess no one ever hunts in your world? Or will people just be going to the post-apocolyptic Safeway?
Problem solving (Score:5, Insightful)
Although my main profession is software, I also do circuit design, construction, metalworking, carpentry and most of the other building trades
I find that even though the specifics are different, the fundamental skill is the same..problem solving
Software, circuit design, carpentry or any of the other disciplines seem more similar than different
The steps are the same..clearly identify the problem, look at the tools and materials that are available, then find a solution using what you have to work with
science would not be obsolete (Score:2)
You like to eat and have fire, right? Sure, something as esoteric as a "particle physics research engineer" wont help in this 'world', but science is in everyday life and helps keep people alive.
Specialization is for insects (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
The man with the gun (Score:2)
Sadly survivors with guns will dominate the scenery. Anyone who can farm skills will be important but dominated by unskilled morons.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:The man with the gun (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as you've got some distance, that plan will work. I'm always amused by the people who live 20 minutes outside a major metropolitan area spouting off with the "I'll shoot them if they come after my _____". There's a couple million people 20 minutes from you who don't know how to do anything other than pick up the phone and order food... You don't have enough bullets...
lol. ignorant nerd rage. (Score:3)
Pace the implication of the article, medieval musicians and other low-tech entertainers would likely be in high demand.
If electronic technology magically stops working (somehow), then judging by the amount of purchased and pirated music today, one of the most secure professions would probably be musician. And if technology is low, medieval music (or some synthesis of it and modern forms like jazz) would be the go-to.
I have a degree in computer science. (Score:5, Insightful)
Which, it turns out, has very little to do with actual computers.
The intellectual skills involved in CS could, with not much difficulty, be turned to other kinds of problem solving such as operations research. Seriously, you're going to leave questions like how to most efficiently distribute scarce resources such as food to someone with a *business* degree? As a computer scientist, I'd create a model of the underlying problem, develop alternative algorithms, then show how those algorithms and model apply the real world problem. I use computer science every time I come home from grocery shopping. As I remove items from the bags I stage them by where they are eventually going to go. Why? Because efficient sorting algorithms eliminate lots of entropy early on. Consequently I only open my refrigerator *once*.
Computer science is essentially about figuring out the resources needed to accomplish things. If you want to figure out how much fodder it would take to move your draft animal powered army over a certain distance, you *could* consult a historian who specialized in the logistics of pre-mechanized warfare who'd tell you how Viscount Howe did it in the New Jersey Campaign of 1776-1777. Or you could find some CS graduate who pulled at least a "B" in algorithms to figure it out for you.
As for experts in gymel -- a technique for singing polyphony with one voice -- it's worth considering that the technique was developed in a period of human history that would be considered apocalyptically awful by modern standards. Even when times are violent, disordered, and desperately poor people still need art and music, and if we're stipulating that apocalyptic == "no computers", that means no iPods either. So it seems quite plausible to me that experts in gymel might find their services *more* in demand in a post-apocalyptic world.
Re:I have a degree in computer science. (Score:5, Funny)
Naturally, my model would not starve the farmers. The real challenge is figuring out how to stop the bandits who are starving the farmers. Fortunately, you only need about seven samurai for that.
Re: (Score:3)
While you are busy intellectualizing a food redistribution algorithm, someone with a club will just smack you and take it.
Not before I put an arrow between his eyes. I can not only shoot a primitive bow pretty well, I could make one, including the bowstring, with nothing but a knife. If I didn't, then I'd have to fall back on my boxing and (admittedly rusty) judo skills.
It's a common misconception that people capable of unusual intellectual feats must necessarily be physically helpless, hopelessly specialized, and oblivious to everything around them.
Blacksmithing (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
A decent blacksmith needs nothing but raw materials. Producing charcoal is easy, as is making basic tools from scrap. With those basic tools, advanced tools can be made. Anyone who believes otherwise has never met a real blacksmith. Graduating from apprenticeship requires actually making your own tools from raw materials.
useless now vs useless in apocalypse (Score:2)
Some studies like medieval gymel are barely useful now. Can you even make a living at that now?
