Re-booting Civilization

The Encyclopedia Foundation welcomes “competition”. We admire the Long Now Foundation. We also admire a site we came across through the Long Now’s website, it is an article from a site called “The Technium”.

They are apparently envisioning a “Library of Utility” that would be like a “seed bank”, but with books, to do a “reboot” of civilization. Not literature and culture, so much as science and technology.

They are thinking along the lines of ten thousand books saved for ten thousand years. A commendable goal.

However, it made us wonder how many books it would actually take. 10,000 seems a bit high to us. We have good reason to wonder about this. If each book can only last by being stored on metal plates, then given the cost of that, the fewer the better. And better to have 100 copies around the world of 100 good books, then 100 good books and 9,900 not so needful ones. Given that the cost would be the same.
Can it be done? Can civilization be “rebooted” in 100 books? A qualified “yes”. We feel that it could be, but that 1,000 would give one more room to be sure.

How do we come to that conclusion? The Encyclopedia Foundation thinks of the growth of knowledge as an inverted pyramid. There is one original great idea, then things grow from that, like a tree. The trunk of Science has thick branches of Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Geology. Those thick branches split as well, so that from the thick branch of Biology it splits into everything from Anatomy to Zoology.

Now, here’s the thing. Each of the final “little branches” are very important – such as, for example, Automotive Design, a subset of the subject of Internal Combustion Engines, a subset of Machines, a subset of Physics, a subset of Science.

It can be readily seen that if someone has the books on Internal Combustion Engines, they as a society will derive – eventually – all they need to know about Automotive Design. We could also say that if they had the book on “Machines” in general, with but a passing reference to Internal Combustion Engines, that they could (though it would take longer) derive Automotive Design.

Taking it to the extreme, though, if they only had the books on the Scientific Method, with but a sentence’s worth of description for each marvel that Science could produce (“Rigorous application of mechanical principles is what led to the ability to mass produce automobiles.”) we can see that while it puts them on the road to it, that the destination is far too far away to be of much use.

So it is important to think about which are the key branching points. You don’t want to have to store 10,000 or even 100,000 twigs. But you don’t just want one tree stump book of “The Scientific Method” and call it good, either.

Another thing that must be taken into account is the populace. A civilization re-boot implies a massive disaster. It’s not actually a disaster on a civilization wrecking scale unless a thing that is called a “die back” takes place, wherein the population exceeds the capacity of the resources at hand to feed them, and thus dies off until a new equilibrium is reached at a drastically reduced level.

In other words, there won’t be 6.5 billion people when civilization collapses, and the biggest loss in population of all will be from the industrialized technology-dependent nations. You know, where we all know that meat comes from the back of the store and vegetables are off to one side in the store. Unlike places on Earth where they still farm for a living, the United States has less than 3 percent of its population familiar with that. And they depend on half a million dollar combines and plentiful fuel.

It might be said, “But if there’s a billion people left, and they have the books, so what?”

Well, it gets into the field of what’s called the “Diffusion of Innovations”. There is a good Wikipedia article on the subject. But in short, the billion aren’t all standing around the library waiting for the new idea.

How an idea spreads, and thus “reboots” civilization depends on who discovers the new idea – a tribal outcast or the Chief’s son? It depends on how fast communications are. Do they have heliographs and fast horse riders and are part of a network of communities? Or is their tribe of 1,000 survivors in a world of a scattered billion completely cut off?

Will they accept the idea, to the extent that they as a social organization will work towards using it? Can they even afford to? One man cannot build a car, even with a book and tools. And nor can the community afford to help, not when they work 12 hours a day in the fields.

There is a concept in this of “relative advantage” that is important. If the machines are rusted out hulks, or radioactive slag, and a farming community of 1,000 comes across the books, what will it do for them?

As they are back to horse drawn carts, we might imagine that they are eager for a book on Automotive Design. But we’re sorry to say that they would not be. They are 1,000 people scratching a living at farming, they don’t have enough workers to mine the metal to make a single part of that car! But they’d sure be interested in seeing an article about how you can make buggy rides less bumpy with the appropriate wooden suspension system that can be carved out by the elderly non-farmers in a week.

