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So coming across some projects/websites like a website/blog thats solar powered and people designing open source "village kits" including bulldozers and backhoes had me thinking about if people here ever factor in offline information repositories for emergency preparedness? Given you can download all of wikipedia thats 14GB compressed and 58GB uncompressed, I wonder to what degree would it be useful to setup your own offline database of reference material (everything from medical, to design etc.). Obviously I'm not gonna build my own bulldozer or anything nor am I planning for a full post-apocalyptic scenario, but the reality is in a lengthy enough emergency setting having reference materials (like DIY guides, mechanical guides, etc.) seems like it would be useful as long as you already had all your backup power needs sorted out. Curious if anyone's put thought into an emergency preparedness scenario where electricity is somewhat available but internet is not. Or opinions on how stupid this thinking is.
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May 8, 2022 17:28
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| # ¿ May 17, 2024 13:06 |
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:Infrastructure in general is unsustainable without a society. Human development is less about light bulb ideas that could be replicated by individuals if society collapses, and more about the underlying systems that can scale to produce high quality materials, educated people, organization to manage these systems, and so on. Of course, the idea isn't to horde info offline to use in your libertarian freedom mansion, it's to have this stuff available because you may have been the only one in your local community to have done so. Wikipedia obviously isn't the most useful in terms of practical stuff, but in general thats what Im interested in hearing. What would you save offline to be available for info? People keep saying physical books which is great but (1) Aren't free (at least useful ones aren't), (2) Take up a ton of space, (3) Isn't easily searchable and (4) Can't easily be shared around. I mean, that Open Source Ecology thing has some pretty interesting builds, and you may have skilled individuals around you who could take on these projects but they aren't skilled enough to just whip it out of their head. Most people aren't.
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May 8, 2022 21:48
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The Voice of Labor posted:ummm... do you know what a book is? like if you're talking about a future where an offline copy of wikipedia is reference, you're not going to be able to have everyone radio/satellite ftp in and d/l whatever pdfs are hosted on your mud server. I'm not talking about re-booting human knowledge across the world dude, I'm talking about having reference material on USB sticks I can share within like my immediate area. I don't know where you got this idea that I'd be trying to have radio/satellite FTP in to download poo poo  . Even if you have "knowledgeable people" around: engineers, electricians and others would still need reference material to do stuff. Books are fine but again, are you going to create a giant library in your house? With offline storage you could have some pretty significant amount of reference material. Also I don't know why you're being such a dick about this?
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May 8, 2022 22:36
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:I'm suggesting that the best way to get to that data (to the extent it's even relevant, since Wikipedia is very limited on documenting the technical implementation of things) is to restore power and bring ISPs or data centers that have the content cached or backed up back online. Maybe I'm overlooking something, but what is the scenario where it's impossible to restore the internet (or even localized chunks of the internet) but Wikipedia is useful? Wikipedia was just an illustrative example, in fact I don't think wikipedia is even that useful of an offline resource. So forget I said wikipedia in this scenario, it was just to illustrate the type of resource I was hoping for people to share here (an easily collated information repository that people can clone and regularly download as it gets updated). I'm talking about resources like medical books, mechanical repair, maybe even more long term stuff like gardening, irrigation and planting etc. that you may need readily available to troubleshoot or fix immediate problems. Yes, you're going to have knowledgeable people around but those people need reference material, and there very well could be a scenario where local power is available but the internet is not. Oysters Autobio fucked around with this message at 22:45 on May 8, 2022 |
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May 8, 2022 22:42
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The Voice of Labor posted:books continue to work without any of that stuff Yeah sure, but we're talking about the ability to store practically every piece of written reference material you could obtain on to fairly resilient storage, that could be accessed on very low-power devices (like others mentioned, there are dinky solar panels that can power a smartphone or tablet let alone if you have generators and the like running). Sure, there's lots of libraries, but the effort to search through them, collate what you need, then bring them back and store them is definitely a lot more difficult than having accessible directly from your devices. Hell, I'm just talking about purely written material. If you got your offline storage up into the terabytes and you scraped a bunch of DIY, survival and other reference videos would also be invaluable when that know-how in today's society is not always readily accessible. The Voice of Labor posted:tech never works when you need it to, books generally have a display larger than 4''x3'' and books are excellent for thermal and kinetic insulation. quote:Because it assumes that you a source of electricity to keep the things powered, they still work, the free time to devote to setting it up, and the know how to configure it in the given environment. The equipment necessary to run it is usually highly inefficient use of limited electricity, relatively fragile, and over a long enough timeline you’re likely to run into a situation where the battery has failed and you’re unable to find / make a replacement battery that works with what you have. The sheer