SRL Archive - Discussions & Debates

So, society is going to crumble soon. The life we know is going to end, and the lifestyles of us and our fathers will be a thing of the past.

A barrel of oil gives the same amount of energy as 5 labourers working non stop for 12 hours a day for a year. That's a MASSIVE amount of energy, and undoubtedly our modern society is built upon the black gold. Without it, we would be no-where near as advanced as we are now. People would live a mainly agricultural-based life. Before oil came to be widely used, coal was used. This required massive amounts of labourers to extract a relatively small amount, and many people died in the unsafe mines.

Anyhoo. Take a look at your computer. Obviously it was created by say 100 machines. Now, each of those 100 machines had been created by another 100 machines, and each of those had been created by machines. The point I am trying to make is that we have come into a completely unsustainable circle, where the machines we take for granted are created by yet more machines. Nothing is made from scratch. This means that if and when the oil/power runs out, we have to start again, from scratch. We will have to mine all the coal ourselves. We will have to re-discover the techniques that were used 100 years ago. We will have to re-build all our technology from scratch.


Now, you may think that as society becomes more complex it becomes more stable. Quite incorrect.
As society becomes more stable and diversifies, it becomes increasingly closer to collapse.
During the middle ages, the plague hit England. 1/3 of the population was wiped out. Society continued.
As society grows more complex, people become more specialised. For instance, take truck drivers. They count for at-least 70% of internal deliveries in Britain alone. Now say that they all died tomorrow. What would we do? There would be chaos. Petrol would run out, and shops would run out of produce.

As a network grows, it becomes specialised. Certain parts become critical and preform special tasks that the entire network relies on. Truck drivers deliver produce from parts of the network to others. If they shut down, then produce cannot move, and no one gets deliveries. It's a bit like the human brain. The brain is highly specialised, with certain areas preforming highly-specialised tasks. If the part of the brain that controls sight shuts down, it has repercussions for all the other parts of the brain.

Now, society can survive a couple of hits. The truck drivers can be replaced. Life will continue.
But what if more than one section goes down?
Let's take an extreme situation. A plague hits England, and all foreign imports, and all exports are cancelled. England is 'sealed'. The world would go into chaos. All England's exports stop, so the other sections of the network cannot function without input from England stop. The global economy (In itself a fragile network) dips suddenly, knocking trillions of it.

What i'm saying is that if several sections of the global network collapse suddenly and without prior warning or prevention attempts then society as we know it will crumble.


Thanks for reading!

Yes, that's pretty true. $140 for one barrel is pretty much. But do ppl from the Labour party even work 12 hours a year? :rolleyes:

The world isn't going to end because we got no "black gold".. There are far bigger treads.

Appernty, the world leaders are planning a mass hamster breeding plan and plastic companys have been privately hired to make alot of wheels. Theres also rumors of thousands of new types of generators being created.

From: mastaraymond
The world isn't going to end because we got no "black gold".. There are far bigger treads.

Umm yes it is. No wait. The wind will save us

From: bobng
Umm yes it is. No wait. The wind will save us

And roughly 5,000 wind turbines are needed for the equivilent power of one power station.

We will be relying o wind, water and sun! ;)

Ummmmm…. that whole rant about machines is not really correct. You said machines are made by other machines blah blah blah. Well that is true, but they are definitely made from scratch. You take some metal and plastic and run it through tons of different machines to make parts, then run parts through machines to make more parts, then run that through machines to make stuff, but it is still starting from completely raw material (aka. from scratch). And everyone has blueprints and technology plans everywhere. Even if the harddrives of all the computers where all that information is kept, you can still find it in written forms elsewhere. For example, the patent office has to have extensive blueprints before you can obtain a patent so we can always go take a look. And most everything is patented these days.

If Britain closed its borders, it would have a HUGE impact, don't get me wrong, but we would get over it. No one actually depends completely and utterly on Britains imports or exports. So you make a good point that the economy would suck, but the world would move on. It has seen worse - the Black Plague sucked, right? Anyway the point I am trying to make is the world is not ending any time soon, it might start sucking economically speaking, but whatever. I gotta go, fireworks soon woot.

From: MineOrChop
And roughly 5,000 wind turbines are needed for the equivilent power of one power station.

We will be relying o wind, water and sun! ;)

Woah. So, only 5,000 wind turbines per power station, eh? You just need a massive amount of space. Not realistic.

From: Dusk412
Ummmmm…. that whole rant about machines is not really correct. You said machines are made by other machines blah blah blah. Well that is true, but they are definitely made from scratch. You take some metal and plastic and run it through tons of different machines to make parts, then run parts through machines to make more parts, then run that through machines to make stuff, but it is still starting from completely raw material (aka. from scratch). And everyone has blueprints and technology plans everywhere. Even if the harddrives of all the computers where all that information is kept, you can still find it in written forms elsewhere. For example, the patent office has to have extensive blueprints before you can obtain a patent so we can always go take a look. And most everything is patented these days.