This is why the Encyclopedia Foundation wants a “reboot”, but only to early 20th century levels. At least sophisticated horse drawn carriages are possible for primitives to make. And if they benefit by that idea, they’ll be more likely to preserve those plates and make such use of them as they can later. From time to time. The more they use it to make incremental advances, the more time they’ll have to make use of the next one. We must regard them as third worlders. We wish to give them planes, but they really need a good pot to boil soup in. One is more glamorous, the other more useful. A society of pot and pan owners, with the machine culture that implies, will get to the plane making. But a plane won’t get them to pots and pans. Nor do they have any motivation at all for wishing a plane.

But the more such small advances as pots and pans help them thrive and grow, the more population they will have – and that’s important. It’s important because the more people you have, the more geniuses you have. Geniuses, by loose standards, make up 2% of the population. By stricter standards then is found on “Free IQ Tests” online, they make up less than one percent of the population. Let us say 1% even, but know that is too high.

In the world as it is, 6.5 billion people have the benefit of 65 million geniuses creating, discovering and inventing for them. If a die back occurs, and there are only 1 billion people left, then you only have 10,000,000. And sad to say, many of the geniuses (Like wheelchair bound Stephen Hawking) may be more likely to die in a disaster than Billy Bubba who has a truck farm and junkyard and Elijah Amishman who never noticed the collapse.

And even if all ten million lived, they are scattered. The hypothetical farming community of 1,000 could only be said to have 10 geniuses tops. And the other bad thing? Geniuses are specialized. The 10 that fate hands you are likely to be – as elsewhere – musicologists, computer science gurus, experts on baseball stats, and a million other “useless” fields. They are not, contrary to movies, types that can just look at equations and say, “Ahh, so, ve haff the makings uff civilization here!” (Nor do they really all speak “movie German”!)

Inventions come from one genius having an idea, and even mapping out the broad strokes. Then our mighty industrial civilization, driven by a billion people’s desire for more toys and a million people’s desire for more money and more status in making those toys, has armies of lesser lights fill in the gaps of the idea. Making it practical. Then we’ve the larger armies of those who get it produced one part at a time all over Earth. It’s a collective effort, and we are at the point where we do it effortlessly. You’d think that when a guy invents intermittent wipers that it’s him who is installing them on your car after making it in his garage personally. Not a chance. It is a million man effort each time – but we have not only the 65,000,000 geniuses, but the 6,435,000,000 workers to carry the idea to completion!

In other words, there is not a chance for a post-collapse civilization to find those books and – BAM – reboot to monorails, supersonic transports and orbiting comsats.

Thus the Encyclopedia Foundation regards 1911 as the “trunk and branches” needful to let humanity rediscover all else. It is the highest level of tech that is of remotely possible interest to an uneducated and impoverished community.

Given that, our choice of the 13th Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica makes more sense to people. It has remarkable benefits and in only 32 volumes! It has articles on plenty of tech of the fancy kind most think of – planes, trains and automobiles – but it also has all the practical arts that would help give ideas and aid to those living at the level the Amish do.

It is both the “trunk and branches” with the start of some of the smaller branches. Just the start. But if they get back to the level of 1911, then obviously it will take them only 100 years to get to where we are. As before they can get back to that level, the population will have had to grow. With the books, you might not need the geniuses as much, but you sure need the workers for mass production so as to make stuff affordable, and thus be able to “diffuse” throughout the world.

Besides those 32 volumes, what other books to help “reboot”? You would need children’s educational books, Kindergarten through 12th grade, so that they could make sense of what they read in the Britannica. McGuffey’s Readers were the standard for that time period, and there were six of them. Add in some high school text books on Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Geology. Let us say that instructional texts, including McGuffey’s, works out to 20 volumes. That puts us up to 52 volumes.

You aren’t going to make them have to refigure out every measurement, are you? Include the Machinist’s Handbook. The Handbook of Chemistry and Physics. The Handbook of Biology, Biochemistry and Chemistry. That’s three more, or 55 total.

What about medicine? The Encyclopedia Foundation cannot emphasize enough how important a large population is for there to be any innovations. You will want a copy of Gray’s Anatomy. Still the standard. “Obstetrics and Gynecology” by Beckman. “Where there is no Doctor” by David Werner and “Where there is no Dentist” by Murray Dickson. “Diseases of Women”, “Pediatrics”. Those are medical texts. You can often find them in used stores. We’re up to 61 volumes now, but the more children are born and grow up the better. More minds. More hands.

