Hypothetical: How long to create a society similar to ours only from scratch?

[Emo EMAW]

My plan for society would be:

1) paper/ink- write down all you know about modern earth. Assign people writing assignments based on areas of expertise.
1b) In parallel with the writers, dedicate all metal experts to building a printing press. This will develop society the fastest, and weapons for hunting could also be developed as residuals.

2) once the printing press is up and running, work on developing ships to explore the world and find new resources.

3) while folks are out exploring, work on an electricity network

At this point, it's pretty much all gravy. I think you could get to electricity and ships in a generation or two.

Why not do it differently and decentralize the production of electricity?  I mean in this instance there won't be millions of people spanning large distances in need of a connected network.  Just make electricity where you need it. 

[Asteriskhead]

guys, don't choose me. I'm not going to make it very long without modern medicine.

[michigancat]

My plan for society would be:

1) paper/ink- write down all you know about modern earth. Assign people writing assignments based on areas of expertise.
1b) In parallel with the writers, dedicate all metal experts to building a printing press. This will develop society the fastest, and weapons for hunting could also be developed as residuals.

2) once the printing press is up and running, work on developing ships to explore the world and find new resources.

3) while folks are out exploring, work on an electricity network

At this point, it's pretty much all gravy. I think you could get to electricity and ships in a generation or two.

Why not do it differently and decentralize the production of electricity?  I mean in this instance there won't be millions of people spanning large distances in need of a connected network.  Just make electricity where you need it.

That's fine with me

[The Tonya Harding of Twitter Users Creep]

iphones top 5 in my book. once weve got iphones the new world is our oyster.

[Institutional Control]

I don't think I could build something that could generate electricity.  Probably just be lucky to get a fire going without matches.

[pissclams]

i would be more interested in this experiment if the new society wasn't geared towards recreating ours and instead was allowed to make their own.  i have no further input for this thread.

[Emo EMAW]

Do you guys remember the prologue of "The Gods Must be Crazy" ?  The premise was that man, in order to adapt to his surroundings and make life easier, developed societies and created all these gadgets, and essentially just made life more complex. 

[steve dave]

I had a similar discussion with a pretty experienced and brilliant engineer.  Dude worked at the Honeywell nuke place for a long time, knows a lot of stuff. 

lol, love lead ups like these. inevitably followed by either some conspiracy theory or something that makes the person sound like a complete dumbass.

[Emo EMAW]

I had a similar discussion with a pretty experienced and brilliant engineer.  Dude worked at the Honeywell nuke place for a long time, knows a lot of stuff. 

lol, love lead ups like these. inevitably followed by either some conspiracy theory or something that makes the person sound like a complete dumbass.

I always include whatever makes it the most 

[Rage Against the McKee]

I was friends in college with a 4.0 student who took an internship at NASA. He prefers boneless wings.

[Cartierfor3]

The problem is that modern people would be horrible at the survival type stuff that would be most urgent. It would be like "Hey, can we eat these berries?" And the other guy would be like "I dunno man I usually eat Chipotle" and probably 80k would die within 5 years. Then, the 20k remaining would take a long ass time to even like, domesticate a horse and grow an ear of corn.

We're talking 2500 years MINIMUM.

[Rage Against the McKee]

The problem is that modern people would be horrible at the survival type stuff that would be most urgent. It would be like "Hey, can we eat these berries?" And the other guy would be like "I dunno man I usually eat Chipotle" and probably 80k would die within 5 years. Then, the 20k remaining would take a long ass time to even like, domesticate a horse and grow an ear of corn.

We're talking 2500 years MINIMUM.

I think the first 100,000 would do a better job than you might think. It's their kids who would be in trouble, though. No paper, so they probably never learn to read or write, and most of our knowledge would just get lost.

[Cartierfor3]

We'd spend all the time at first though with stuff like finding good drinking water and digging latrines and killing lions. We'd have no time for paper and writing! WE'D BE DOOMED FOR SURE. 

[TownieCat]

We'd spend all the time at first though with stuff like finding good drinking water and digging latrines and killing lions. We'd have no time for paper and writing! WE'D BE DOOMED FOR SURE. 

Having JoJo as part of the original 100k would speed things up by at least 200 years.

[Cartierfor3]

That guy from survivor man is a MUST HAVE

[michigancat]

i would be more interested in this experiment if the new society wasn't geared towards recreating ours and instead was allowed to make their own.  i have no further input for this thread.

I'd definitely agree with this. I just think knowledge (books), exploration, and energy should be the foundation. From there, see what happens.

Another problem is 100k people really aren't that many. It'd take a few million to get an iphone done.

[massofcatfan]

You guys are assuming that society as we know it is desirable.  These people may decide to just do whatever they damn please and take us in a different direction.

 

[pissclams]

i would be more interested in this experiment if the new society wasn't geared towards recreating ours and instead was allowed to make their own.  i have no further input for this thread.

I'd definitely agree with this. I just think knowledge (books), exploration, and energy should be the foundation. From there, see what happens.

Another problem is 100k people really aren't that many. It'd take a few million to get an iphone done.

i think those things you mention will be the foundation- that will happen organically.  the "let's figure out how to make a Xbox One" crap needs to go though.  the reason i say that is that i think mankind is very self-limiting based upon a few decisions made a couple thousand years ago.

[Benja]

Honestly, if I was around back before we had cool stuff, I probably would have gone rouge into the woods and joined some awesome tribe and ate mushrooms and hunted in loin cloths for the rest of my life. no inventing. way too much work, and no adhd drugs back then.

[wetwillie]

a true sampling of 100,000 of the worlds population wouldn't include nearly enough Americans to make it work quickly. 

[EllRobersonisInnocent]

a true sampling of 100,000 of the worlds population wouldn't include nearly enough Americans to make it work quickly.

The majority of Americans are complete morons.

[The Tonya Harding of Twitter Users Creep]

gimme an iphone and 100,00 people and ill have tonyonia invading earth in like 3-4 years tops.

[nicname]

i would be more interested in this experiment if the new society wasn't geared towards recreating ours and instead was allowed to make their own.  i have no further input for this thread.

I could have probably phrased the question better. I'm more interested in the level of technology.

[TheCatFanSpeaks]

don't forget about booze, guys.

[pissclams]

i would be more interested in this experiment if the new society wasn't geared towards recreating ours and instead was allowed to make their own.  i have no further input for this thread.

I could have probably phrased the question better. I'm more interested in the level of technology.

oh.  huge dichotomy shift here. 

what if i were to tell you that i believe it would be easily possible to dwarf our level of technology in less amount of time?  think of it this way, we are where we are because we royally mumped up a bunch of times.  like, we're the dumbasses we like to make fun of for being dumbasses.