The title is a bit over dramatic but, per the title, if you could contribute with one piece of knowledge to a book that every single individual should learn from in order to kickstart a civilization, what would be yours?
My personal choice would be the process of soap making, from scratch.
What is ans how to fight for Democracy.
- Crafting bows to hunt. Wood selection, shaping, tillering, natural bowstring materials.
- Some edible wild plants
- Some basic farming knowledge
- Some construction/shelter repair techniques
- Algebra and concepts of calculus, and why they’re useful
- How to preserve foods
- Basic concepts of electricity’s importance and how to make it, but someone would need to explain how to go from raw material to a functional wire, find some rare earth magnets, and figure out how to make LEDs or something else worth using the electricity for.
- The scientific method
- Concepts of how to engineer/design a solution to a problem
- Troubleshooting techniques
- Some basic concepts of boat stability and construction
- Some concepts of modern psychology
- Concepts of critical thinking and rejection of groupthink
- Basic physics. Loose explanations of kinematic equations, gravity, friction, pendulums, air resistance, aerodynamics, basic concepts of rocketry and flight/parachutes/gliders
- Evaporative cooling? I could describe the concepts of modern air conditioning, but that doesn’t seem useful yet.
- I could probably work out how a windmill works, how to make a wagon, how to purify water, how to make water-tight storage.
- Germ Theory
- The Paradox of Tolerance
- How pasteurization works
- Fermentation, concepts of distillation
- Basic oral hygiene? Habits of at least rinsing sugar out of your mouth afterwards, if brushes aren’t available.
- Use of alcohol and heat as antiseptics. Suggestion to use honey in a pinch
- Basic concepts of how magnifying lenses work and why they’re important
Does it count if I have been keeping a copy of all the Kiwix releases and could submit those documents? It would certainly be one hell of a kickstart.
Otherwise, screw civilization… Here’s how you build and tune a trebuchet (yeah I have a bit of experience with the construction, as long as someone else supplies the rope).
Omg will they have redstone? :3
Cream of mushrooms and cream of chicken.
What are those?
Someone, a philosopher, did that. Minimalistic, factual, objective, and a complete failure.
We don’t get the language we want but what we need.
Considering no one has truly figured out how to make a Democracy survive, I’m impressed this is your contribution. You should probably be writing books before this one, if you have answers.
But seriously - no religions allowed.
There will always be religion, especially if and when the civilized world ends.
A better way would be just to remind everyone that there were countless religions before and that they were all man made, corrupted and fell apart after a certain amount of time.
Remind everyone that there is no one true religion because there never was one before, there isn’t one now and there never will be be one.
But I’m afraid that as much as we’ll try … people will always be dumb enough to want to believe in fairy tales, an after life, eternal bliss / hell and that one group is better than another.
Remind everyone that there is no one true religion because there never was one before, there isn’t one now and there never will be be one.
“Yes, all the religions before were false, but ours is the right one!”
Fuck it. Scientism’s time to shine.
I think in a way religion was a necessary component in managing populations.
Without education humans will naturally look to “organised luck” or supernatural deities for meaning. That can be used as a kind of carrier wave to disseminate basic information.
“God says you should clean your cock and balls once a day in order to bring good luck”
True … but this kind of knowledge and organization endows some people with power and control over others. Any time any individuals are given power over others for any reason, especially when that power is based on mistrust, falsehoods and outright lies … people tend to abuse that power.
Professional scientist here. I would take a table of logarithms. In a world without computers, the logarithm table and slide rule are the essential tools of how things got built. We built the Golden Gate Bridge and put a man on the moon using nothing more than log tables.
Any one person can remember the gist of the scientific method and write it down on a page. To write down a quality logarithm table you would need 500 pages.
Resist the urge to fall in line behind a “strong man.” Once a community is beholden to an individual, it’s tainted.
I can periodically dust the book. When I’m not dusting, I can stand somewhere conspicuous, and say “This way to the book” if asked.
Can I give you holiday cover? I’d like this job, like some sort of holy librarian.
Yes of course. With all vested powers I dub thee Venicon, Librarian Most High, Director to the Book. We only have the one, but it is quite good.
Welp, looks like my LinkedIn is getting an update.
The All Mighty Guardian of the Book, Keeper of Knowledge.
You will also be required to know it by memory cover to cover and read it on request for anyone.
Then my knowledge of my own limits must. Be my contribution to the book.
Basic logic gates for the most basic computational math As well as binary, octal, hexadecimal systems
I’m pretty sure you can make logic gates with water so maybe that’ll be of some use
Two lines:
“Axiomatically, those with the greatest material wealth will do everything to enrich themselves further. They must fail.”
Fire safety, fire prevention, fire fighting. Y’all got the rest covered already. These things were and still are learned the hard way. No reason for us to repeat the experiments with more lives.
The scientific method, we’ll be able to extract most information of the world around with just that and time