Others like blacksmithing are nothing more than entertainment now but would be highly useful in a collapse.
I don't think you can discount computer scientists though. Not counting my hobbies, my primary job as
a computer programmer is repairing computers, fixing systems, and making stuff work.
If we did suffer a total collapse, the problem solving and improvising skills used daily by computer
programmers not to ment
Useful professions (Score:2)
What might be useful would depend on how bad the catastrophe is. If its something like the TV show "Revolution" where electricity magically stops working, different people would be useful vs a situation where electricity is still available.
contingency plan (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
We actually had events happen that killed 40 to 50% of the population, its called a plague. These unrealistic scenarios happened every 500 years or so. Even in our modern society if a plague kills so many that medical infrastructure is overwhelmed you can have a vaccine available but lack the means to distribute it or the quantity necessary to vaccinate most of the population.
That's assuming they even have a vaccine. Ebola has no cure and has a 90%+ kill rate.
Oh, and it's already in 3 countries and is continuing to spread: http://umap.openstreetmap.fr/f... [openstreetmap.fr]
My profession would be useless, hobbies useful... (Score:2)
Frankly, as a sysadmin, it would take quite some time for my profession to be useful. However, I am not solely defined by my profession. My hobbies, such as firearms, cooking, woodworking, dabbling in a little gardening and other low tech stuff would end up much more useful, after the apocalypse. I actually enjoy unplugging and doing something that doesn't require a computer now and then.
Lawyer (Score:2)
I Disagree... (Score:3)
"...decades without computers would render computer science and related professions useless."
The idea of graph theory is perfect for building social systems, that withstand breakdown.
The idea for example not to over centralize government for example to avoid disastrous consequences.
We know from graph theory nodes with too many edges are suspect and reveal design weaknesses in computer networks.
The same happens in human social/governing systems. Kings, Queens or many forms of government that are too centralized results in war, death and darkness.
One thing to do after the apocalypse is pick up that graph theory and get to work in building a highly distributed, non centralized society.
As a former EE and current dentist (Score:2)
I feel comfortable with an impending apocalypse. I know how to keep things working, how to fix them when they break, and how to get people numb enough to extract teeth without causing much discomfort. Yup, I'm good.
Trades (Score:2)
Buildings need to be built and fixed.
That never changes.
Easy for me now that I'm an RN (Score:2)
I make alcohol (Score:3)
Checkmate, suckers.
Perhaps if you all show enough deference, I'll take you with me to the top.
Slashdotters will provide food for the zombies (Score:3)
I plan on being a zombie. I plan on leading the zombies. We are talking zombie apocalypse, right?
Slashdotters tend to have vaguely higher intelligence, judging by their impeccable skill at moderating posts and speed of typing "frist post". Completely ignoring science as any good zombie would, I deduce that their brains must be tastier and more wholesomely satisfying to my soon-to-be-acquired tastes for human brains.
Nobody asked which side I'd be on after the apocalypse. I plan on being on the winning side. Now, go make me a sammich... with your ears as bread.
too many bad books (Score:5, Insightful)
Submitter has read too many bad books.
Remember, in stories, the world works the way the author needs it to work for dramatic purposes, not necessarily the way that it most likely would in reality.
The typical Mad Max scenario is unlikely. Just like SciFi authors thought we'd have flying cars and take our vacations on the moon, but didn't forsee the Internet and mobile phones, the real scenario will very likely be quite different from the movies you've seen.
Which basically means: Who the fuck knows which skills will be useful and which ones won't? Maybe computers will be worthless and shooting is important. But maybe supply of ammunition runs out a lot faster than electricity which we increasingly generate decentralized with solar and wind farms.
Maybe something entirely unexpected turns out to be the most important skill to have.
Also: Looking at history, civilization-destroying catastrophies are incredibly rare. Most civilizations enter a phase of decline and slowly fade away.
Of course, I am. (Score:3)
Apocalyptic thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's my opinion on apocalyptic planning. You're wasting your energy. We've been predicting that the apocalypse is right around the corner since the dawn of civilization.
