Restarting a civ...

I'm curious how much of modern civilization do you think you could reintroduce if you were to suddenly find your self in a world where you had to use your own knowledge to re-build civilization, but you had all the laborers and such you needed.

Do you think that you would be able to successfully remake cities that work and are well laid out, lighting, engines, electricity, get water, dispose of waste, farm food and transport it to where it needs to be, create an economic system, military, etc that would work and how close do you think you could get to a modern city using just your knowledge?


I think personally I could get to or very close to a later 1800s, early 1900s city... but I'd struggle past that point cuz metalurgy and smelting and how cathodes and such work is not something i know much about... i'd be able to reinvent the silent movie, but without metalurgy I'm pretty sure even with all the other knowledge i don't think i could make planes, cars, and jets, but things that are simpler using those concepts.

Why would I want to reintroduce modern civilization. Civilization is the most destructive thing ever invented by the human race. The world would be better off without it.

I think there are aspects of civilization that are dangerous to the world. If I were to restart and rebuild a modern civilization I would control those aspects with an iron hand.

I assume to do this, we would need some type of encyclopedia with all the world's information on it.

The result would be a civilization that has a mix of 19th to 20th or 21st Century city since there is technology that was created in the 20th and maybe 21st Century that could have been created in the 19th Century if people figured it out.

I don't care whether there are bad sides to modern civilization and that's not what I asked nor do I appreciate the blatant hi-jack of the topic.

I'm asking could you, with your knowledge, given all the workers and materials, reconstruct civilization or parts of it. Could you get aquifers working? Could you get paper? Books? printing presses? Would you know how to farm and irrigate land? Could you build the tool needed to do so? Would you know how to build an economy, fashion a city, build roads, have lights, provide electricity? What about smelting metal? Mining? extracting ore? Do you have the knowledge to work out architecture and building materials that would last?

Obviously there are things that we could improve on and we'd implement those things, but I don't care about that... could you, using your knowledge, rebuild a civilization that wouldn't just fall apart and how advanced towards modernity could you get it?

You'd need a real Renaissance man or woman to skip several hundred years of civilization advancements if you're starting with modern but ignorant-to-modern-civilization humans.

Besides technological advancements, you'd also need sociological, political, and economic knowledge of modern systems. Could you organize folk into self-sustaining communities that are also self-policing as well as you could build houses and factories? Do you know how to run a central bank as well as mint coin? Can you effectively teach the teachers to effectively teach the children? Do you know how to run a farm and store the excess for times of famine? Do you know how to keep the town you built on the river for water resources from being destroyed in a flood? Do you know how to get different human groups (families, tribes, towns, regions, and states) to work cooperatively and not all for themselves? Do you know how to get them to do what you say at all?

And yeah, I could do all that.

The problem as I see it is the definition of 'civilization' in regards to 'how advanced it is'.

The Kingdom of England, Romans, Egyptians, etc, all were 'civilized' in their own times. Even a pack of Neanderthals was 'civilized', much like a pack of wolves are. There are leaders, followers, and stragglers.

What do you want this civilization to do? An Amish community would be the best answer, you ask me, because they are a civilization to themselves, and they are a whole lot more ready that the rest of America to be 'depowered', if you will, and have no industries supporting them. (farm, mechanical, etc.) There are other groups/communities, all over the globe, that this can be said for as well. The tribal natives in the Amazon(?) are among them. And wolves, definitely wolves. Alphas, Betas, and all the way down to Omegas, all contributing somehow, mostly.

Yeah. Something like that is my answer. Simplified lives already? You'll be the new civilizations.

/I might can do some of it, but a lot of it, nope. I'm toast.

Given that the entirety of my experience in managing a civilization comes from playing Civ IV and Civ V well into the wee hours of the morning, I'd say pretty confidently that I could dominate the planet within 3 weeks, given that Ghandi doesn't try to nuke me and the Iriquois don't invent tanks too fast.

The average person might be able to build a decent shelter on their own, fashion some crude tools and/or weapons, and maybe/maybe not survive a year or two.

The average group of people, working together, might be able to whip up a crude village or two, maybe something as large as a small town. Think medieval period at best. Depends on the location, the general health and age of the people, and how dangerous the surroundings are (natural predators, disease, weather, etc)

Even if you knew how to make something more modern, actually pulling it off in the complete absence of technology would be practically impossible, and you'd be dealing with people that are used to having technology do most of the work for them. You'd have to start at the beginning and then work up, and you'd be dead long before anything approaching modern were made. If you're lucky, you might have a couple of mechanical geniuses that could help speed up the process, but only slightly.

Always research writing and literature so you can work at getting "Library at Alexandria" wonder first.

I can safely say that people would have a decent place to call home, minus the electricity!

Now, I could work the indoor plumbing, but would have no idea on how to make plastic pipes, or fashion metal ones, with no knowledge on how to make a torch to weld with!

Basically, people would be screwed!

I'd be in trouble getting past a basic agrarian society on what i know. but I'd like to think that i could pull in people who have the medical/electrical and metallurgical skills to get me on past my skills, im a fair social organizer and can usually get people to work together well.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

Ok everyone, a quiz that asks, How far can you jumpstart technology?

http://theuniverseas.com/how-useful-...echnology-quiz





And a cheat sheet.

http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/8208/timetechlg.jpg