Comments on: Manual for Civilization

By: Homegrownkansan

Homegrownkansan — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 22:36:45 +0000

Psychologists have discovered that our brains have been getting smaller over the past few thousand years which they say is a good thing. Why? The chimps studied, having smaller brains than the gorillas, and were more able to work together to solve larger problems that the gorillas couldn't. Aparantly a large brain comes with a large ego: too large for any kind of civilization. This theory suggests that accumulative adaptation is driven by the needs of the species rather than the individual and any benificial characteristic or adaptation of the individual that deviates from the species is likely detrimental to the species and only those adaptations that de-emphasize an individuals superiority have any chance at longevity. If the theory is correct, a negative correlation exists between the growth of civilation and decaying individual potential.

By: Vogin

Vogin — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 22:31:24 +0000

Instead of preparing for the downfall of our civilization, wouldn't it be better to focus our efforts towards sustaining it and, simply put, be smart?

By: treyka

treyka — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 19:12:32 +0000

Don't think anyone suggested the terrific "Five Acres and Independence: A Handbook for Small Farm Management" yet. (ISBN 10: 0486209741) It's a kind of proto-Whole Earth Catalog which was released in 1935. It's target audience is basically city slickers who find themselves (either by necessity or choice) having a go at small farming.

By: Tara Maya

Tara Maya — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 01:04:21 +0000

There does seem to be evidence that intelligence *has* evolved in the 5000 years. This doesn't mean civilization could not collapse.

It's interesting, though, that although there have been dark ages, and centuries-long civil wars and interregnums, there has overall been surprisingly little "backward" progress. The main danger seems to have been that less advanced peoples conquered the more advanced civilizations, and then reduced them to their own level of technology: Vandals in Rome, or Mongols in China. But gradually the Vandals and Mongols appropriate the culture and technology of the people they conquered. Of course, one could wish for an easier process of cultural transmission.

By: Rug Cleaning Homestead

Rug Cleaning Homestead — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 16:34:19 +0000

The Free Market Monument Foundation intends to build a granite monument inscribed with the consensus “Principles of the Free Market”.thanks for doing right thing.

By: ROSA

ROSA — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 06:55:26 +0000

Hey, thanks dude, this was useful!

By: Tej Kohli

Tej Kohli — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 11:35:15 +0000

I am Agree with you .. its Be Great Post you write for Manual for Civilization

By: April 2010 Great ones

April 2010 Great ones — Sun, 02 May 2010 05:40:32 +0000

[...] Manual for Civilization- The Long Now Blog, April 6, 2010 [...]

By: The Guide « I Think By Talking

The Guide « I Think By Talking — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 04:05:07 +0000

[...] But all cultural forces are reactions to other cultural forces. And a number of different trends are coming together to create something interesting: a nonreligious bible. [...]

By: Jerome

Jerome — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 20:05:22 +0000

Lovelock was wrong, you know. It is becoming apparent that human evolution has actually sped up in the last 5000 years, at least in urban populations.

By: Steve Quilley

Steve Quilley — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 18:59:10 +0000

In Earth Abides by George R. Stewart, the hero, whose name escapes me, survives an apocalptic plague and ends up the defacto leader of a tribe of survivors, living of the seemingly endless detritus and canned food of the vanished civilisation. Haunted by the shadow of the still standing university library, he tries to educate the kids in the hope of kickstarting civilisation. In the end all he can manage is to get them to play a game with bows and arrows – a skill that might at least get them started when the cans run out. As time passes, these children reinvent a religion around our hero who gives up trying to correct their superstitions. In one memorable passage he attempts to teach some of the children some basic geometry, but can’t even get them to comprehend a straight line. In their superstate of dependency, they lack any context in which straight lines have any meaning. LIke ‘A CAnticle for Leibowitz’, ‘Earth Abides’ underlines the problem of preserving knowledge outside the practical and social context of its use. Would it be technically possible to record in detail all the steps necessary to manufacture a computer chip from scratch. I doubt it. What about a crystal radio? Or copper wire? There are all kinds of questions….What is the minimum division of labour required to maintain a given level of technology (e.g. to retain an industrial base capable of building and maintaining a nuclear power station, televisions…or a diesel engine…I would be very interested if anyone can suggest an academic literature which deals with such problems.

By: ajacksonian

ajacksonian — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 15:50:38 +0000

The Manual for Civilization has a term: Law of Nations. It is a summation work going over the concepts of this thing we create amongst ourselves and how it works, and why it works that way. It is something we create by being humans and interacting with each other: it is invariant that wherever people gather to live together then Law of Nations is formed. Be it Aztec, Inca, Ancient Rome, Greece, Egypt, Babylon, China, Iriquois... we do the same thing over and over and over again. de Vattel did it best, I think, and hasn't been equalled since. A handy manual to point this out would be of great worth to anyone stuck on needing to figure out what else is needed standing civilization up.

By: joe

joe — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 15:49:51 +0000

I’m living in northern italy and consequently doing a lot of reading about the fall of rome and the early middle ages, and one thing the seems apparent is the collapse wasn’t total. Islands of civilization continued for hundreds of years, but in isolation.

One thing that would be useful if possible would be foolproof communication to other data storage sites. “here are some books of knowledge, press this big red button to speak with other people like you”.

Maybe a shortwave radio built to last 1000 years with the antenna running up a stone monolith, powered by a geothermal well.

By: Arthur Kerschen

Arthur Kerschen — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 15:27:57 +0000

The Free Market Monument Foundation intends to build a granite monument inscribed with the consensus “Principles of the Free Market”. The Principles were determined by compiling the statements of principles of numerous free market organizations: the Acton Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute etc. and determining the common elements.

http://www.freemarketmonument.org/principles.php

By: John Blake

John Blake — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 15:26:07 +0000

As our current Holocene Interglacial Epoch fades to a looming 102,000-year Pleistocene Ice Time, we suspect that by the 22nd Century humanity will have moved en masse off-Earth to giant intra-solar refugia dispersed about the plane of the ecliptic. Like Greek and Italian city-states of old, these will be autonomous entities governed by meritocratic councils rather than self-selected partisan demagogues, because such polities cannot survive the wastrel syndromes devastating early 21st Century State and municipal venues.

Surging up vertical Erie Canals to space-based enclaves of their choice, a Darwinian competitive process will ensure not only the survival but innovative progress of Ideas and Men. Corrupt incompetence will finish off victims of collectivist Statism in short order, partly by depopulating rent-seekers’ milieus by an inexorable “Galt Effect”.

Give this a century or two, and humankind will be prepared to cast out further, reach the stars. Huddled in medieval squalor, Earth’s camel drivers and rug merchants of viciously misanthropic persuasion will revert to the atavistic primitivism their blighted faith requires.