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The history buffs among us certainly know that civilizations rise and fall; empires come and go. I recently read of a group of monks who escaped to a remote island off the coast of Ireland in the 5th century A.D. and set up a monastery, bringing along a great number of books that would otherwise have been lost, after the fall of the Roman Empire:
If something catastrophic were to happen to our world as we know it today, what would you feel was important to save, so that it might be replaceable when society was rebuilt? And where would you place it, for safe-keeping? I think I would like to save a lot of old hard-copy photographs, and movies of life as we know it now, and as our parents and grandparents knew it. I'd seal them in a time capsule at the corner of a small building I plan to construct myself, of concrete blocks. I'm pretty sure it would survive most events.
cant think of a damn thing I want to save from modern society, I think modern civilisation has a lot to answer for and we need to get back to a simpler time and a more natural way of living, too much greed and corruption in the world today.
cant think of a damn thing I want to save from modern society, I think modern civilisation has a lot to answer for and we need to get back to a simpler time and a more natural way of living, too much greed and corruption in the world today.
Agreed. But isn't there anything from that "simpler time" that you think is worth saving for future generations?
Good question; I really can't think of anything that important to save other than medicines, antibiotics and lots of excedrine migraine pills!! Plus my weapons and good rigged clothing and boots. I would put the things I've saved in as high an altitude place I could find, just in case of an asteroid impact in the ocean.
cant think of a damn thing I want to save from modern society, I think modern civilisation has a lot to answer for and we need to get back to a simpler time and a more natural way of living, too much greed and corruption in the world today.
Hmm. I think society is actually much more transparent and "equal opportunity" today than it was even a 100 years ago. Greed? They slaughtered all the bison in United States and handed out tuberculosis blankets to natives in order to eradicate them quickly so that more land could be grabbed for the settlers. Gold rush, anyone? Crime is down overall, even the wars produce less victims today than they did just 60-70 years ago. Me thinks you need to check your data
There are some things especially knowledge that would be invaluable, but part of the problem of reinstituting our technology is that it requires a huge international infrastructure for the materials to implement.
That said, our knowledge of medicine would be invaluable to a new civilization.
During the Roman Empire, there was a doctor named Galin, who was doing surgery as delicate as removing cataracts, had hospitals set up that were pretty much as good as our modern facilities, ( minus the electronics), but he had s good understanding of keeping things clean to avoid infection, cleaning instruments between patients, he had good knowledge of bones and muscles, and wrote a good book outlining what he knew.
But after the fall of the Empire, that knowledge was lost until doctors started rediscovering in the late 19th century what Galin documented over 1500 years before.
I think our modern medical knowledge is well worth preserving.
No, I don't like or trust a lot of our modern doctors, mostly because they are in the profession to accumulate wealth not to alieve suffering, but there are some good ones out there, and the knowledge we have could be critical for rebuilding a society.
It wold have to be stored in written form, preferably on aluminum or copper plates, in a salt cave with low humidity and deep enough for a constant temperature.
The problem would be in someone finding it again, much like the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Last edited by MTSilvertip; 12-25-2015 at 12:45 PM..
The history buffs among us certainly know that civilizations rise and fall; empires come and go. I recently read of a group of monks who escaped to a remote island off the coast of Ireland in the 5th century A.D. and set up a monastery, bringing along a great number of books that would otherwise have been lost, after the fall of the Roman Empire:
If something catastrophic were to happen to our world as we know it today, what would you feel was important to save, so that it might be replaceable when society was rebuilt? And where would you place it, for safe-keeping? I think I would like to save a lot of old hard-copy photographs, and movies of life as we know it now, and as our parents and grandparents knew it. I'd seal them in a time capsule at the corner of a small building I plan to construct myself, of concrete blocks. I'm pretty sure it would survive most events.
The Armstrong Economics article is really nonsense. It's simply a resurrection of Thomas Cahill's How the Irish Saved Civilization (1995) which was very popular among the general public but generally dismissed by historians as being simply a rehash of old legends/ballads/sagas etc.
FTR, the Byzantine Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire, which continued until 1453, and the Arabs who swept out of the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century and took over parts of the Levant, north Africa and Iberia (Spain and Portugal), were actually the ones who preserved Roman learning. Even before the fall of the western Roman Empire, Greek was the language of learning in the Empire because, quite simply, the Romans were great engineers, administrators, and warriors but they weren't all that great thinkers. They left that to the Greeks. The Arabs, coming into the settled, civilized Mediterranean world, were smart enough to preserve and augment the learning they found there.
Most Biblical translations are based on Greek translations of the ancient Hebrew, not Latin.
When early Renaissance scholars began to relearn the knowledge base common in the Roman Empire, they had to learn Greek not Gaelic.
When early Renaissance scholars began to relearn the knowledge base common in the Roman Empire, they had to learn Greek not Gaelic.
Good point. I think languages are a great thing to save! Some translations, vocabulary and grammatical books, and some audio of the correct pronunciations.
The choice of medicine was great! That is one that I also had not thought about.
What about great music, classical, operatic, and popular music? Sheet music, certainly...but what sort of media would we choose for recordings? I would choose either tapes or CDs, not digital. But then, a player of some sort would have to be included; hopefully, future technicians could figure out how it worked.
What about engineering, the sciences, mathematics, farming techniques and implements? Anything else?
I think the purpose/value of seed saving programs isn't necessarily to resurrect these plants/crops in the case of some calamity in civilization but to preserve genetic diversity. One of the problems we have today is the loss of genetic diversity among domesticated plants and animals because of widespread commercial agriculture. Almost all cotton grown in the US, in Egypt, and in India produces uniform plant and boll size in order to accommodate mechanical harvesting. The same with potatoes and both sweet corn (for people) and field corn (for grains). Probably 90+% of American and Canadian dairy cattle are Holsteins, with most of the remaining ones Jerseys or Guernseys that produce high butter fat milk. Other dairy breeds are disappearing, and breeds suitable for smaller acreages like milking shorthorns (which produce both milk and beef) or Devons are rapidly disappearing and taking their unique genetic traits with them.
We don't know if or when we might need some kind of out-cross to bring new traits into a population in order to respond to new conditions or new market demands.
Other dairy breeds are disappearing, and breeds suitable for smaller acreages like milking shorthorns (which produce both milk and beef) or Devons are rapidly disappearing and taking their unique genetic traits with them.
Since cattle are often bred using AI, perhaps we should save some of the sperm, frozen in vials? Maybe up at Spitsbergen Island, along with the seeds? After all, it is a type of "seed"!
You mentioned Biblical translations...how about saving a Bible, a Kuran, the Torah, the Baghavat Gita...?
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