If Britain closed its borders, it would have a HUGE impact, don't get me wrong, but we would get over it. No one actually depends completely and utterly on Britains imports or exports. So you make a good point that the economy would suck, but the world would move on. It has seen worse - the Black Plague sucked, right? Anyway the point I am trying to make is the world is not ending any time soon, it might start sucking economically speaking, but whatever. I gotta go, fireworks soon woot.

Your wrong about the machine statement. Yes, everything is made by other machines. We would be screwed if all the machines suddenly broke, or became useless. We cant rebuild the machines, because we have no machines to machine the parts that make the machine.
I can find the blueprints for anything i like. Does not mean i can build it.

No, if say India and Britian closed down, the trillions and trillions would be wiped of the market. You don't depend on our exports, but you need our money from our imports.

We could build any machine from blue prints. You just start by building the basic machine. Use that to build the next one, etc. Anything we have built we have the capabilities to make again.

No, technically, we started the cycle somewhere, with large hydraulic presses… And blast forges.

When the great depression hit the US, the economy of almost all other nations suffered somehow.The whole world is a specialized network, like most of life. But each nation has some of the same facilities of each other, so the removal of one would only effect the rest of the world so much. The removal of a bigger, more technologically advanced (US for instance) would effect the rest more, because of that countries ability to supply labor and goods.

But since your argument started with oil, we can go back to that. Gasoline will surely not pass $5 a gallon as then it would be more cost-effective to produce other fuels. Already there are efforts to produce ethanol from algae and agricultural products. Here are the options it may take:

We perfect making alcohol with corn or w/e, but that'd be stupid, as food prices will rise.

We find other resources, but those are greater than $5 or more for a gallon of gasoline's amount of energy, or alternatively, stay the same.


Either way, some price or other will rise, and taxes may rise because of government funding, inflation will still be present as the government tries to print enough money to pay its debts…

With all of those one price or other will rise and at one point people will just be tired of paying for it…

See the summary for The Stars Must Wait (Keith Laumer) and read down to the part that mentions the riots.

From: Dusk412
We could build any machine from blue prints. You just start by building the basic machine. Use that to build the next one, etc. Anything we have built we have the capabilities to make again.

Exactly. And this took us 100 years, and with the whole of the industrial might of the world with us.

From: R0b0t1
No, technically, we started the cycle somewhere, with large hydraulic presses… And blast forges.

When the great depression hit the US, the economy of almost all other nations suffered somehow.The whole world is a specialized network, like most of life. But each nation has some of the same facilities of each other, so the removal of one would only effect the rest of the world so much. The removal of a bigger, more technologically advanced (US for instance) would effect the rest more, because of that countries ability to supply labor and goods.

But since your argument started with oil, we can go back to that. Gasoline will surely not pass $5 a gallon as then it would be more cost-effective to produce other fuels. Already there are efforts to produce ethanol from algae and agricultural products. Here are the options it may take:

They will fail. Its like trying to create water from scratch, when you can just turn on the tap. Petrol will always be the best fuel.
Biofuels have actually sped up global warming, not reduced CO2 emissions much, and have pushed up food prices way above inflation.

From: R0b0t1

We perfect making alcohol with corn or w/e, but that'd be stupid, as food prices will rise.

We find other resources, but those are greater than $5 or more for a gallon of gasoline's amount of energy, or alternatively, stay the same.

I agree, but the world is geared towards producing gasoline. You have to take into account the oil pipelines and the transport cost.

Gasoline wasn't always used and when it runs out (though hopefully sooner) we will use replacements for it. As you stated bio fuels are common (and lets not get into global warming here), so we will survive with maybe some economic pressure on the poorer countries whose main export was oil.
About machines, it took us 100 years to advance from generally just basic engineering to advanced super computers. Why? Because someone came up with the idea and developed it - not because of oil, but because of a bright idea. With the knowledge required to build one, we can build millions. Start at the bottom and work upwards in the machine chain (as Dusk412 said). Even the most advanced of our machinery is pretty unnecessary, with only agriculture and transportation technologies being *needed*.
The modern world is actually much more stable than you give it credit. Truck drivers, as your example, proved that. You even said that new people would be drafted in to replace them, thus the country gets back on track after a while. If the UK was removed from the world economy, then the world would suffer, but countries would find new countries to export to or shift their expertise to replace the UK/more profitable goods. The UK would probably be closest to self-destruction due to huge amounts of importing resulting in very little being produced, thus very little needed for life available.
Society may become less stable as it expands, but it becomes more resilient, with blows being devastating but not knock outs.

