"Riddley Walker" is a book that's stuck with me for decades. Whenever I see a certain kind of site--most recently, the near-ruin of the New York State Pavilion on the site of the 1964 World's Fair--I think of the book's line: “O what we ben! And what we come to!”
I've also read "Canticle for Lebowitz" but for whatever reason it hasn't stuck with me in the same way.
I like "Riddley Walker" a lot as well. At some point I would like to find the kind of linguist who I can talk to about linguistic drift — e.g., what do models say about how long one might get to a "Riddley Walker" situation after a total collapse... this does not seem to be what most linguistics today work on, however (what killjoys)...
As a language and linguistics nerd I might be able to provide some insights here.
The rate of language change is not easily predictable - there are certainly no "models" you could run like you might simulate a physical process.
The best way to get an idea of the needed timescales would probably be to look back. Take a look at books written in the 19th century, or the 17th, or the 15th; especially books written in dialects. See how far back you need to go before the amount of linguistic difference starts feeling like Riddley Walker.
You'll have to keep in mind that this can only give you a rough estimate since the rate of change is not constant. Compare the massive shifts the English language experienced in 900-1400 to how it changed far less in 1400-2000; or how similar Icelandic still is to Old Norse.
I haven't read Riddley Walker, but from the excerpts I have seen I'd estimate the time depth as less than 1000 years. I can't put a lower limit since we are dealing with dialect and a narrator with limited literacy, not just language change.
The linked “I, Pencil” is of equal interest, as it drives home how much of our (industrial) technology is dependent upon implicitly assumed other tech. Just “bringing along a couple of encyclopaedias in your time machine” wont suffice to build a civilisation from scratch. Not to HG Wells’ Eloi (in The Time Machine), not to Jonathan Hickman’s Holy Roman Empire (in Pax Romana).
We *used* to have a literary adventure subgenre, exemplified by Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, focused on how Man can tame Nature/Adversity through Tech.
We would probably call it “PrepperPunk” today. And while it’s extremely popular as a gaming genre, mixing crafting, survival, resource management, etc… (eg Minecraft), very few “hard” post-apocalyptical novels have been able to (re)imagine how fast/slow we could (re)construct society “from scratch” (nor wether we would even *want* to).
*nods* I have tried to explain just that many, many times. Knowing that you can just keep testing molds and eventually discover penicillin isn't the same as knowing how to produce the laboratory equipment and setting required to do so. Certainly, you can eventually work it out, but doing so is very much a non trivial project on it's own. It's turtles all the way down.
And 'working it out' absolutely requires a civilization with sufficient surplus to free up the labor and material goods to do so. So, if you're starting with a medieval culture, you've got a *lot* of work ahead of you just to get the point where you can *start* setting up to hunt for penicillin.
The work setting up the necessary social and economic structures is of course a whole 'nother ball of wax.
It doesn't help that most of that work is of low or indeterminate status. To wield that surplus you'll need a place of power.
It reminds me of people wondering what role they'd have in ancient times, and most people who mention some form of skill could usually be captured in the category "slave" if they aren't going about it in the right way.
Very few would be time travelers think of anything but the technology. They don't really think of the economic/social/legal/(many more) structures that enable the development and use of the technology.
They've grown up in what we'd call the middle class, and most in more-or-less democratic and capitalist societies, and take that for granted.
A common claim by the "we never landed on the Moon" conspiracists is that "If we went to the Moon in the 60s, why can't we do it again today?".
Besides the lack of budget and political will, the reasons are exactly the lack of tacit knowledge that you describe. Even if the blueprints and plans existed perfectly, the alloys, tooling, computers, and more used back then no longer exist.
This is why it must all be reinvented (or at least re-engineered) today.
I wonder if there are any nuclear weapon conspiracies of a similar vein.
Years ago I was lucky enough to get a close look at the injector plate of a Saturn F1 engine and what I saw in terms of hand fabrication was staggering on that one part alone and never mind the rest of the engine. I suppose that it would be possible to build something like that today in that way but Would we do it that way? Probably not for the reasons that you mentioned.