Prepare yourself for _likely_ (mathematically probable) scenarios. If you're 40 or under, prepare yourself for the possibility of dying or being seriously injured in an automobile accident. Buy the safest vehicle you can afford, because this is your leading cause of death. If you're over 40, take measures to prevent yourself from dying of heart disease by eating right and getting more exercise.
A cache of guns and a bomb shelter full of provisions won't do you any good if you're obese and you die of heart attack at age 55. Nor will it do you much good if you're in your late 20's and you die in a car crash on the way to Wal-Mart to purchase rifles and canned food.
Continue doing whatever you're doing because if something serious like an asteroid hits Earth, you're already dead. Anything serious like that will completely rewrite all the rules for life, and you can't predict what you will need. Maybe the only thing you will need is genetic resistance to the diseases that will run rampant. Or the ability to hide. Or the ability to relax and not worry. Or the ability to accept death.
The most useful "skill" in a postapocalyptic world (Score:5, Insightful)
Being a bum.
No, I'm dead serious. In a post apocalyptic world, you won't need woodworkers and blacksmiths. We're not suddenly back in the middle ages. Everything we had will still be around, but society will break down. And that doesn't mean you have to learn how to make bow and arrows so you can go hunt for deer. It means find the shotgun so you have an upper hand over the other looters in the local Wal Mart.
Why everyone thinks that "post apocalypse" means that everything we did in the last 500 years goes poof over night and we have to fall back on feudal technology is beyond me. It's very likely that at the very least most of what we have will still be there. What will be lost is probably everything that requires some kind of central organization. I.e. don't expect gas, water, power, sewage or any other municipal or other central service still to work. But the stuff will still be there. Your car will still run at the very least as long as there is gas in it. You might not get to refill at the next gas station, but there's still gas in your tank! You might not get power from the power grid anymore but batteries still work. And while you might not know how to build new firearms, there's still plenty of them around along with ammo for them, so there's no need to rely on the ancient art of war. By the time you need this, chances are that YOU won't need it anymore.
Because until we have to fall back on "old tech", I'd guess that a good portion of us would no longer exist. The first ones to go would be the ones that rely heavily on medical treatment. Like dialysis patient. They'd be gone in a week or so. People with severe allergies won't last long either. If society as a whole breaks down, I would not rely on surviving if you're by some stretch handicapped, i.e. if you can't move or if you can't survive on your own. People who need hearing or seeing aids might get by, depending on their disability, but one thing's certain, your glasses better not break. My guess would be that about 5-10% of the population in our "civilized" world is simply unable to make it without said civilization.
Another 10% loss is to be assumed for looting, pillaging and general "I don't like you and no cop can force me to" behaviour. This would of course depend on the amount of firearms that are around. The more, the merrier. Yes, if both sides are armed it means that the other one can shoot back but face it: When you have food and a gun, and I have hunger and a gun, I will attack. Whether I die of hunger or by your bullet, do I give a shit? Attacking you gives me a chance.
So with fights and accidents, I think it's conservative to assume a total loss of personnel of about 50% before we have to think about moving away from living "off the land" (i.e. sustain ourselves by looting and pillaging) and actually have to pick up ancient skills like farming.
So the most apt "profession" to even GET to that 50% phase is, oddly, bums. They already know how to do that. They don't have to learn anything. They know all that is necessary. Where can you scrounge successfully. Where do you find stuff you need to survive. How do you approach others and how to gauge their reaction. How to get the hell outta some place if things get rough.
It's nice if you know how to plant fruits and vegetables, how to build your own tools and how to hunt game, but unless you somehow manage to GET there it's moot.
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I agree a surgeon would be way more useful than an md l, as for me a comp-sci IT person like most of slashdot we could still make electronics with our trusty soddaring iron so not completely useless
Re:Medical doctor (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yes, because renewables magically stop working.
Re:Medical doctor (Score:5, Insightful)
I can also use a manual mill, lathe, drill press (all of those used to run on belts from water wheels, they are that old). People solid in science or engineering often have a grasp of the history of technology, having a grasp of historical technique is way more valuable. Problem solving is great but remembering HOW it was solved in the past is infinitely better. If you are serious, find old books and protect and store them... I wish I still owned the encyclopedia set I had in 1965... it had everything from gear cutting details to gun cotton recipes...
