You seem to be ignoring the thousands of years of Chinese mercantile tradition which prospered under far more brutal and restrictive regimes and continues to this day. China wasnât at the forefront of human knowledge during itâs isolationist periods, but theyâve caught up quite quickly and are poised to surpass the west soon. Sheer numbers make this inevitable - the volume of research published in Chinese has been growing rapidly and is even dominant in some fields (like machine learning). Westerners would be wise not to underestimate China based on their lack of respect for intellectual property. In the past, the US also liberally âborrowedâ technology from more advanced countries.
The only feasible collapse event I can imagine is global nuclear war. Localized collapse of the US or other powers into civil war is definitely possible, but that probably wouldnât lead to civilizational collapse or even much decline. After the initial shock, people would adapt and rebuild. Climate change is too slow to be an existential danger to any nation larger than a small island.
I donât put too much weight on the notion that lack of easy energy would doom future humans to primitive tech levels. Knowledge is widespread and the artifacts of our civilization are everywhere. Alcohol distillation can provide easy energy with very modest demands for technology (just like more advanced biofuels, itâs simply not economical at present compared to fossil fuels, but that would change very quickly if fossil energy disappeared). Windmills and water wheels can be built with extremely primitive technology, and when attached to harvested alternators can supply a decent amount of energy. Alternators and generators arenât exactly complicated either, basic modern electrical knowledge is enough as long as the ability to make wire and work iron remains.
If enough modern knowledge is preserved, bootstrapping back to nuclear energy production in a relatively short timeframe should be feasible (nuclear resources should be effectively inexhaustible, unlike fossil fuels). I wouldnât bet on any digital media having the archival longevity to last until it could be retrieved though - the best Iâve seen are some tapes and optical discs having 100+ year lifespans in good conditions, but the equipment needed to read them is not so simple. Modern paper books are very high quality and global literacy is higher than it has ever been, so preservation of knowledge might not be so big an issue.
The knowledge to design and produce electronics components and ICs is concentrated in a relatively small number of people in a relatively small number of areas which are probably all strategic targets in the case of nuclear war. The highly specialized and technologically advanced manufacturing processes are not really public knowledge at any real depth. Transistors may be theoretically feasible with primitive tech, but the materials needed would likely necessitate global trade routes that probably wouldnât exist. At least resistors/capacitors/switches are easy enough, and vacuum tubes/diodes should be possible in some areas, but repair of remnant tech is probably out the question without a century or two of R&D.
Many pharmaceuticals and industrially important chemicals should be possible to produce with low-level tech and modern knowledge, but the skills to do so are likely not as ubiquitous as they should be. The hyper-specialization of the present day strikes me as making our societies somewhat more brittle than they might be otherwise in the face of catastrophe.
Basic agricultural knowledge is fairly widespread even though professional farmers are relatively rare compared to history. Loss of fertilizer supply chains and the short-term effects of trade collapse will kill a lot of people who survive the initial event, but food production shouldnât be much of an issue after the initial waves of destruction and starvation. In a few generations, the ground where towns and cities once stood could be valuable terra preta.
Iâm not sure how dependent modern boat building is on advanced technology, but I suspect the answer is âveryâ. Destruction of forest areas means that production of wooden vessels is unlikely at any significant scale for the decades to centuries it would take for forests to reclaim the land. Lacking global trade, many areas would not have the native industry or agricultural base necessary for production of sailcloth. The viability of coastal settlements dependent on fishing is likely lower than historically, without even taking into account whatever the effects of nuclear war on ocean life would be. Water-based trade could disappear altogether for many years.
Modern buildings are dependent on steady sources of energy in many climates. Thin walls, lots of windows, hermetically sealed. These will be unlivable very shortly after the power goes out. Most modernized urban areas in very cold or hot climates will have to be abandoned for this reason alone, the unsustainable nature of highly concentrated populations far from agricultural areas will destroy the others.
Political collapse presents the most significant unknown variable affecting the possibility for resurgence. Cultural change in the aftermath of a near-human-extinction event is unpredictable. A probable return to feudalism in many areas would dampen any attempts to rebuild or preserve knowledge and skills. Mass migration would inevitably lead to conflict and banditry. On the other hand, relatively peaceful and egalitarian anarchic/communal societies such as existed in many areas throughout history could re-emerge. Is centralization of authority necessary for rapid technological advancement? How âmodernâ would the attitude of modern humans be in the face of collapse? Would people raised on democracy and liberal values accept stratified social hierarchies, caste systems, or domination by force? Would they be willing to personally impose them on others?
