How long to re-build society?
 

Just a thought,

Say tomorrow you woke up and EVERYTHING man-made was gone (cars, bridges, roads, buildings, etc, I mean EVERYTHING) All that is left is the population of the world as it stands right now and a blank Earth.

With all the knowledge and technology we have at the present day, how long do you think it would take society to "re-build" itself back to the where we are right now in 2004.

I am guessing about 25 years.

What do you think?


P.S. Can't you tell I am busy at work? :D

Hmmmmm good question.

Since we have all the "blue prints" of the society, I think the time to re-build should be calculatable.

Take the total amount of years since the first real tech breakthrough, like flight.

Then subtract the number of years of testing till they got it to work. Meaning from conception to perfection. Not to the first flight at KittyHawk. It took years after Kitty Hawk before it was perfected. Thats the number. So lets say they worked for 7 years before the first flight, and another 15 perfecting it. So thats 22 years.

Then figure a good number to subtract for the fact that we are "smarter" today. There are many people who have the knowlegde it takes to build an aircraft, all by themselves.

As a matter of fact, there are people living that have the "blueprints" to re-build. in their heads, lol.

And that should be the number.

How did you get to 25 years? What was your thinking?

Paper and blueprints are man made ;).

???

It was just a guess Acid, but take for instance making steel. You have to extract the ore from the earth using your bare hands or a piece of wood, start a fire, melt the ore, mold the steel and so on. Once this process is done things will progress quicker since you now have "a steel tool" to work with. Soon, things will start moving rather quickly. Don't forget you also have 5 billion people, all with the knowledge they have today, working together.

but while some people are making steel tools, most people (especially in the first world) would just starve to death. without the logistics to move huge quantities of meat/grains/whatever across the continent, how long can the population live on the few local farmers?

Without distribution first world food supplies would run out in seven days (source dept. of home affairs)...what a thin line we live on....bye bye 90% of the population.

It wouldn't take too long as long as we have people that know the basics. ;)

it count how much there is left to build on if there no-then to build on then it can take years to get it up and going and again. Japanese taken 20-30years what was left of them. as for Iraq it can 8-15yrs really make it grand as it was before or even better then it was. Afghan's it could take longer they don't have resources to use as Iraq has in oil flows. so for the Afghan's it can take will over 20-40years for them to be what they was before Telban got their hands into it. basic they ripe it out and crash the Afghan's governmental totally ripe it out.

My Feeling:
Iraq: take 10-20 years to rebuild (or sooner they have oil)
Afghan: can take longer 15-40years to rebuild, they have no then left at all. (excludes Growing Drugs)

That is one hell of a question and very difficult to answer!

Would we want to rebuild the same society?

Would we want an agrarian society and move away from city dwellling?

Could we even do it as surely the world would be thrown into complete chaos?

With nearly 6 billion mouths to feed could we do it all with out resorting to the most primitive form of savage warfare?

Waht about disease? Would that spread like wild fire and kill millions?

A tough question to answer!

Regards

:eek: :eek:

:D That is why the hermit people win, they are all secluded. Lucky them.

it would hapen eventually but alot of people would die, the lack of known food and water, or even the knowledge/means to filter seawater

the first thing that i'd do is have everyone 'write' down what they know, if they die thier knowledge dosent go with them.

id say it would probably take a couple of centuries

Hehe if it was just the computers it would be easy.

not that easy, computers need the whole power infrasctructure, the internet needs the means to transmit inter-continental, to make computers you would need very thin copper wire, silicon, plastics for the cables, carbon, various alloys a means to delicately create the PCB's, the means to create resistors, capacitators, IC's, voltage regulators....

hrmm it's taken us what 2004 years to get here now, you think we'd be ale to rebuild all that in 25 years? Not like everything man has built is in someone's memory, so with EVERYTHING gone, some things will need to be "re-discovered" for lack of better word. I'd say more than 25 years, but I can't say how much longer after

Re: How long to re-build society?
 

will Nuke-gamma radiation can take everything out, and if the world turn upside down it could what many think it would totally knock everything out of whack. it could take (only if its recorded on paper) maybe 20-30years reason there no then to work with and if it not recorded at all 60-100yrs thats by guess and know how. if there any people left to do the work to get it backup at all.

i suppose it depends does everyone remember the former life?? as in can we communicate in languages??

i think it would be longer than 25 yrs, think of all the groups who could envision the world being theirs, too much corruption for only 25 yrs.

i bet u it will take about 700 years to get back to normal, that is saying that the majority of us are normal, but i have a few exceptions...

well id say about 700-1000 years, saying that were normal, but ill have a few exceptions lol...