Re:Medical doctor (Score:5, Insightful)
This is all true... But people with a grasp of the history of, well, history, will know that the people most useful to themselves while be the ones (1) with familiarity with whatever weaponry still functions and (2) with a glib tongue to unite likely minded people.
It won't be an apocalypse if we can feed everyone. When we cannot feed everyone, there will be violence. When there is violence, the people will be triaged into three groups:
- the tough and glib (lords)
- the useful professionals (craftsmen)
- the manual laborers, when needed (serfs)
Those who can't cut it as thugs, and do not know something useful will be lucky to be allowed to pick at the dirt and retain enough to feed themselves. In highly populated regions, about one in a hundred will be lucky to be needed as a serf.
This does not apply to regions where the population is sparse enough and the land productive enough so that food is not an issue. But without modern tech, there will not be enough food for the everyone... and big cities will be littered with the dead and dying within a week.
Twenty years ago, I would have tried for lord. Today, I think I may still qualify for 'craftsman'. Twenty years from now, I probably will be a good fit only for 'dead'. So can we not have an Apocalypse, please?
Re:Medical doctor (Score:5, Insightful)
No electricity means your failing at basic engineering. A coil and a moving magnet is not that hard to come by.
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Re:Medical doctor (Score:5, Interesting)
No electricity means your failing at basic engineering. A coil and a moving magnet is not that hard to come by.
I would agree. Unless we end up with something like the show "Revolution" where the laws of physics are turned upside down
then having electricity on a small scale isn't a problem. The most likely scenerio in a collapse would be no cleanrooms, no
rare elements, and therefore no NEW computers so being able to cobble together existing technologies to help with irrigation
systems, etc... would be a highly useful skill. Even in a collapse computers are going to be useful. There will be plenty of tasks
that people will want done on computers and they will want someone to be able to repair them and repurpose them to more
immediate needs.
If we end up in a scenerio where an EMP, nuclear blast, sun spot, etc... fries all the chips then repurposing old technologies
becomes harder but we will still presumably have electricity but might have to rely alot more on crude relays, etc... rather
than abandoned computers. In this scenerio a hardware engineer or electrical engineer would have an advantage but most
computer programmers have at least been exposed to some of this at some point.
Re:Medical doctor (Score:4, Funny)
In a post-apocalypse society, I will raid the nearest electronics stores then wander the land, repairing electronics with my knowledge and large stash of replacement electrolytic capacitors.
Re:Medical doctor (Score:5, Insightful)
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You don't even need diodes because there is a rectifier, and usually a voltage regulator, built right into the alternator. Connect it to a steam engine, and a battery to prime the field coil, and your good to go, most alternators generate about 60 ~ 100 amps @ 13.8 ~ 14.2 volt DC. You can wire the DC output from multiple alternators in parallel for more amperage.
You would also have solar, wind, and water power that you can use to charge a battery bank, 12 volt batteries would become a hot commodity in a pos
Re:Medical doctor (Score:5, Funny)
Indeed.
I'm an EE. If the grid goes down and I've got carte blanche, I could get some semblance of electricity up and running in under a week. (Which would enable you to plug in your standard appliances.) I could get solar USB chargers working in the same time frame.
First you get the electricity, then you get the... power... uh... then you get the wom... can I start over?
I know how to make beer.
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Hardly. Soldering was one of the first forms of metalworking. [ersa.com]
All you need is a heat source; a candle will do in a pinch.
Mind you, in your unlikely world devoid of electricity, there wouldn't be much *point* to soldering electronics anyway.
Re:Medical doctor (Score:5, Interesting)
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In other words, keep the candle under the needle while soldering.
You failed at being useful :)
Re:Medical doctor (Score:5, Insightful)
McGuffey's 4th New Eclectic Reader:"The Colonists" (Score:5, Interesting)
A nineteenth-century schoolbook [google.com] addresses this question. Post-apocalyptic society might not be too different from that of a "colony." Farmers, millers, carpenters, blacksmiths, masons, shoemakers, doctors, school-masters make the cut; barbers, just barely; silversmiths, soldiers, dancing-masters, lawyers, politicians, and "gentlemen" do not.
