|
Having just watched The Postman for the sixth time, I must ask could it get that bad. Likely the Novel has far greater detail, but here we have history founded by Nathan Holn (Farmer, Motivational Speaker, and founding Father the United Army of Nathan Holn).
Certainly it is a POINTS OF LIGHT setting - if you were loking for a basis for such a state of anarchy for a game. But Is the Post Apocalyptic reasoning viable? Is any Post Apocalyptic Setting Viable?
Or have we simply been suffering from a Dispair that has not left us since the Dark Ages? Will the real post apocalyptic history be a tale of war machines left to run simply because no-one is left who knows how to turn them off or will it be some mad fundamentalist who thinks little of books other than toilet paper?
|
|
Would it though? Even THE POSTMAN provides us with a fifteen years after when it isnt Nathan Holn, but some General named Bethlhem (assumedly after Bethlehem Mines - which is were they were located as a base of operations).
Eventually a Tyrant must be replaced by another and it is the choices of the second that determine whether the madness is perpetuated or whether he makes it his own.
|
|
Would it though? Even THE POSTMAN provides us with a fifteen years after when it isnt Nathan Holn, but some General named Bethlhem (assumedly after Bethlehem Mines - which is were they were located as a base of operations).
Eventually a Tyrant must be replaced by another and it is the choices of the second that determine whether the madness is perpetuated or whether he makes it his own.
Not always as the saying goes, the center can not hold, and while it works fine with say Russia. It does not work with say Germany.
|
|
OK. So assuming some tragedy did occur what Skills and information would be of value? Would it become a trade commodity?
The US Government (and assumedly others) are looking at the capacity to access old knowledge. They found they had to spend a few hundred million to reinvent data retrieval systems and software so they could pull info off some of those old 5 inch floppy discs. And they needed some old engineer who helped design the original system to do it.
If we look at NAME OF THE ROSE (set in the Dark Ages) we see a situation where Knowledge is not being spread because that simply is unacceptable, rather it is purely being archived and preserved in book form in some isolated and inaccesible library.
Consequently it all burns and is ultimately lost.
SHould we be archiving it or should we be teaching kids how to build nukes and how to locate, mine and process Uranium?
|
|
OK. So assuming some tragedy did occur what Skills and information would be of value? Would it become a trade commodity?
The US Government (and assumedly others) are looking at the capacity to access old knowledge. They found they had to spend a few hundred million to reinvent data retrieval systems and software so they could pull info off some of those old 5 inch floppy discs. And they needed some old engineer who helped design the original system to do it.
If we look at NAME OF THE ROSE (set in the Dark Ages) we see a situation where Knowledge is not being spread because that simply is unacceptable, rather it is purely being archived and preserved in book form in some isolated and inaccesible library.
Consequently it all burns and is ultimately lost.
This I do not see as an issue. Libraries and book stores are ubiquitous. Unless you are in Texas that is. Unless the um, strange cult that takes over the country/world burns books everywhere. Well knowledge will spread.
Fahrenheit 451 is a good example of just such a messed up world.|
|
But how long does that last? I see one Candidate of Governor off in the East coast of the USA suggesting that Not all books are worthy of being in a School Library.
If a Librarian is told to burn a book by those who would govern the freedoms of others is the survival of a book reliant solely on the disidents?
Considering our Printworks are all reliant on Computers and Electricity, Paper Making becomes a comodity skill. Its unlikely you or I know precisely how to make paper but we might have enough knowledge to rediscover it. Ink making might be a bit tricky. and the ability to make and maintain typesetts and create woodcut images is going to be well beyond anything we know.
I have an old mechanical typewriter but no ink ribbon but I could probably type on a sheet of aluminium foil. So immediatly we see an end to paper books in favour of typed Foil scrolls.
|
|
But how long does that last? I see one Candidate of Governor off in the East coast of the USA suggesting that Not all books are worthy of being in a School Library.
If a Librarian is told to burn a book by those who would govern the freedoms of others is the survival of a book reliant solely on the disidents?
well as long as we remember the past we do not doom ourselves to making the same mistakes.
We just make new ones.
|
|
Lost a Post...dang it. :(
How do we know that our mistakes are not simply repeated from previous generations without the transfer of Knowledge?
If Bob the Boatbuilder builds a fine dingy and rows west over the horizon never to be remembered but in legend like the last guy and the only piece of knowledge missing from 'there be land west across the sea' is that that land be several thousand miles across the sea. Bob vanishes into legend as one after the next drowns in the deep water a few mile off the coast.
|
So apparently the arctic could lose it's summer ice by 2013 new report says. Whats the significance? Well it's been over 1 million years since the last time that happened. Is that really significant but it sure sounds scary. So maybe we may face a massive human extinction event soon. YAYYYY APOCALYPSE.
O yeah I suppose I should state my sources huh......
|
|
So apparently the arctic could lose it's summer ice by 2013 new report says. Whats the significance? Well it's been over 1 million years since the last time that happened. Is that really significant but it sure sounds scary. So maybe we may face a massive human extinction event soon. YAYYYY APOCALYPSE.
O yeah I suppose I should state my sources huh......
My Uncle Pete once told me that it wasnt the Defrosting of the Poles that drowns you, it will be when the global warming heats the ocean and the volume occupied expands. Then we are all freznipped!
Here is a link to the loss of stored data. linky
Frankly I think we'd actually do better than a lot of nay-sayers would have us believe:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Colony_%28TV_series%29
Track that show down and have a look, you might be VERY surprised by what these guys pulled off.
