It goes way beyond technology and science.
Universal human rights, principles of a functioning state and legal system: equality before law, some basic laws, principles of democracy (secret voting, party systems etc), Montesquieu's separation of powers...
Paper-making and the printing press, so that whatever knowledge survived could continue to be passed on. Undoubtedly there would be significant local evolution of language if we lose electronic mass communication, so it will be essential to preserve the use of Latin as a stable language across space and time, giving us access to the Bible and the classics as well as the ability to write a letter to a neighboring kingdom. Hopefully, literacy would enable our children to receive and apply knowledge of the virtues of prudence, temperance, fortitude and justice, faith, hope, and charity.
Other than that, we'll need knowledge of food production, food preservation, as well as tool creation (i.e. blacksmithing) and construction based on locally available materials. The only tricky thing here is the "locally available materials" issue. I live in the desert. Would I be able to grow enough food on my land here if the city water were shut off?
If only there was a civilization of people who lived in that desert before the technological revolution who could provide an example for how to survive in that climate.
Doesn't any civilization-ending apocalypse, if human-precipitated, necessarily imply that any of the political and moral dimensions of other comments are a waste of time?
What good is handing down our political thinking to a new society if it failed to protect our "advanced" one?
What good is handing down technology (including stuff like fire and domestication of animals) if it's going to be subject to the old-school rule 34 (if it exists, it will be weaponized)?
I think you are reading "civilisation" to mean "the current way our society works" including the virtuous aspects as well as the heathen barbarity of the modern age. Let us hope instead that when the OP asks for a "civilisation cheat sheet", he means to find methods to transmit the "civilised" ideal rather than the disappointing status quo.
What I am saying is there is no way to pry them apart. There is no lens through which you can look at any aspect of human history and disambiguate the "good civilization" from the "bad civilization" without that lens having been created by the same civilization itself, which is -- a priori based on the assumption in the question -- doomed.
*I suppose you could make a case by looking at various extinct civilizations other than ours.
This is akin to saying that reason is impossible because man is fallen. We know a great deal that we don't consistently practice about morality, justice, virtue, and so on. Our descendants may be fallen people, too, but we can certainly do our best to teach them the best that we know.
Looking at your top-level answer, without wanting to be unduly argumentative, it's certainly reasonable to argue that the classics and the Bible have -- more than most other "knowledge" -- to date failed to save us from ourselves. They've been around thousands of years, and we still have massive poverty, greed, inequality, injustice, war, exploitation of natural resources at the expense of public health, etc. etc.
Inanimate objects cannot "save us from ourselves" but can only provide the equipment for us to use, if we choose to use it. Do you suggest that our descendants will be better off with no knowledge of virtue, philosophy, or justice?
Are you then one of those Utopians who thinks that human nature is perfect, but "society" is corrupt and to blame for all the problems? On the contrary, it is human nature itself (at least since we were kicked out of Eden) which is fallen, greedy, unjust, etc. You cannot solve mankind's problems by burning the libraries. Instead, we must look into the libraries for wisdom that may help us.
For example, Federalist 51: It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
I believe society is a reflection of human nature.
Setting aside your utopian strawman, if your argument is going to based on historical timelines starting with when "we were kicked out of Eden", I suspect we're not going to find much common ground on history, philosophy, or morals anyway.
The original question was, what should we leave behind to future. I think ultimately it's a great question, and a great debate. Let's agree to disagree on our approaches to it.
It is not a straw man. You argue that we can transmit nothing (at least nothing in the way of knowledge of truth) to the future generations who will rebuild civilization after some sort of disaster. You base this claim on an argument that civilization is genetically flawed: all of our philosophy and knowledge (with the corollary that no part can be separated from the whole) is in your view either (a) the cause of our downfall or (b) useless in preventing it.