[note.â"Mr. Barlow one day invented a play for his children, on purpose to show them what kind of persons and professions are the most useful in society, and particularly in a new settlement. The following is the conversation which took place between himself and his children.]
Mr. Barlow. Come, my boys, I have a new play for you. I will be the founder of a colony; and you shall be people of +different trades and professions, coming to offer yourselves to go with me. What are you, Arthur?
Arthur. I am a farmer, sir.
Mr. Barlow. Very well. Farming is the chief thing we have to depend upon. The farmer puts the seed into the earth, and takes care of it when it is grown to ripe corn. Without the farmer, we should have no bread. But you must work very +diligently; there will be trees to cut down, and roots to dig out, and a great deal of hard labor.
Arthur. I shall be ready to do my part.
Mr. Barlow. Well, then I shall take you +willingly, and as many more such good fellows as I can find. We shall have land enough, and you may go to work as soon as you please. Now for the next.
James. I am a miller, sir.
Mr. Barlow. A very useful trade! Our corn must be ground, or it will do us but little good. But what must we do for a mill, my friend?
James. I suppose we must make one, sir.
Mr. Barlow. Then we must take a mill-wright with us, and carry mill-stones. Who is next?
Charles. I am a carpenter, sir.
Mr. Barlow. The most +necessary man that could offer. We shall find you work enough, never fear. There will be houses to build, fences to make, and chairs and tables beside. But all our timber is growing; we shall have hard work to fell it, to saw boards and planks, and to frame and raise buildings. Can you help in this?
Charles. I will do my best, sir.
Mr. Barlow. Then I engage you, but I advise you to bring two or three able +assistants along with you. William. I am a blacksmith.
Mr. Barlow. An +excellent companion for the carpenter. We can not do without cither of you. You must bring your great bellows, +anvil, and +vise, and we will set up a forge for you, as soon as we arrive. By the by, we shall want a mason for that.
Edward. I am one, sir.
Mr. Barlow. Though we may live in log-houses at first, we shall want brick-work, or stone-work, for +chimneys, +hearths, and ovens, so there will be employment for a mason. Can you make bricks, and burn lime?
Edward. I will try what I can do, sir.
Mr. Barlow. No man can do more. I engage you, Who comes next?
Francis. I am a +shoe-maker, sir.
Mr. Barlow. Shoes we can not well do without, but I fear we shall get no +leather.
Francis. But I can dress skins, sir.
Mr. Barlow. Can you? Then you are a useful fellow. I will have you, though I give you double wages.
George. I am a tailor, sir.
Mr. Barlow. We must not go naked; so there will be work for a tailor. But you are not above mending, I hope, for we must not mind wearing +patched clothes, while we work in the woods.
George. I am not, sir.
Mr. Barlow. Then I engage you, too.
Henry. I am a silversmith, sir.
Mr. Barlow. Then, my friend, you can not go to a worse place than a new colony to set up your trade in.
Henry. But I understand clock and watch making, too.
Mr. Barlow. We shall want to know how the time goes, but we can not afford to employ you. At present, I advise you to stay where you are.
Jasper. I am a barber and hair-dresser.
Mr. Barlow. What can we do with you? If you will shave our men's rough beards once a week, and crop their hairs once a quarter, and be content to help the carpenter the re
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What's all this stuff I read about you trolling people here with sockpuppet fake accounts you made to do so and getting caught?
"You are in a maze of twisty AC posts that all look alike."
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No modern "career job" is useful after an Apocalypse. If you are involved in any kind of competitive (free market) industry, you are using the infrastructure to its best advantage. "Modern" farming knows little to nothing about how to farm without fuel or pesticides. Similarly, modern medicine isn't about basic hygiene or simple infection control.