That said, I'd love to be in or see a similar style of show where they drop off Armed Forces members and see what we can come up with over a month.
|
|
So apparently the arctic could lose it's summer ice by 2013 new report says. Whats the significance? Well it's been over 1 million years since the last time that happened. Is that really significant but it sure sounds scary. So maybe we may face a massive human extinction event soon. YAYYYY APOCALYPSE.
O yeah I suppose I should state my sources huh......
My Uncle Pete once told me that it wasnt the Defrosting of the Poles that drowns you, it will be when the global warming heats the ocean and the volume occupied expands. Then we are all freznipped!
Here is a link to the loss of stored data. linky
I will miss the polar bears.
|
|
Mad Max vs 1936 culture
If the scifi story of an Oil Shortage leading to anarchy had been told during the post WWI period, would it have shaped human thought sufficiently to prevent the rise of the NAZIs?
You might know of the Film The Shape of things to Come in which we see a prediction of one war after the next until states of the predicted 1970s are nothing more than Rubble ruled by ignorant and illiterate Warlords. Consequently we see the rise of an Alliance of Machine Engineers and Aviators to form a Work Airforce whose plan is to sieze control of the world and bring order at last - creating a White Civilization. There is some thought that this influenced the NAZIs and shaped their ambitions.
If instead we had been told a tale along the lines of a Mad Max Scifi, would it have shaped the international psyche sufficiently to prevent the riseof what would follow in 1937-8?
|
|
Mad Max vs 1936 culture
If the scifi story of an Oil Shortage leading to anarchy had been told during the post WWI period, would it have shaped human thought sufficiently to prevent the rise of the NAZIs?
You might know of the Film The Shape of things to Come in which we see a prediction of one war after the next until states of the predicted 1970s are nothing more than Rubble ruled by ignorant and illiterate Warlords. Consequently we see the rise of an Alliance of Machine Engineers and Aviators to form a Work Airforce whose plan is to sieze control of the world and bring order at last - creating a White Civilization. There is some thought that this influenced the NAZIs and shaped their ambitions.
If instead we had been told a tale along the lines of a Mad Max Scifi, would it have shaped the international psyche sufficiently to prevent the riseof what would follow in 1937-8?
very doubtful. Darwinism and some illogical ramifications thereof, along with some esoteric books just fired the imagination of those psychopaths.
Combine that with a rather fast rise to power, well not much could have changed.
|
|
Mad Max vs 1936 culture
If the scifi story of an Oil Shortage leading to anarchy had been told during the post WWI period, would it have shaped human thought sufficiently to prevent the rise of the NAZIs?
You might know of the Film The Shape of things to Come in which we see a prediction of one war after the next until states of the predicted 1970s are nothing more than Rubble ruled by ignorant and illiterate Warlords. Consequently we see the rise of an Alliance of Machine Engineers and Aviators to form a Work Airforce whose plan is to sieze control of the world and bring order at last - creating a White Civilization. There is some thought that this influenced the NAZIs and shaped their ambitions.
If instead we had been told a tale along the lines of a Mad Max Scifi, would it have shaped the international psyche sufficiently to prevent the riseof what would follow in 1937-8?
very doubtful. Darwinism and some illogical ramifications thereof, along with some esoteric books just fired the imagination of those psychopaths.
Combine that with a rather fast rise to power, well not much could have changed.
Illogical Ramifications? What would they be? Survival of the Fittist? All humans are different sub species branching from the same monkey? Some of us are better evolved? Australians are Sexy...every one else is butt ugly because their mums got sexed up by the same inbred warlord? Irish were breeding for the Luck Gene and wound up with the genes of Alcoholic Compulsive Gamblers?
|
|
Illogical Ramifications? What would they be? Survival of the Fittist? All humans are different sub species branching from the same monkey? Some of us are better evolved? Australians are Sexy...every one else is butt ugly because their mums got sexed up by the same inbred warlord? Irish were breeding for the Luck Gene and wound up with the genes of Alcoholic Compulsive Gamblers?Mad Max vs 1936 culture
If the scifi story of an Oil Shortage leading to anarchy had been told during the post WWI period, would it have shaped human thought sufficiently to prevent the rise of the NAZIs?
You might know of the Film The Shape of things to Come in which we see a prediction of one war after the next until states of the predicted 1970s are nothing more than Rubble ruled by ignorant and illiterate Warlords. Consequently we see the rise of an Alliance of Machine Engineers and Aviators to form a Work Airforce whose plan is to sieze control of the world and bring order at last - creating a White Civilization. There is some thought that this influenced the NAZIs and shaped their ambitions.
If instead we had been told a tale along the lines of a Mad Max Scifi, would it have shaped the international psyche sufficiently to prevent the riseof what would follow in 1937-8?
very doubtful. Darwinism and some illogical ramifications thereof, along with some esoteric books just fired the imagination of those psychopaths.
Combine that with a rather fast rise to power, well not much could have changed.
no just this
The use of and ramifications of this subject are the worst sort of GODWIN.
Not that Survival of the fittest is wrong on an animalistic scale but it has some bad ramifications for morally deficient mad scientist, especially back around the turn of the last century.
|
|
So...you're just opposed to living by the rules? Even though its about survival of the fitest...we shouldnt have to fight to the death in a cage fight to find the Conan Type who gets to breed with all the Females?
Or do you think we should breed for intelligence and kill all the stupid people? If that is so...my 214 IQ Brain has dibs on the three billion chicks.
Ahh the Eugenics debate. The pseudo-scientists answer to chicken spanking voodoo - and with just as many flaws :p