From: mixster
Gasoline wasn't always used and when it runs out (though hopefully sooner) we will use replacements for it. As you stated bio fuels are common (and lets not get into global warming here), so we will survive with maybe some economic pressure on the poorer countries whose main export was oil.

Biofuels are simply additives to petrol. They still need around 70%-90% petrol to work. You can't run a conventional car on alcohol.

From: mixster

About machines, it took us 100 years to advance from generally just basic engineering to advanced super computers. Why? Because someone came up with the idea and developed it - not because of oil, but because of a bright idea. With the knowledge required to build one, we can build millions. Start at the bottom and work upwards in the machine chain (as Dusk412 said).

If the plague hit again, and 1/3 of the population was wiped out, no one would have a clue how to build them. I doubt anyone in the world knows how to build a computer from scratch. It takes thousands of different components, each with millions of different inventions.
Most, if not all, of the specialised knowledge would be lost.
Do you know how to farm? What if everyone who knew how to farm died. We would be in a pickle, because we would, as a population, have to learn it again.

From: mixster

Even the most advanced of our machinery is pretty unnecessary, with only agriculture and transportation technologies being *needed*.
The modern world is actually much more stable than you give it credit. Truck drivers, as your example, proved that. You even said that new people would be drafted in to replace them, thus the country gets back on track after a while. If the UK was removed from the world economy, then the world would suffer, but countries would find new countries to export to or shift their expertise to replace the UK/more profitable goods. The UK would probably be closest to self-destruction due to huge amounts of importing resulting in very little being produced, thus very little needed for life available.
Society may become less stable as it expands, but it becomes more resilient, with blows being devastating but not knock outs.

I agree on some points, but it does not become more resilient. Society of the 1600's was resilient. 1/3 of the population died, and it still continued. That's because all people did was farm, and there was little specialist knowledge. As society grows it becomes more resilient in some areas, but critically unstable in others. 'Shock waves' are amplified through the network, which is a bad thing.

All the points you bring up are 'If this happened' or 'If that happened'. Well, what if it didn't happen? There's nothing that says all these things have to happen, especially since society is becoming more specialised in some areas, therefore having greater ability to avoid such threats…somewhat eliminating the need of resiliency.

From: bobng


If the plague hit again, and 1/3 of the population was wiped out, no one would have a clue how to build them. I doubt anyone in the world knows how to build a computer from scratch. It takes thousands of different components, each with millions of different inventions.
Most, if not all, of the specialised knowledge would be lost.
Do you know how to farm? What if everyone who knew how to farm died. We would be in a pickle, because we would, as a population, have to learn it again.

Yeah but people write books and publish information on how to build computers, how to farm, etc. Just because all the people that knew how to do these things are dead doesn't mean all the resources needed to make them are gone. Trust me, people are smart enough to figure things out, that's how we got these things mastered in the first place. It would also be a lot quicker to figure things out this time around because we've already done it and we're just doing the same thing again. If society depended on a few people's knowledge on one subject then they could lie to us and keep the knowledge to themselves for blackmail, etc. Our current society is smart enough to be resilient against a tragedy like this.

From: scissormetimbers
Yeah but people write books and publish information on how to build computers, how to farm, etc. Just because all the people that knew how to do these things are dead doesn't mean all the resources needed to make them are gone. Trust me, people are smart enough to figure things out, that's how we got these things mastered in the first place. It would also be a lot quicker to figure things out this time around because we've already done it and we're just doing the same thing again. If society depended on a few people's knowledge on one subject then they could lie to us and keep the knowledge to themselves for blackmail, etc. Our current society is smart enough to be resilient against a tragedy like this.

Actually no, our society does depend on lots of small groups with specialised knowledge. Farmers, bureaucrats, truck drivers, pilots, architects etc. If some kind of disaster wipes out one of these groups, a large amount of knowledge is lost. And companies do keep the knoledge to themselves. Tech companies do not give away their latest CPU schematics. Farmers do not give away what fertilizer they are using to boost their crop growth by 400% etc. Each specialised group relies on lots of other specialised groups.

From: bobng
Actually no, our society does depend on lots of small groups with specialised knowledge. Farmers, bureaucrats, truck drivers, pilots, architects etc. If some kind of disaster wipes out one of these groups, a large amount of knowledge is lost. And companies do keep the knoledge to themselves. Tech companies do not give away their latest CPU schematics. Farmers do not give away what fertilizer they are using to boost their crop growth by 400% etc. Each specialised group relies on lots of other specialised groups.

