h a l f b a k e r y"Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
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Thought of the ultimate state of the planet Earth, where
all resourses for energy and fuel had been depleted (or
banned,..). (As a flight of fancy : No consumables,.. what
so ever,..)
All work would be done by muscles, human, animal,.
Communication would be solely verbal.
No artificial
light, not even fire to warmth at night.
Just fields, robust houses, carts / wheel barrows,.
As a 'pause' to pollution of the atmosphere, and possibly a
time for it to re-cover and re-ballance it-self.
As an immidiate effect, that could be tried out : Live
solely within walking distance of your home-place. Have all
contacts, and provisions within your local region.
Gather the safe and economical way of such a non-global
living.
Perpectives on Colonies on Other Planets
http://youtu.be/YPjXxKpM4DM
panets and stars within 12 light years distance, and technology. [sirau, Jun 02 2011]
The Last Question
http://www.multivax.../last_question.html
However far you travel, Asimov got there first ... [8th of 7, Jun 02 2011]
Black Powder and Alcohol
http://www.promethe.../filk/blkpowdr.html
Leslie Fish has sometimes been described as a bit of an anarchist. [MechE, Jun 02 2011]
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This is called *the Past* and it has been baked by cavemen... |
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Wood from trees is a fuel; burning it releases energy that can be used by Humans for their nefarious ends. |
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No pharmaceuticals,no painless dentistry, no insecticides - fleas, lice, mosquitoes everywhere - no metals or plastics ... hot in the summer cold in the winter, many die young of communicable diseases, limited diet, no decent waterproof clothing, no population control, massive infant mortality ... |
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Ah, the "Good Old Days" ... |
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There was somebody in recent history who tried this, let
me think, what was his name.... oh that's right, it was Pol
Pot. It was all well and good until people told him that the
human race had out-stripped its ability to survive as a
functioning society in this way. Unfortunately, Mr. Pot
wasn't so good at taking criticism... |
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- it was just a perspective. |
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But how will you see it not happening ?? - all comes
to an end,... |
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Forced upon us eventually, yes, voluntarily, not
usually, but living as if it will breeds resilience and
self-reliance. |
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I'm quite close to living this way and i don't know,
it
has its up and down sides. On the down side, i'm
never going to meet [UnaBubba] in person. On
the
up side, you get to be able to do a lot of things for
yourself and you needn't trust so many others. |
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Surprisingly, i just blogged about this very subject. |
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[ of ], we manage just fine with our
pharmaceuticals, we have insecticides aplenty
growing in our back yard, our diet is more varied
than most people in the money economy, many
compositae produce latex, but yes i do have three
dead siblings. |
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How do you propose to prevent me from burning things when I am cold. How do you propose to prevent me from enslaving a horse? Will you tear it down if I build a telegraph line? If I travel the world and bring things fro far away. Would you kill me? Do you believe that there is any other way to stop me? You can live how you will. Feel free. You can take my solar panels from my cold dead hands. |
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If all other fuel sources are exhausted, wind and water power are both useable with all materials in the structure being low energy/natural materials (note this is for mechanical, not electrical power). Likewise solar is easily utilized for (some) thermal operations without a technological industry behind it. |
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If you allow me wood, then I can use an external combustion engine, plus produce charcoal to produce metal components. With metals I can hook an electric generator up to the wind or water generation. |
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Of course access to all of these will be plentiful, since something like 90% of the human race will have died out. |
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including, i suspect, many people who are intellectually compatible with this idea. Shame they won't be able to enjoy the fun. |
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What the Borg said. I dunno where you are going to get your 'robust houses' neither. |
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Oh, and if you want to do something about me doing all of the above, well, brewing and distilling alcohol is easy enough, and the only components needed for weak gunpowder are charcoal and animal waste (sulfur helps, but is not required). |
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Didn't Ghandi want to go this way.. the whole
simpler agrarian society thing...learn to spin cloth.. It
all sounds so wholesome till somebody does the math
and figures out that there won't be enough food to
feed the present population.... |
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Solar-powered Stirling engine would be the way to go, though it would probably be very inefficient since it would be made of - don't know what, come to think of it. |
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That elemental alloy, dontknowwhatium. |
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You could do a wooden stirling engine, since the temperatures and pressures aren't prohibitvely high. You would need laquer or similar to get a smooth water-proof interior surface, but it's not insurmountable. |
