How much technological regression is plausible?

Question

I'm working on a post-apocalyptic world for a game and the more I think about it the more unsure I get about the technological development of the setting being believable.

So I'm asking how likely a certain level of technological regression would be given the following assumptions:

In a world that experiences a long lasting dramatic global cooling (a series of impact winters caused by a shower of asteroids that impact the earth over time for example, or maybe a volcanic winter?) for more than a century, reducing humanity to a population of maybe 2 million globally. How much technological regression would be plausible in this case? Assume that most technology that is in use by then has become complex enough that simply copying them cannot be done (requiring advanced electronic manufacturing and such).

• Would it be plausible if the knowledge of electricity is reduced so that it becomes impractical?
• Would it be plausible if the knowledge of chemistry was lost to such a degree that only the most useful and easiest to do formulas would be remembered?
• Would it be plausible if knowledge of manufacturing strategies were reduced to such a degree that humans would be stuck with artisanal production for a long time after?

Would it also be plausible if recovery was slow, in the level of several centuries, after such an apocalyse?

In such an apocalypse, global trade networks would collapse quickly I would assume (especially if there are armed conflicts between groups of survivors for the little fertile land that is still there during the long winter) I would assume and a lot of technology would be impractical for a long time in the future as requried materials would be very hard to get and might even be hard to salvage from the ruins of the old world in sufficient quantities. Though some of it would be possible I'm sure. Power sources would be limited, wind power might still be doable in the small communities that would survive but would it have enough practical uses to preserve for such a community? I would assume that most fuels would be impractical for such a community, with easily accessible oil and coal deposits already being depleted. So I guess easy portable electric power would be out of the question. Likewise, I also assume that the vast majority of people will be forced to do tasks that are required for basic survival, whether they work in Agriculture or other basic resource gathering operations.

Furthermore I would guess precision machining would not be doable without access to already complex machinery, limiting how complex any mechanical machines would be. But I'm unsure how fast these capabilities would be to reacquire. Finally, even if the old society had mostly phased out text books in favor of digital media would the surviving text books still around be enough to rapidly have society regain the lost knowledge to a level where they can make practical use of it?

Answer 1

There are minimum population densities that you need to maintain in order to have a given degree of specialisation and division of labour. If the population is broken down into single families trying to scrape a living in hostile conditions then they don't have the time to maintain the equipment they have let alone manufacture new so in terms of material culture they'll revert. Over the short-term, for maybe three generations, there will still be a practical knowledge of a lot of technology that there isn't the labour to maintain in physical equipment. After those skills die out there may still be printed records available for some time to come, these will largely form a basis for experimentation rather than a ground up how to guide in most cases because they're too technical for someone without a grounding in the basic operations.

In short if population densities remain extremely low for extended periods, like two-to-three hundred years you could theoretically push people back to stone age farming. In reality I think there are two barriers to that:

1. It would take a severe drop in average fertility to keep people down in numbers and population density long enough for all the people with skills and knowledge to die out.
2. We use too much metal in the modern world; after most of the population is dead a modern city becomes a huge mine for refined metals. Even if you have to break rebar out of K-rails with rocks it's still far easier that mining and smelting ore. Given the huge volumes of metal in modern buildings I'd expect something like the late iron age to be as far back as you could go near existing settlements, even reasonably small ones.

Answer 2

Would it be plausible if the knowledge of electricity is reduced so that it becomes impractical?

Not really. Electricity, it's uses, and it's conveniences are widely known and taught. Many, many toy stores have electricity learning kits. Every science museum in the world has displays and hand-on learning tools. Most schools in the world teach about it. You may not recall the details, but a trip through your memory will lead you back to that museum or that toy store, and the raw materials and techniques to re-learn.

Would it be plausible if the knowledge of chemistry was lost to such a degree that only the most useful and easiest to do formulas would be remembered?

Chemistry would certainly not vanish. Just knowing the fact that there are formulas (and elements) skips thousands of years of slack-jawed guessing. My dining room has a place mat with the periodic table. One of my teenage kids has a T-shirt with the periodic table printed on it, and (out of earshot of her peers) will sullenly admit to fully understanding most common chemical concepts. Those toy stores and museums have chemistry learning tools, too.

Would it be plausible if knowledge of manufacturing strategies were reduced to such a degree that humans would be stuck with artisanal production for a long time after?

Well, that doesn't kick us back very far at all. Modern industrial mass production is only a tiddle over 100 years old, and many current methods (CNC, robot-assist) are barely one generation old. There's nothing magic about them - most are simply incremental improvements that can be quickly re-learned when required.

