1/ This is a challenging tweetstorm prompt: Post-apocalyptic digital economy opportunities *cracks knuckles* https://twitter.com/neilscudder/status/886429542289514496 …
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Replying to @vgr
2/ Apocalyptic fiction loves the theme of some mysterious X that destroys digital tech and bumps us back to bows and arrows
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3/ But digital is not necessarily "high tech" or silicon based
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4/ Neal Stephenson has a complex encryption algorithm using playing cards in cryptonomicon. Morse code is digital.
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5/ So taking "digital" broadly, you can imagine it in embodied in ever medium from abacus to paper to semaphore to telegraph to silicon
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6/ Let's define "post-apocalyptic" as a) loss of deep industrial stack tech (no VHDL, fabs, b) loss of broad global social connectivity
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7/ What digital opportunities might exist? Is digital even worth anything without silicon tech and Moore's law?
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8/ Opportunity #1: Build purely mechanical, steampunk computers a la Babbage/Hollerith/looms BUT with modern theoretical knowledge
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9/ Opportunity #2: Build a mechanical semaphore network, visible to all, that uses packet routing (old semaphores were circuit-switched)
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10/ Opportunity #3: Clock signals are central to digital technology. Develop square wave generators using mechanical, hydraulic, pneumatics
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11/ In the examples above I've avoided electricity. If you can do electricity, you're not in a post-apocalyptic world. Just a shitty one.
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Replying to @vgr
How much longer is that true? Personal PV isn’t unthinkably far from mainstream
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PV makes power generation decentralized, but MAKING the cells is still capital- and tech-intensive
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