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It's possible to get a very nice, smooth polished surface on the interior of (for example) a tube drilled through a block of granite, which is pretty heat-resistant. |
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Given that one "precision" heat-resisting component, it is probably possible to build a Newcomen engine using wooden components; the original engines were mostly wood anyway. |
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The piston would be a wooden disc, with a greased leather seal at the perimiter and water on top of that. |
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Now, drill three "cylinders" in a row in the same granite block, and using windmill/watermill technology create a three-throw 120 degree crank. Three sweep arms link to the beam tips ... since the link between the piston and the beam is flexible, or at least has hinges at each end, no need for an approximate-parallel motion as there's no upper piston gland. |
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This could quite possibly be constructed with 1st Century CE technology. |
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Still, it WAS just a philosophical perspective. |
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The contributions leed in one way, of these
components : |
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Wood, food, and solar power. |
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From a designers and a consumers stand point, I
feel like the perspective leeds towards : |
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1. Autonomy (stand-alone systems). |
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2. Quality, as in long service life of products. |
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3. Efficiency, in energy and space occupied and
used. |
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I like the UNIVAX story, at the link. Expansive !. |
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Of course ... freedom to starve, freedom to be eaten by a large carnivorous animal, freedom to freeze to death, freedom to die of dysentry .... wonderful thing, freedom. |
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what about the freedom to tell the person who comes to take away your horses and stove to take a hike? |
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In a 'Universal' perspective, a 'stove', a static,
metallic, item, will eventually rust, or otherwise
run out of service life. In a final volume, like an
entire planet, everything eventually will run out of
re-supply possibilities. |
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So, my 'Quality' - long time usage, should be taken
to : Perpetual/Eternal Life Time usage
quality/guarantee /specification, (softened up to
for instance : self-maintaining/ resilient/low-
maintenaince). |
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As displayed in Star Wars, one episode or the
other, there could be a 'horse planet' somewhere,
ie. a planet, which' sun-shined surface supports
only living and breeding horses,!. Also water
planets, and so on,..,. The Earth could turn to
such a state, possibly,..,. |
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'Robust Houses' depends on the time frame. Some
European churches are still around from years
1100-1200 after Christ,. There's a bridge in Rome
from around 100-200 years before Christ, still
beeing used, with regular cars and busses
travelling across it. |
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The architect/calculator was to insure with his
own, personal, bodily life, that the bridge would
stand for at least '40 years' ! - said the Emperor, or
who ever commisioned the works, so the bridge
was heavily dimensioned ! - and quality was
applied in the laying of it's stones,. |
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[sirau] Five or ten centuries ago, the world had, not
no power, of the sort you discuss, but a lot less of
it. To me (how about you?) that seems causally
related to the fact that most power, for agricultural
and industrial purposes, was supplied by slaves
and/or serfs. |
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//...but yes i do have three dead siblings// |
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because they eschewed modern technology? |
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I long for the days when we were single celled
organisms floating in our own secretions. |
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At least you had secretions to float in! The secretions didn't come from nowhere you know; someone had to go to the effort of exuding them! |
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I ddin't impose any labour rights, or other political
perspective to my view, like allowing slavery/'serfs'
(I had to look that one up !), for the production of
power. |
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I should think, in situation of an Earth completely
devoid of the previous fysical/material raw 'stuff',
basics for steel, aluminium, as well as coal,
uranium, oil, then, the remaining, already installed
before the ultimate end-state condition, industry
complex, would be wear-free, and processing pure
organic products, produced from purely SOLAR
growth, ie. photo synthesis, and whatever algea
and other 'things' grow from. |
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Traditional Australian Aboriginal society was pretty much like this (except for the use of fire). And yes, they did kill you if you insisted on abusing the common and living beyond the ability of the land to support you. Similarly, population was controlled, sometimes with infanticide. It was a bit brutal, but it worked. |
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[nineteenthly] Please consider including me in your list of people to see if you ever build a sailing ship or whatever and visit the colonies. |
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// It was a bit brutal, but it worked. // |
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So very, very different from your world today, of course. |
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Go take a time machine back to the middle ages. |
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