• hexaflexagonbear [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Even in a semi mad max world, computation will be useful, and anyone who can get scavenged junk iPhones to aid with those will be very much needed. If anything a post apocalyptic scenario will really need computer engineers.

  • emizeko [they/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    are you kidding? you'll need those skills to modify your Pip Boy

  • MarxistMaths [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Computer geek will be one of the top titles in a post-apocalyptic commune, don't worry.

    If you can fix the village computer, you will 100% be safe.

      • furryanarchy [comrade/them,they/them]
        ·
        3 years ago

        The real reason is the cri of leds ran that way is absolutely awful. Dubai bulbs make everyone look near death, and makes food look disgusting. Living under low cri lighting is mentally harmful over time, I know from experience.

          • furryanarchy [comrade/them,they/them]
            ·
            3 years ago

            Fluorescent tubes are hated by everyone because of the awful green tinge they have. And the LEDs that have a CRI of only 80 or so are the shitty dollar store ones that also flicker and give people headaches, and as such are also hated. The standard for cheap leds people will tolerate is more like 90-95. The name brand cheap bulbs are around 98.

            Number one easiest way to make a space feel less shitty and claustrophobic is to replace the contractor special lights with name brand ones. Everything feels cleaner even, just doing that.

              • furryanarchy [comrade/them,they/them]
                ·
                3 years ago

                Just did some googling, this is a very recent development. As in, in the last year or two the CRI of lightbulbs rose a ton. It looks like this is due to some California regulation requiring 90+ CRI lightbulbs.

                  • furryanarchy [comrade/them,they/them]
                    ·
                    3 years ago

                    You didn't completely miss out. CRI is a measure that's easy to cheat, as it was designed not as a consumer standard, but an industrial one. A lot of these new high CRI bulbs aren't actually as good as their rating suggests. So that's a whole rabbit hole to go down.

    • ElGosso [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Why wouldn't we just use windmills to hoist the stuff for us when it's windy

    • sooper_dooper_roofer [none/use name]
      ·
      3 years ago

      we’ll all get super ripped legs from hours on our exercise bikes retrofitted to generate electricity so we can charge our phones long enough to keep using them through the evening

      Biking for an hour only runs a lightbulb for a few seconds. Human manual labor will never generate significant electricity.

        • sooper_dooper_roofer [none/use name]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Doesn’t that statistic assume a 60W incandescent?

          yea, but the best LED bulbs are something like 4x more efficient.

          So biking for an hour runs a LED lightbulb for 10 minutes maybe? I don't remember the exact figures but it's ridiculously impractical

          a fully distributed generation system comprising manual labor, geothermal, hydro, and some form of energy storage

          it's also impossible to make a system that takes advantage of the type of post-collapse labor you'd be doing. People won't be riding exercise bikes when you're trying to survive off potatoes and milk

    • infuziSporg [e/em/eir]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Human muscle as an energy source has always been a terribly inefficient prospect. That's why we literally started moving away from it in 7000 BCE.

      Gravitational potential energy will probably be our best bet for energy storage, but we will be using appropriate-tech solar and biomass and wind and hydro (probably in that order) to charge it.

      Further reading: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2017/05/could-we-run-modern-society-on-human-power-alone.html

            • infuziSporg [e/em/eir]
              ·
              3 years ago

              From my experience, I'm pretty sure no one uses the hand-powered ones more than once or twice before getting sick of them.

  • Dingdangdog [he/him,comrade/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I mean if you have access to power via solar or whatever then computers will still be invaluable in pretty much any society.

  • CyborgMarx [any, any]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I don't know about you but my techno-barbarian warband will need plenty of programmers

  • penguin_von_doom [she/her]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I have been thinking about this recently, and do suspect that there will be some rollback on the use of computers. On one hand they dont use that much power on their own, but on the other, if there is a need to drastically reduce enrgy use, that will mean return to simpler internet, possibly less frequent access and use ...

      • penguin_von_doom [she/her]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Oh, computers are good. And will be incredibly useful. But yes, I do agree that large scale server farms and datacenters will be shut down. But so many of them right now serve little purpose anyway, and you can still run a great internet with probably a fraction of what it is now.

    • furryanarchy [comrade/them,they/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      I don't think so. All this stuff doesn't use that much power. Even data centers don't actually use that much power when you look at how much they serve. It's just so much activity concentrated in such a small space it looks like a lot.