If (a) then you are a Utopian who believes that evil is to be blamed on history or society and not men themselves. If (b) then it seems you are a fatalist who believes that there is no hope for the hypothetical survivors anyway. I don't think (b) is the case because you now mention that you have an "approach" to the problem. It is clear that we disagree on our "approaches", but what is your approach? If you believe (a), then it seems the wisest approach would be to try to keep the surviving children untainted by words or thoughts from adults who remember the cataclysm, in hopes that the new generation will start from scratch. Am I wrong?
The only point I am making is not, as you assume, that all of our philosophy and knowledge is useless, nor that no part can be separated from the whole.
My point is that we don't know which part is useful and which part isn't, and to presume otherwise -- ie to believe that we can effectively, if you will, "play God" with some future society after we've blown this one up -- is hubris (not to mention likely contraindicated in the Bible somewhere).
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 79.8 ms ] threaddo not kill each other, do not fight each other. Things are already bad enough. Because that one fails we gonna start at square one.
Leave the water, land is kinda ok.
language as ability to communicate to each other
teaching as transfer of knowledge between individuals
written language as conversation / fixation of knowledge
fire, the wheel
agriculture cultivation and crossbreeding, fertilizer and plowing
domestication of animals, breeding
scientific method: logic axioms, proof by induction, theory must be falsifiable by repeatable experiment, basic algorithms of computer science
scientific knowledge: math, physics, chemistry
medicine & hygiene
engineering how to build basic machines
social and cultural foundations:
there is no benevolent dictator,
most likely i am not right and don't have ultimate wisdom,
i do not know what the one true religion is,
to much power in to few hands is very very bad,
the people who claim to have the answers are the dangerous ones
my enemies enemy is not my friend but a tool which might trouble me in the future
things we really messed up: when, why, how and how to avoid next time
would have been nice had the dinosaurs taken the time to leave us a couple notes...
So, how to communicate our knowledge to the roaches, our heirs ?
Other than that, we'll need knowledge of food production, food preservation, as well as tool creation (i.e. blacksmithing) and construction based on locally available materials. The only tricky thing here is the "locally available materials" issue. I live in the desert. Would I be able to grow enough food on my land here if the city water were shut off?
What good is handing down our political thinking to a new society if it failed to protect our "advanced" one?
What good is handing down technology (including stuff like fire and domestication of animals) if it's going to be subject to the old-school rule 34 (if it exists, it will be weaponized)?
*I suppose you could make a case by looking at various extinct civilizations other than ours.
Looking at your top-level answer, without wanting to be unduly argumentative, it's certainly reasonable to argue that the classics and the Bible have -- more than most other "knowledge" -- to date failed to save us from ourselves. They've been around thousands of years, and we still have massive poverty, greed, inequality, injustice, war, exploitation of natural resources at the expense of public health, etc. etc.
Are you then one of those Utopians who thinks that human nature is perfect, but "society" is corrupt and to blame for all the problems? On the contrary, it is human nature itself (at least since we were kicked out of Eden) which is fallen, greedy, unjust, etc. You cannot solve mankind's problems by burning the libraries. Instead, we must look into the libraries for wisdom that may help us.
For example, Federalist 51: It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
Setting aside your utopian strawman, if your argument is going to based on historical timelines starting with when "we were kicked out of Eden", I suspect we're not going to find much common ground on history, philosophy, or morals anyway.
The original question was, what should we leave behind to future. I think ultimately it's a great question, and a great debate. Let's agree to disagree on our approaches to it.
If (a) then you are a Utopian who believes that evil is to be blamed on history or society and not men themselves. If (b) then it seems you are a fatalist who believes that there is no hope for the hypothetical survivors anyway. I don't think (b) is the case because you now mention that you have an "approach" to the problem. It is clear that we disagree on our "approaches", but what is your approach? If you believe (a), then it seems the wisest approach would be to try to keep the surviving children untainted by words or thoughts from adults who remember the cataclysm, in hopes that the new generation will start from scratch. Am I wrong?
My point is that we don't know which part is useful and which part isn't, and to presume otherwise -- ie to believe that we can effectively, if you will, "play God" with some future society after we've blown this one up -- is hubris (not to mention likely contraindicated in the Bible somewhere).