Hehir must be a fan of Joe Haldeman's novel "The Forever War" given his remark about the Church's desire to plan for the(very) long haul. The main character of the book, a survivor named William Mandella, questioned the high command in the book about his allotment of soldiers and complains that due to the extreme effects of time dialation on the progress of the war, many serving under him likely hadn't even been born yet. Star Commands response to Mandella's complaint is nearly identical to Herir's comment given that it said that "Star Command PLANS in terms of centurys,...." .
Heh, the discussion around "tacit knowledge" reminds me of a story from early on in the history of nuclear weapons...
"Given a lack of plutonium for MK IIIs, Groves thought he might need to rely on the less efficient “Little Boy” design of uranium weapons if the need arose.109 However, those who remained at Los Alamos had no exact record of the design for “Little Boy,” as it was such an experimental design.110 In order to solve this problem, some of the original machinists were located to find out a particular component’s specification. In one instance, the machinist confessed that he had no drawing for the specific part they were asking about. He admitted that he determined the size of the part by winding it around a Coke bottle!"
-Bigger Bombs for a Brighter Tomorrow: The Strategic Air Command and American War Plans at the Dawn of the Atomic Age, 1945-1950, John M. Curatola
Heh, the discussion around "tacit knowledge" reminds me of a story from early on in the history of nuclear weapons...
"Given a lack of plutonium for MK IIIs, Groves thought he might need to rely on the less efficient “Little Boy” design of uranium weapons if the need arose.109 However, those who remained at Los Alamos had no exact record of the design for “Little Boy,” as it was such an experimental design.110 In order to solve this problem, some of the original machinists were located to find out a particular component’s specification. In one instance, the machinist confessed that he had no drawing for the specific part they were asking about. He admitted that he determined the size of the part by winding it around a Coke bottle!"
-Bigger Bombs for a Brighter Tomorrow: The Strategic Air Command and American War Plans at the Dawn of the Atomic Age, 1945-1950, John M. Curatola
How could you forget Tim Curry and Andrew Divoff using a time machine built by Peter Stormare to kill Einstein and atomic weapons never being invented in Red Alert 3?
Missing from this discussion is something of a continent spanning herd of elephants... It could be said that we didn't actually invent nuclear weapons, at least not in the same way we invented bicycles or pencils. We discovered them, in the same way and the same sense that we discovered fire. Combustion and fission are both woven into the fundamental warp and weft of the universe.
You could snap your fingers and erase all the humans and all their artifacts from the solar system... And flint, iron, and uranium 235 would still be here, awaiting the rise of a new species of sophont.
Oppenheimer, as you know, proposed "denaturing" bomb-grade uranium, as part of his plan for the international control of atomic energy. He explained the concept to Rabi in early 1947, when the two were in Rabi's Riverside Drive apartment, looking at the setting sun turning ice on the river below pink. Rabi blamed Oppie for spoiling the moment. As he--and Oppenheimer--knew, HEU could be "renatured" as well.
However, it's worth pointing out that "renaturing" it is a non trivial task that's much more difficult than "denaturing". It's akin to a lock, it simply serves to keep honest people honest, but it's a heck of a lot better than nothing.
Thank you once again for your excellent work. This piece was not up to your usual high standard. I hope you do not mind my being so frank. I'm worried your recent move has delivered challenges.
I pray this is not so, and it was an aberration. And you will proceed as normal.
Interesting, thought-provoking post.
"Riddley Walker" is a book that's stuck with me for decades. Whenever I see a certain kind of site--most recently, the near-ruin of the New York State Pavilion on the site of the 1964 World's Fair--I think of the book's line: “O what we ben! And what we come to!”
I've also read "Canticle for Lebowitz" but for whatever reason it hasn't stuck with me in the same way.
I like "Riddley Walker" a lot as well. At some point I would like to find the kind of linguist who I can talk to about linguistic drift — e.g., what do models say about how long one might get to a "Riddley Walker" situation after a total collapse... this does not seem to be what most linguistics today work on, however (what killjoys)...