Yes but if all of the group is dead then they cant protect the information can they? And there's no way they wouldn't write it down somewhere, the human mind isn't that reliable…

There's plenty of black gold, and government to stop us from getting it.

Get your pitchforks. Were raiding the government!

From: bobng

If the plague hit again, and 1/3 of the population was wiped out, no one would have a clue how to build them. I doubt anyone in the world knows how to build a computer from scratch. It takes thousands of different components, each with millions of different inventions.
Most, if not all, of the specialised knowledge would be lost.
Do you know how to farm? What if everyone who knew how to farm died. We would be in a pickle, because we would, as a population, have to learn it again.

So here we assume that 2/3 of the population knows how to do absolutely nothing, and a plague is going to hit that affects exclusively people who are useful? That is :
1.) not true
2.) never going to happen
Nothing short of wiping out all life would make us lose knowledge. You can't kill the knowing how to farm for example. Unless you kill everyone on earth someone somewhere is going to know how to farm. The same applies to making a computer, driving a truck or anything else you can come up with. That argument is just absurd.
There is never going to be an architect plague. There will never be one big crash that wipes out all pilots. All people capable of driving a truck will never disappear.

From: richk1693
So here we assume that 2/3 of the population knows how to do absolutely nothing, and a plague is going to hit that affects exclusively people who are useful? That is :
1.) not true
2.) never going to happen
Nothing short of wiping out all life would make us lose knowledge. You can't kill the knowing how to farm for example. Unless you kill everyone on earth someone somewhere is going to know how to farm. The same applies to making a computer, driving a truck or anything else you can come up with. That argument is just absurd.
There is never going to be an architect plague. There will never be one big crash that wipes out all pilots. All people capable of driving a truck will never disappear.

If a plague kills 1/3 of the population, or just say 3 in 10, then statistically most of the specialist groups will be wiped out. That includes minorities, and the really small specialist groups like technical experts researching computers. So yeah. Most of the truckers will die, ergo most of the deliveries will stop, ergo most people will run out of food. London has enough food to sustain it for 3 days without deliveries by the way.

From: bobng
If a plague kills 1/3 of the population, or just say 3 in 10, then statistically most of the specialist groups will be wiped out. That includes minorities, and the really small specialist groups like technical experts researching computers. So yeah. Most of the truckers will die, ergo most of the deliveries will stop, ergo most people will run out of food. London has enough food to sustain it for 3 days without deliveries by the way.

Please explain how most specialist groups will be wiped out?

You're most likely talking about the highly specialized groups… There would still be people left that know at least something about electronics, which would most likely be enough to keep things working. IE, replacing a resistor or other electronic part. Even then, it would just be: "Oh, lets find one that looks like this!"


And theres actually very few people who are completely useless to society, so most everybody could do something… Except organization would be screwed.

From: R0b0t1
You're most likely talking about the highly specialized groups… There would still be people left that know at least something about electronics, which would most likely be enough to keep things working. IE, replacing a resistor or other electronic part. Even then, it would just be: "Oh, lets find one that looks like this!"


And theres actually very few people who are completely useless to society, so most everybody could do something… Except organization would be screwed.

Exactly right. But what happens when the machines break beyond repair? Their limited knowledge would be useless, and they would have to start again.

From: Santa_Clause
Please explain how most specialist groups will be wiped out?

Ok. Simple statistics. 50,000,000 people in the UK. Say 10,000 are truck drivers. Say 1,000 are highly-trained electronic genii. If 3/10 of us dies, then it leaves 33,333,332 people still alive. Now the death count is easily enough to swallow the truck drivers and the trained electronic genii. Technically they wont be wiped out, but their already small numbers will be greatly reduced, leaving a massive gap of knowledge.

These accusations are false. Please research more next time.

The cycle and dependency problems you imagine could be a problem but nothing near bad enough as you describe (especially with the whole "why the world is going to end" thing)

If you want my opinion, yes this would happen say our society runs exactly like it did today everyday for the next say 10 years 30 years 50, or 100 years (maybe), but my point is that it will not run itself they way it has today everyday for the next decades/centuries/millenniums.

We are already looking towards harnessing nuclear fusion/fission to generate electricity to perform electrolysis on water to obtain hydrogen and use it in hydrogen fuel cells for various things including fueling our cars (replace gasoline/oil basically) and power our cities/homes.

Bio fuels, battery powered cars, ethanol, ect.. all seem like good ideas but what happens to food prices? what happens to the old batteries and where does the energy come from (plugging your car into a wall creates a higher need for electricity at the electricity plant) if EVERYONE uses these alternatives? Simple these "alternatives" can only be used by a small percent of us before major problems arise. Hydrogen and nuclear/hydro electricity will eventually be a clean replacement and solution for our so called "world ending crisis".

Thanks.