Quote:
Originally Posted by dadioflex
@elfwreak - that variety of non-dingbat post-apocalyptic fiction, would probably not be that dissimilar to every day life in a developing country.
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I agree. The big difference is the amazing collection of resources that no developing country's ever had. They'd have easy access to glass windows, plastic containers, copper wire, steel rods in what would seem like infinite amounts (even if the people know that's not true), and a huge amount of medical and scientific knowledge that most developing societies don't have access to--germ theory, understanding of fertility, CPR techniques, understanding of electricity, sound theory, and so on.
The very poor wouldn't sleep in wooden shacks; they'd sleep in gutted cars. And they would, at least theoretically, know to boil water before using it to clean wounds.
The reason there were no microscopes in 1200 C.E. is that they didn't know it was worth building them, not that they couldn't make lenses that small or accurate. (Not that the hypothetical post-apoc society would need to make them; we'll have all the technological equipment we can use for decades, maybe centuries. Research labs aren't going to be high on the list of places to loot for survival supplies.) The reasons there were no guns is that nobody had figured out how to make them; even after the factories shut down, black powder & shot will be widely available. Penicillin can be made from blue bread mold, once you know what it does. And so on.
I love the idea of stories set in a low-tech society with the remnants of high-tech resources.