As a language and linguistics nerd I might be able to provide some insights here.
The rate of language change is not easily predictable - there are certainly no "models" you could run like you might simulate a physical process.
The best way to get an idea of the needed timescales would probably be to look back. Take a look at books written in the 19th century, or the 17th, or the 15th; especially books written in dialects. See how far back you need to go before the amount of linguistic difference starts feeling like Riddley Walker.
You'll have to keep in mind that this can only give you a rough estimate since the rate of change is not constant. Compare the massive shifts the English language experienced in 900-1400 to how it changed far less in 1400-2000; or how similar Icelandic still is to Old Norse.
I haven't read Riddley Walker, but from the excerpts I have seen I'd estimate the time depth as less than 1000 years. I can't put a lower limit since we are dealing with dialect and a narrator with limited literacy, not just language change.
Fascinating insights, reminding me of a piece of media of POST-apocalyptical bent:
Thomas Thwaites’ “Toaster” art project, which demonstrates how much tacit AND explicit technology we take for granted.
https://www.thomasthwaites.com/the-toaster-project/
The linked “I, Pencil” is of equal interest, as it drives home how much of our (industrial) technology is dependent upon implicitly assumed other tech. Just “bringing along a couple of encyclopaedias in your time machine” wont suffice to build a civilisation from scratch. Not to HG Wells’ Eloi (in The Time Machine), not to Jonathan Hickman’s Holy Roman Empire (in Pax Romana).
We *used* to have a literary adventure subgenre, exemplified by Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, focused on how Man can tame Nature/Adversity through Tech.
We would probably call it “PrepperPunk” today. And while it’s extremely popular as a gaming genre, mixing crafting, survival, resource management, etc… (eg Minecraft), very few “hard” post-apocalyptical novels have been able to (re)imagine how fast/slow we could (re)construct society “from scratch” (nor wether we would even *want* to).
*nods* I have tried to explain just that many, many times. Knowing that you can just keep testing molds and eventually discover penicillin isn't the same as knowing how to produce the laboratory equipment and setting required to do so. Certainly, you can eventually work it out, but doing so is very much a non trivial project on it's own. It's turtles all the way down.
And 'working it out' absolutely requires a civilization with sufficient surplus to free up the labor and material goods to do so. So, if you're starting with a medieval culture, you've got a *lot* of work ahead of you just to get the point where you can *start* setting up to hunt for penicillin.
The work setting up the necessary social and economic structures is of course a whole 'nother ball of wax.
It doesn't help that most of that work is of low or indeterminate status. To wield that surplus you'll need a place of power.
It reminds me of people wondering what role they'd have in ancient times, and most people who mention some form of skill could usually be captured in the category "slave" if they aren't going about it in the right way.
Very few would be time travelers think of anything but the technology. They don't really think of the economic/social/legal/(many more) structures that enable the development and use of the technology.
They've grown up in what we'd call the middle class, and most in more-or-less democratic and capitalist societies, and take that for granted.
They have the standard Connecticut Yankee isekai story at best.
This also dovetails with the work done to try to figure out how to warn people about places storing nuclear waste https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_nuclear_waste_warning_messages
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/distant-future-warnings-the-challenges-of-communicating-with-eternity-1.4158805
I always liked the phrase "We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture"
On the idea of definitively losing technologies, see also https://www.hopefulmons.com/p/we-rarely-lose-technology
I'm also compiling my own list that has a few additional ones.
A common claim by the "we never landed on the Moon" conspiracists is that "If we went to the Moon in the 60s, why can't we do it again today?".
Besides the lack of budget and political will, the reasons are exactly the lack of tacit knowledge that you describe. Even if the blueprints and plans existed perfectly, the alloys, tooling, computers, and more used back then no longer exist.
This is why it must all be reinvented (or at least re-engineered) today.
I wonder if there are any nuclear weapon conspiracies of a similar vein.
Definately.