Answer 3

There is no amount of physical destruction (books, tech, etc) that will solve the problem because an absolute boatload of knowledge is in people's heads. 99%¹ of today's technology was created in the last 150 years. This strongly suggests that, if all the books and toys were taken away, it would be recreated in no more than 150 years and probably a whole lot less. In my opinion, believably within a single person's lifetime.

Not to be too sarcastic, but necessity breeds (re)invention, and what's more necessary than snapchat? Am I right, or am I right? 😀

That means you need to get rid of more than the books and the toys (because any toy left behind is a massive clue. Reverse engineering isn't as hard as people think.), you need to get rid of people or force people to not use what they know.

Option A: You get rid of the right people. This is (for example) a highly selective virus that only infects people above a certain IQ, or that have a specific knowledge base, etc. But, this is the most unbelievable scenario I can think of.

Option B: You get rid of everyone above an age that could possibly replicate technology. This is much more than the people who actually know how to do something, you need to get rid of people who remember that something can be done. Remembering that you can use a rounded-piece-of-glass reinvents the field of optics a whole lot quicker than not knowing about glass at all. Killing everyone above 13 might do it. Killing everyone above 6 would do it — but you just put the entire population at unbelievable risk because 6-year-olds have a bit of trouble taking care of themselves.

Option C: Something (usually war) gets in the way of re-development. This means the knowledge is there and even appears in pockets, but the full re-development is nearly impossible due to an external force that prohibits that development. The chaos of war is the only thing I can think of that would do that. But this doesn't solve your problem. Today's knowledge is still in people's heads. Give the right dude in the back woods someplace with reasonable resources (like nearby hardware/feed stores that have animal antibiotics and fertilizer), most of modern chemistry could be recreated in a few years. Most of all modern tech could be recreated very quickly as peace (and the communication that comes with it) is re-established, and warlords would begin to realize the value of their wizardsscientists very quickly. Therefore, I don't see this option as helpful to you.

Option D:—A virus or magic death ray that wipes out memories. Even if you had all the books and toys, if you can't remember how to read, how to speak, etc., then you really are pushed back to the stone age and the presence of all the knowledge and technology around you can't help you.

Option D is obvioiusly my favorite choice. We get a lot of people on this site who ask along the lines of "my post-apocalypse society has been pushed back to the stone age and here's my question?" Except that there's rarely a serious explanation of how they got pushed back. The people who ask that question don't understand the considerable depth of understanding that comes from just using the technology of today. Really, if you were a 10-year-old who grew up with a yard with a sprinkling system, how hard would it be to realize irrigation would help you grow crops?

Therefore, from my point of view (and to answer your question), it's all or nothing. You either push people back a few decades, or you push them all the way back to the stone age. There's nothing in between.

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_{¹ Metaphorically. I don't know the actual percentage and don't believe it matters.}

Answer 4

We can do a lot, with a few people, if we WANT to

If you haven't done so already, read at least the first novel of the 1632 series. Basically, 3,000 people from a small town in West Virginia in 2000 get transplanted to 1632 Germany. The key points I see relevant to this discussion are:

1. Knowledge is the most important thing.

2. Even if computers become useless (they won't, by and large, last 100 years, and producing new computers won't be easy), books will last a long time. While we rely on the internet for "everything", there is plenty to be found in printed books. Printing more books to distribute knowledge doesn't require 21st century technology or mass production from factories in China.

3. If the surviving people want to accomplish a lot, they will.

That's not to say it will be easy. If all major factories, large electricity generation plants, etc. are destroyed and people have to live off the residue of modern civilization for 100 years, they won't immediately bounce back to the iPhone era. But knowing what is possible, they can easily stay at least at mid-19th century level and likely surpass that quite easily.

Some things will be tough. Precision machinery actually may be one of the easier parts. One good machine shop that survives (I think there were 2 in 1632) can bootstrap a lot of other things. On the other hand, integrated circuits will take a long time - you can't build a chip fab out of sticks & stones. But even without a chip fab, and with most of the pre-apocalypse computers gone (and no internet), it won't take long to restart production of some basic computer technology using relays, vacuum tubes and transistors. Unlike the first time around, they won't need to figure what to do or how to do it - just get together enough people who want to do it.

As far as electric power - which is arguably THE key to modern civilization as we know it, solar cells & nuclear power are not gonna' happen. But small-scale hydro and steam (using any available fuel) is simple enough.

Answer 5

Information priorities become different

The priority is survival. Right now, to survive you need a job, the ability to make money with which you buy food and housing. Post apocalypse you need the ability to find food and shelter, gold is quite low in calories no matter how much of it you have.

