<<A Canticle for Leibowitz>> Always one of my fav's ..... good enough for a couple re-reads. Julie Krueger ========Original Message======== Subj: [lit-ideas] Re: More places to nuke Date: 2/22/06 4:04:35 P.M. Central Standard Time From: _john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxxx (mailto:john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx) To: _lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (mailto:lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx) Sent on: On 2/23/06, Eric <eyost1132@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > But if people in New York or Fargo have new > weapons, whether the light goes off or stays on > for them, or if lights go off in both places, they > will keep the new weapons. To me, the most serious flaw in this argument is lack of attention to the nature of the knowledge in question. It makes sense if we are, for example, talking at the level of a paleolithic handaxe where the knowledge is widespread and the relevant materials readily available. At the level of Roman weaponry it still remains plausible, given that the relevant expertise is sufficiently widespread that the experts who have it are not all likely to wind up dead at once and the materials can still be found or traded for. Even at this stage, however, the knowledge is likely to be spotty. The last surviving blacksmith in a particular place off major trade routes and weeks or months aware from supplies of iron ore is likely to fail to pass on what he knows. It becomes increasingly unlikely to imagine that knowledge required to build an M1A1 Abrams Tank, F-18 Hornet or the USS Ronald Reagan and access to all of the relevant materials would survive the proverbial "knocked back to the stone age." It might, of course, be rediscovered after the necessary technologies had been redeveloped and the requisite industrial base recreated. But that would, presumably, require considerable time, especially given the global depletion of easy to access supplies of such basic materials as coal and iron ore. How does a blasted-back-to-the-stone-age or even to-the-middle-ages man recreate even that staple of modern interpersonal violence the Kalashnikov AK-47? One imagines a science fiction tale in which the last bullets have been fired, the mechanism has seized up, and the ancient weapon is venerated for powers it no longer possesses, that no one living knows how to reproduce.... Speaking of science fiction, those who have read the classics may recall _A Canticle for Leibowitz_. John -- John McCreery The Word Works, Ltd. 55-13-202 Miyagaya, Nishi-ku Yokohama 220-0006, JAPAN ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html