Years ago I was lucky enough to get a close look at the injector plate of a Saturn F1 engine and what I saw in terms of hand fabrication was staggering on that one part alone and never mind the rest of the engine. I suppose that it would be possible to build something like that today in that way but Would we do it that way? Probably not for the reasons that you mentioned.
Hehir must be a fan of Joe Haldeman's novel "The Forever War" given his remark about the Church's desire to plan for the(very) long haul. The main character of the book, a survivor named William Mandella, questioned the high command in the book about his allotment of soldiers and complains that due to the extreme effects of time dialation on the progress of the war, many serving under him likely hadn't even been born yet. Star Commands response to Mandella's complaint is nearly identical to Herir's comment given that it said that "Star Command PLANS in terms of centurys,...." .
Heh, the discussion around "tacit knowledge" reminds me of a story from early on in the history of nuclear weapons...
"Given a lack of plutonium for MK IIIs, Groves thought he might need to rely on the less efficient “Little Boy” design of uranium weapons if the need arose.109 However, those who remained at Los Alamos had no exact record of the design for “Little Boy,” as it was such an experimental design.110 In order to solve this problem, some of the original machinists were located to find out a particular component’s specification. In one instance, the machinist confessed that he had no drawing for the specific part they were asking about. He admitted that he determined the size of the part by winding it around a Coke bottle!"
-Bigger Bombs for a Brighter Tomorrow: The Strategic Air Command and American War Plans at the Dawn of the Atomic Age, 1945-1950, John M. Curatola
Heh, the discussion around "tacit knowledge" reminds me of a story from early on in the history of nuclear weapons...
"Given a lack of plutonium for MK IIIs, Groves thought he might need to rely on the less efficient “Little Boy” design of uranium weapons if the need arose.109 However, those who remained at Los Alamos had no exact record of the design for “Little Boy,” as it was such an experimental design.110 In order to solve this problem, some of the original machinists were located to find out a particular component’s specification. In one instance, the machinist confessed that he had no drawing for the specific part they were asking about. He admitted that he determined the size of the part by winding it around a Coke bottle!"
-Bigger Bombs for a Brighter Tomorrow: The Strategic Air Command and American War Plans at the Dawn of the Atomic Age, 1945-1950, John M. Curatola
How could you forget Tim Curry and Andrew Divoff using a time machine built by Peter Stormare to kill Einstein and atomic weapons never being invented in Red Alert 3?
As an aside: This is probably the funniest cover for A Canticle for Leibowitz. But the prettiest one is no doubt: https://www.foliosociety.com/row/a-canticle-for-leibowitz-core?srsltid=AfmBOoo9xTeJH1kfRy2tcCxwt2wWACsR_C5a3dhbr-_KHMq3vunX_-J9
Missing from this discussion is something of a continent spanning herd of elephants... It could be said that we didn't actually invent nuclear weapons, at least not in the same way we invented bicycles or pencils. We discovered them, in the same way and the same sense that we discovered fire. Combustion and fission are both woven into the fundamental warp and weft of the universe.
You could snap your fingers and erase all the humans and all their artifacts from the solar system... And flint, iron, and uranium 235 would still be here, awaiting the rise of a new species of sophont.
Oppenheimer, as you know, proposed "denaturing" bomb-grade uranium, as part of his plan for the international control of atomic energy. He explained the concept to Rabi in early 1947, when the two were in Rabi's Riverside Drive apartment, looking at the setting sun turning ice on the river below pink. Rabi blamed Oppie for spoiling the moment. As he--and Oppenheimer--knew, HEU could be "renatured" as well.
However, it's worth pointing out that "renaturing" it is a non trivial task that's much more difficult than "denaturing". It's akin to a lock, it simply serves to keep honest people honest, but it's a heck of a lot better than nothing.
Good article as usual. On a side note, though, "tacit" doesn't mean "tactile", but "wordless".
Thank you once again for your excellent work. This piece was not up to your usual high standard. I hope you do not mind my being so frank. I'm worried your recent move has delivered challenges.
I pray this is not so, and it was an aberration. And you will proceed as normal.