“Five Acres and Independence” and the “Foxfire Series” (12 volumes) This brings us up to 74 volumes now, but the survivors must know how to be independent 19th century level farmers without fuel powered machinery.

The Encyclopedia Foundation expresses no preference as to what specific titles, but would wish for texts on Carpentry, Masonry and Bricklaying, Blacksmithing, Plumbing, Sewer Systems, and Electricity. Also texts on Basic Mathematics, Algebra, Geometry, Calculus and Trigonometry. Now we’re at 85.

Have a general book on Medical Theory. A general overview about how Anatomy, Anesthesia and Antisepsis are the basis of modern surgery. And the germ theory of disease is the basis of modern medicine. Have a book on Surgical procedures, such as a doctor would have. For in case anyone has an appendicitis. And find a book on making Ether. That’s three more volumes.

Have a book or books on all aspects of guns. And ammo making and gunpowder making. We make no judgments, but know that any who survive will need to stay alive to benefit from the books. In this unpleasant “section” a book on explosives would be appropriate. The U.S. Army has some manuals on surviving in hostile territory and improvised explosives. We believe this section can be done in five volumes. That’s 93 total.

You will also need “The Prince” by Machiavelli, “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu, “On War” by von Clausewitz, “Guerrilla Warfare” by Mao Tse-Tung. If you don’t know why, or don’t agree, then you don’t understand what a collapse of civilization means, or that a “reboot” will not be conducted peaceably. Civilizations are formed by persuading, usually forcibly, a diverse group of people to come under the authority of one agency. Having done so, they may work and create in relative peace within the protected territory, being peaceably “robbed” a little by their leaders so as to not be utterly destroyed by looters elsewhere.

“Wealth of Nations” by Adam Smith. “The Rights of Man” by Thomas Paine. This will help those “leaders” know that the easier they are on their people, the more taxes they can get from them. 90% of a peasant’s income is nothing compared to 20% of an American worker’s income. And the freer the peoples, the less chance of having to put down a revolt.

Finally, the KJV Bible. (King James Version) There are practical reasons for this book, as detailed in another article. The proverbs alone make it worthwhile. And as a civilizing influence on leaders and subjects alike, it is without peer, regardless as to popular historical revisionism.

We hear you. That’s 100, but it’s not enough! What about refrigeration and electronics and computers and history and, and, and…we agree. And blueprints for machines and tool and die making and so on. This is just if you had to do it in 100 books. It’s the trunk and a few thick branches, not the whole tree. It would grow, though.

Now, from this you can see that if you were to shoot for 1,000 books, you could greatly expand this. Besides adding many more subjects, you could expand on the currently listed subjects. And you could add the Harvard Classics, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, other religious holy books, history books, Greek and Roman writings, Euclid, Aristotle and so on.

Frankly, you could call out names all day, call out subjects all night, suggest idea after idea, and after we put them all in, we’d still be under a thousand.

We suggest then that for any civilization re-booting project that the 100 books listed above be acquired and preserved first. Then add to that. With the 100 as a base, the more you add the better, but if you run out of funds or will power, then what you have will serve the future well.

The books should have two copies of each of them. One for the public to access now, and one sealed up to be preserved for later. Books of paper store best at 65 degrees Fahrenheit, 40% humidity, no light, and a non-oxygen atmosphere. In other words, shut them into a nitrogen filled vault, weld that shut and store it under your basement with a good concrete casing to keep water away from it.

Or put them on metal plates like we’re going to. Because that list above is the stuff we were planning on having on the other metal plates. The first metal plate will have the 13th Edition, the Harvard Classics, the children’s texts, Shakespeare and the KJV Bible. Then the others, one at a time, as much as we can fit on each plate, as appropriate.

The first plate first. We believe that alone could be a viable “civilization re-boot”. It would certainly be better than nothing. But after we have that one plate as our base, we will expand to the rest of those 100 books mentioned, that will be Plate Two. (Perhaps more if we end up not fitting as many volumes per plate as we are picturing) And after we have those two to five plates as our new base, we will shoot for that 1,000.

We have time.