That's the extreme example of course. While knowledge may not be lost as such, it can become irrelevant. Your hard earned C++ skills are wasted in a world without electricity. Your knowledge of how to build a large scale power plant is pointless when a 200W PV system covers all your needs.

A lot of what drives science and industry is population pressure, the need to know how to do more than grow potatoes and milk a goat. Without the pressures to need to have the knowledge, it becomes irrelevant. Consider a specialist in large scale international economics, what use is he now? Why would he bother passing that knowledge on? It could be 20 generations before that information is needed again.

Would you rather be working a 60 hour week in an office or weed the potatoes in the morning then spend the rest of the day playing shesh besh with your friends?

The pressures of society drive technology and its uses, while it would take some time for society to drop down to pre-industrial revolution knowledge, it would only take a reduction in numbers and need to reduce to pre-industrial revolution requirements.

You don't need to farm when you can hunt and gather, population pressures require farming. Increased population pressures require intensive farming and on from there back into the industrial revolution. If all your needs are covered by wild plants and hunting, it's not so much that technology is lost, it merely becomes different and much of what we now consider important loses any value.

Answer 6

Long winters are great for technology regression because burning books is a great way to keep from freezing to death. In warmer, more comfortable apocalypse scenarios, a few carefully selected and plastic wrapped text books is all it takes to restore any survivors to early 19th century technology levels.

The only challenge with apocalyptic winters is that the very technology which you are taking from the survivors in return for one night's heat is the only thing that can save them from freezing the next night. Multi-year winters can be survived with artificial grow lights and electric heaters. Without those tools, starvation is likely to prune your survivors down to a story-killing zero.

So you as the world builder, need to walk a tight-rope, providing enough hardship to eliminate the textbooks and others sources of knowledge, while leaving a believable margin for survive-ability. This will be challenging, but not necessarily impossible.

Answer 7

This sort of argument is when I like to bring up my personal theory on Noahs Ark and the literal thousands of sunken cities around the world. Not saying that all of the Noah's Ark story is true or not, but if you had to restart society with just you and your family, even a handful of other random strangers, would you start diving right back into advanced engineer techniques? or would you start off with grass huts and leather tents?

Sure you may have a lot of knowledge on how to rebuild common technologies (like a wheel barrow, a windmill, or a battery), but the survivors acquired that knowledge through years of learning and exposure. Their children and grandchildren will likely be taught much of the basics, but be too busy trying to survive to come close to the same level of knowledge.

This is especially applicable when the population is too low to form a secure community. Teaching would likely be left up to the elderly who would gradually become fewer and fewer as people will begin to die younger from generation to generation with the loss of vaccines and medical technology until it plateaus.

Depending on the type of disaster, the amount of civilization left over basically determines the cap on how much technology they can recover, and that's not to mention the sharp drop in literacy. Who cares if your survivors built a colony inside a massive library if only a handful can read? They don't have time to spend hours learning calculus or physics, they need to scavenge for supplies and farm for food.

Over all, I just think that a lot of the optimism around recovering technology completely disregards the entire issue of basic survival.

Answer 8

Based on JBH's answer: if things aren't absolutely extinction-level terrible, then it seems to me that the human race can be expected to recover into self-sustaining "local industry" - farming and ranching, printing, masonry, gunpowder, basically 1600 +/- 200 years. Toss in some surviving knowledges.

Consider Amish and Mennonite settlements.

I think the BEST outlook would have smelting and railroads. We'd skip over the telegraph and go straight back to land-line-based telephony. I'm less optimistic about factories, though I'm not sure.

Consider the future-renaissance village: it looks like the stereotypical colonial New England village... but they've also got calculus and arc-lights, and they understand about germs and the sources of disease, they know most of the periodic table, and they can do a lot with chemistry. They have the Jacquard loom, and take full advantage of water wheels and windmills. They might have mechanical adding machines (or they'll just use the abacus). They'll have the "optical telegraph" (heliograph).

If you're edging a bit more into fantasy, they could have functioning Babbage Difference Engines and Analytical Engines.

Answer 9

My opinion would be the regression most likely would come in a form of oppression. Our fondest historical references to innovation in academia and technology come from moments of oppression where culture and religious government oppressed advancement out of fear and control. We may see this after a worldwide apocalypse. People believing that technology destroyed the world push against development. Person to person, re-emerging political governing bodies and spiritual organizations all would affect the rate of advancement. But this would still be temporary as pockets of isolated areas may not come to that conclusion, see technology as a means for gaining an upper hand on a neighbor or simply be havens of optimistic new inventors who have incredible access to already developed technology. We all have looked at a toy as a child and desired to break it to understand how it worked. That fire would reignite once the new world passed from a dark survival period to re-emerging societies.