ubiquity of tech means that you don't even need it to work. Even in some society collapse scenario, there will be plenty of smartphone, tablets and electronics to scrounge up and use. Short term, you'll probably make plenty of use out of what you have on hand for electronics and long term once that type of looting dies down you'll be able to find plenty I'm sure if you're stable enough in whatever survival/living situation you have. When all you would need to literally have 100 libraries of reference material in your house is a computer that can use a USB stick, then you could pull the oldest shittiest desktop from an elementary school or something and it'd be fine to read digital text files. Unless we're talking multi-generations or decades of society collapse where humanity has fully consumed all of the leftovers of civilization and now that knowledge is lost in time or something then sure, eventually we wont be able to create more silicon chips and will be hosed, so I don't really understand what timelines people are operating under here. I also think people are under estimating how much of this poo poo humanity has produced in excess (consider how many perfectly fine electronics are replaced constantly for new software requirements but for our use just needs the ability to display text). In terms of limited electricity, they are also quite low-powered compared to what you would be prioritizing with what limited electricity you have. Most of our electronics "break" from software updates and other poo poo which won't be an issue in these scenarios. Learning how to hack and work with all this poo poo would be incredibly valuable unless we're talking EMP blasts taking out every piece of electronics. Also, if you baby your electronics these devices won't just blow up or short-out one day, I really don't understand this "electronics are fragile" thing unless you would be running around with them dropping smartphones and tablets everywhere you go or a PC tower. Running a PC, raspberry Pi or android smartphone would fail in like, what 5-10 years of regular intensive use? Hell it'd be an interesting topic to discuss here, if you were to setup a low-powered computer to just store information how would you set it up to be as resilient and simple as possible, what would you want to use in terms of software, hardware etc. And again, when we're talking that the entirety of Wikipedia fits on 19GB compressed, the sheer amount of just written material you could download with enough time in advance/effort means that finding some of it isnt useful won't even matter because you'll probably have duplicate info elsewhere. Oysters Autobio fucked around with this message at 04:48 on May 9, 2022 |
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May 9, 2022 04:27
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I really think people here are underestimating how much technology would still be around even in some sort of complete societal collapse scenario. I don't think the point (at least not for our generation of post-collapse people) would be to try and learn how to invent the steam engine, but rather how to service and run existing technology and maybe even troubleshoot it to some extent. I get the point people are making about steam engines and technological development that its more complex than just a Dummies Guide to Tech but in any scenario other than some sort of aliens zapping all technology, all of this stuff will still be around even if the people who used to run or maintain them aren't. I think we all underestimate just the sheer amount of human created stuff we've produced which is why I've always thought that watching something like Primitive Technology is fun but next to useless because why would you ever bother making a roof from custom made clay tiles when there's scrap metal, scrap tarpauline, plastic and all sorts of stuff that could be put together. Looking at shantytowns in massive developing countries or Sarajevo during the Balkan war siege is a more realistic vision, not loving making a solo viking cabin in the woods and LARPing through to the bronze age. The advantage of being around people with diverse skills and collaboration and living/access to some sort of infrastructure will still be probably a better off scenario other than the most experienced outdoors/woodsman. I mean a great example I love is that YouTube video of the French/Itaalian guy who goes to live on an island for a year by himself somewhere in Polynesia. Watching this video it seems like he's actually a pretty knowledgeable guy and must have practiced and done his research before going off on this thing, but still guess what cuts his trip short? He randomly cuts his hand and it gets infected so he has to go get antibiotics from a nearby island. Thats why I love these guys who think they're going to be the Unabomber lone wolf operator with just his dog in the woods. Yeah you'll be super self-sufficient in your hermit house up until the point you trip and sheer open your hand and now can't do anything without help. edit: Here's an example. Sanitation was becoming a problem in a slum so people got together to build an irrigation sewer. Could you make one with maybe a knowledgeable engineer, sure, but its going to be a lot harder of a job without some sort of reference material. In fact after watching this video its pretty privileged to sit here and pontificate on a scenario that's already a lived experience for a substantial portion of the world. Any sort of collapse will move more towards existing collapse/breakdown that's happening elsewhere but it will just be more widespread. I mean, other than just completely changing my life from being a computer-toucher to like a mechanical engineer, I'm thinking that I'll need to somehow start building these skills. But the only resources seem to be full-on bushcraft making fire from a stick or just handyman stuff like fixing your hardwood floors. Curious if anyone here has some interesting guides/resources. Oysters Autobio fucked around with this message at 13:21 on May 10, 2022 |
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May 10, 2022 00:37
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I don't mean to restart the steam chat but I found the type of interesting kind of reading that I was talking about wanting to find here so thought I'd share it. I think that there's definitely "lost" knowledge that exists out there that isn't as widely held in such a technologically dependant life we have, so having some idea of what people used to do is worth a peruse at least.