If you want to be useful after an Apocalypse, take up survivalism as a hobby, learn to grow your own food, make your own tools, including weapons for hunting /
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Funny, I recently bought a place and I'm planting a garden. The soil is so clay heavy I could throw it on a wheel, and fire it to at least earthenware temperatures. This also means a rototiller is useless, so I've been using a shovel to remove the grass layer, which I pile up around the edges of the bed, a fork to break up the top 10 inches of clay, and then a wheelbarrow and shovel to cart over topsoil from a pile I had delivered. In a post-apocolypse world, we can omit the delivered dirt, because you w
Antibiotics (Score:2)
Someone who can produce antibiotics would be absolutely amazingly valuable. Assuming that the fall of civilisation wasn't due to the evolution of broad band antibiotic resistance.
Its not hard to do; on the documentary 'Sliders' one guy made an antibiotic just out of mouldy bread and saved a civilisation.
But yeah, antibiotics is what makes modern civilisation possible, enhances population growth rate, increases productivity etc etc etc and without them we would be fucked.
Re:Antibiotics (Score:5, Funny)
Its not hard to do; on the documentary 'Sliders' one guy made an antibiotic just out of mouldy bread and saved a civilisation.
Sliders was a documentary?
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In at least one universe, yes.
Re:Medical doctor (Score:5, Interesting)
So when you break your leg, you're going to have your witch doctor set it for you?
Vaccines and antibiotics are not high tech -- by which I mean something that requires an extensive and intact industrial infrastructure to produce. Crude replacements could be created by someone with 21st C scientific knowledge and the kind of technology that would have been available to 18th C gentleman scientists.
As for other drugs, a doctor could work with herbalists. Willow bark replaces aspirin; foxglove replaces digitalis; Ephedra sinica replaces pseudoephedrine; absinthe replaces anti-worm medications. A herbalist working under medical supervision is a lot better than nothing.
Re:Medical doctor (Score:4, Insightful)
If she could reduce a fracture and sew up a wound; if she could diagnose the most common ailments and give the best advice you could get with the technology available, she'd be about 80% as useful as a modern doctor.
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Why flamebait?
Some doctors (many older doctors) are good at the clinical diagnosis. They can make some fairly simple observations (what we used to think of as a medical exam) and talk with the patient and make a diagnosis that's either correct or close enough. Those doctors would be quite useful.
Others can't seem to diagnose a cold without an mri, ct, a dozen blood tests and an ultrasound. Those would be totally useless.
Re:Medical doctor (Score:5, Insightful)
I am an MD, PhD. For many, many situations the diagnostic performance of an expert clinician with basic tools (stethoscope, diapason etc) is up to 80-90% with all the rest of the technology bringing this up to 95-99% (diminishing returns). Furthermore, in an apocalyptic scenario, the very hard, very complex medical conditions would not be a priority: people dying from cancer at age 78 or from complications of diabetes at age 68 would not require the huge resources we can afford to give them in modern society. We would probably be much more preoccupied with helping women give birth, protecting neonates from infections and hypothermia and doing all that stuff that could save millions of lives in the third world today (like hydrating infants with rotavirus infection).
Obviously, modern doctors are not perfectly prepared for such a scenario, but the basic training is there. So, yes, I think a significant part of medical knowledge would be useful in a post-apocalyptic world, even if the infrastructure is not there.
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Computer scientists would still be useful, just not in the same ways. Algorithms are carried out by people, too, not just computers.
Correction: Algorithms will be carried out by computers, but the computers will be groups of women with adding machines, as they were up to the middle of WWII.
CompSci will be useful to the extent that it relates to handling large numbers, or if they can build robots using what is left. Losing Heathkit may well have doomed us to be recreated after the last living computer person has died.
Computer science majors are useful (Score:2)
Yes . As cattle.
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here's one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M... [wikipedia.org]
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Engineers may seem practical in a post-apocalypse situation but many engineers would also find their skills useless since the tech tree to apply their skill set may be disrupted or none existent.
I think the real problem is that it's highly likely that the tech tree takes more than a single generation to recover so
how do we preserve this "useless" knowledge for multiple generations so that we have it available when the tech
tree recovers to the point where it can be utilized again.