Answer 10

Maintaining a high-tech economy requires a lot of people.

I like to think I'm a smart guy. I develop software for a living. So suppose I tried to redevelop technology from scratch. I have a basic understanding of how computers work. Could I "re-invent" the computer? Not likely. I know computer chips are made from silicon and germanium. We get silicon from sand. Cool. How do you turn sand into usable silicon? I haven't the vaguest idea. Where do we get germanium? What does raw germanium in nature look like? I have no idea. Okay, skip to something simpler: We'll need wires. How do you make wire? I don't know. Most wire is made from copper. So we'll have to mine copper ore. What does copper ore look like, and where do you find it? I haven't a clue.

I suspect most intelligent people would be in the same boat that I am. We know a lot about some narrow field. But making that work requires lots of other moving parts, and we know little or nothing about most of them.

And not to be insulting, but most human beings aren't smart enough to build advanced technology. Even with detailed instructions, many couldn't manage it. I've worked in tech support, trust me on this.

If just the right books survived, I presume smart people could figure it out. I suppose that if I knew the apocalypse was coming and I was given access to any experts I needed, I could put together books telling someone how to build various technology, step by step, from zero. Here's where to look for copper ore. Here's what it looks like. Here's how to dig it out and refine it. Here's how to make it into wire. Here's how to make insulation. Etc. up to here's how to assemble all these parts to make a power plant. I'm sure there are books out there on all the pieces of this. But someone trying to rebuild would have to find all those books and read them and understand them and pull it all together. I think that would be very hard.

In a post-apocalyptic world with a greatly reduced population, I think there would be many communities with someone who is an expert electrician ... but who has no idea where to get wire and switches. Another community might have a great miner ... but he has no idea how to refine the metals once mined. Etc. There would be lots of people who know how to do step 7 in some task, but there's no one around who knows how to do step 6 or step 8. Or someone might know how to do a step if only he had the right tools, which he doesn't, because he doesn't know how to make the tools.

Addendum 6 years later

When I was a kid, one of my schoolteachers once said that there would never be another dark age because today all our knowledge is stored on computers so it will never be lost. Even as a kid, that struck me as completely backward. How long does a hard drive or a USB stick really last? I've seen advertising saying they'll last for hundreds of years. But there hasn't been enough time to perform the experiment, so at best that's an extrapolation. Even if a USB stick will retain its contents for centuries if kept in a cool, dry place, what if the roof collapses and it's left in a freezing puddle of muddy water for a while? And even if the media survive, will the knowledge survive to read it? Do you know how to turn a JPEG file into a viewable image, or to read a PDF? I once wrote a program to create PDF files, and I can tell you, the format is not simple. I couldn't do it again without the documentation, and if the documentation is on computer files that you can't read, you may find yourself in a chicken and egg problem. Stone tablets are crude but they last for millennia, and with sufficient effort they can often be deciphered. Computer files? Not so much.

Answer 11

If you reduce the world's population to only a few million scattered survivors, I would expect that all technology not directly related to basic survival needs will disappear within three generations. While people may talk about the marvels of the pre-apocalypse age for thousands of years, they would not retain the ability to even operate our technology let alone build their own.

Consider your phone for a moment. The process of manufacturing that simple hand-held device involved thousands of people working in countries around the world. Each person is specialised in a single aspect of the work, and none of them has the faintest clue how to build one of these things from scratch. Well, there are a handful of people working at chip plants that might be able to figure it out, but the rest of them are essentially menial labourers with a bit of training in one of thousands of steps.

This is true of almost every piece of technology you encounter on a daily basis. Do you have any idea just how complex a set of traffic lights is? If I took away your internet access and your mobile phone and set you loose in an electronics store, how long do you think it would take you to figure out how to set up some traffic lights from the components? What if you didn't even have the components... how long would it take you to build a capacitor? A reliable resistor?

What about something much simpler. How would you go about building a steam engine if you had no access to the internet? Where would you even start? And who would be providing for your basic necessities while you figured that out?

Three generations and all of our current technology is gone. Shut down the internet and 99% of the useful information in the world becomes completely inaccessible to the average person. And that average person has no idea how any of it works. Hell, most people seem to think that traffic lights turn red out of spite, and that edging forward from an intersection will tell the traffic lights that they need to change right now damnit! And a random selection of these people are supposed to figure out how to even keep the damn lights on? Or how to produce food when they've probably never even seen food outside of a grocery store or a restaurant?

I'm not seeing it.