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Jun 1, 2022 21:32
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Hi everyone, hoping for some practical advice here that obviously has some logistics considerations. I have close family in SW Ukraine, and while they've been lucky to not have been caught up in any direct conflict, they're now starting to deal with the power and water shortages from missile attacks on infrastructure. I'm helping with money to help with their immediate needs that they can get on their own, but despite the recent fanfare unfortunately I also want to prepare them for the possibility of worse or sustained infrastructure difficulties. Maybe I'm being too pessimistic but I know it's very difficult currently to get truly accurate forecasting given the ongoing info ops campaigns. From an emergency supplies situation what could I send them that they themselves might have difficulty procuring? Obviously I can't exactly Amazon Prime a generator to them so has to be some practical considerations. I'm thinking specifically ideas that they themselves (urban / big city folks) wouldn't consider that could make their lives just a bit easier? Any research I should prioritize over others? Any valuable lessons learned in recent modern urban emergencies I should read on? On the 5th they've had electricity and water shortages (they live in your typical Soviet era block apartments which rely on electric water pumps). Luckily weather wise they're much luckier than northern Ukraine (mild winters on the coast) so it's currently +6C to +10C but still will get colder as the winter goes on.
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Dec 8, 2022 20:50
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Just wanted to check in and say thanks to everyone for the great advice. On another topic but similar, anyone have good resources for learning or hobbies that would be beneficial skills in a sort of emergency/crisis/collapse situation? I feel like I'm in my early 30s but my day job is a computer-toucher so all my skills revolve around something which will literally be useless. Honestly, even if its just cosplay level hobby just for lmao cope and to make me think I'm getting prepared is fine too, lol lets be realistic. I know its some of this stuff is just more cope, but stuff like this and this kind of thing all sort of tickle a weird train-autism in me so I thought why not make use of that (obviously I know I'm not actually going to build a 3D printed forge, these are just sort of "thematic" examples).
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Dec 16, 2022 21:32
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Oysters Autobio posted:.... and this kind of thing all sort of tickle a weird train-autism in me so I thought why not make use of that (obviously I know I'm not actually going to build a 3D printed forge, these are just sort of "thematic" examples). Oh boy, went on their wiki and found some of the founders more political/philosophical material and its definitely uhh....'interesting'. Founder is Polish so could chalk it up to that (USSR collapse brought out all sorts of craziness in the aftermath) or just the sort of general wackiness that anything 'green' or ecology can attract (i.e. all your fluoride is evil / wifi is hurting you stuff), but his favourite book about "ponerology" has a forward written by its editor who this interesting website. All off-topic but thought it was funny, and a good example of how hard it is to find useful content out there to read.
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Dec 16, 2022 22:29
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pantslesswithwolves posted:OK, to get back on track- Sorry if this is rehashing old debates but I seem to recall talking about CATs with a friend who had more medical training in the civilian side and mentioned that they aren't really common because of some other potential damage to limbs/parts I know that CATs had always been touted as the first line of self care but is the context of needing to stop the bleed in a firefight the same to use it in the real world? Don't know enough about them beyond training/application stuff.
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Mar 28, 2023 08:53
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| # ¿ May 17, 2024 13:06 |
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hypnophant posted:
Thanks for the thoroughly detailed reply. I just wanted to say, as someone who (now) finds this stuff horrifying, I am honestly really glad there are folks out there who are fascinated by medical trauma. I think I'd want exactly someone who came up on me or a loved one in an extreme situation and said "that's siiiiick!" rather than panicking like I would
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Mar 29, 2023 09:43
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