Starting with nothing more than two rocks in a forest, this is an incredible example of building from scratch. Using a stone axe, watch how to fell sapling trees, gather strong vines and construct a strong frame to then fill-in the walls with wattle and daub for a shelter.
Want to read more about the behind-the-scenes fundamentals of how our modern world works, and how you could reboot civilisation if you ever needed to...? Check out The Knowledge - available now in paperback, Kindle and audiobook.
During the Canada-US book tour in March of this year I stopped by the University of Waterloo in Ontario, hosted by the Waterloo Institute for Complexity and Innovation (WICI). I had a few meetings and seminars on how to use the research material in The Knowledge in an innovative course on the history of civilisation and development of technological capability, and also delivered an evening public talk at The Museum. The Museum has a wonderful central atrium where I spoke, with a huge Tyrannosaurs Rex model towering over me and pterodactyl swooping down from the ceiling three floors above! Here’s the video of the event.
The Knowledge: How To Rebuild Our World From Scratch – WICI Talk with Lewis Dartnell from Waterloo Complexity Institute on Vimeo.
Want to read more about the behind-the-scenes fundamentals of how our modern world works, and how you could reboot civilisation if you ever needed to...? Check out The Knowledge - available now in paperback, Kindle and audiobook.
I was absolutely thrilled to be invited to talk about The Knowledge at the Hay Festival this year. The event sold-out and the audience were absolutely wonderful – plenty of interesting discussion for the last 20 minutes. But just as much fun, the publishers worked with a creative agency to put together a publicity stunt in and around the town and festival, based on the premise of the book. A rapid response team, complete with a biohazard container and dressed up in hazmat suits, distributed flyers and copies of the book. Here are some of the pictures tweeted by the surprised public.
Thought I was gonna get some meth, ended up with a free book! #TheKnowledge pic.twitter.com/L62uBuzH1x
— Ric Yarborough (@RicDrummer) May 26, 2015
Want to read more about the behind-the-scenes fundamentals of how our modern world works, and how you could reboot civilisation if you ever needed to...? Check out The Knowledge - available now in paperback, Kindle and audiobook.
The New York Post has run a fun feature on The Knowledge. The article, which was printed in the Sunday paper on 5th April, explains how to survive the urban jungle if society collapses, and how to begin rebooting civilisation from scratch. Click the image below to enlarge for reading.
Want to read more about the behind-the-scenes fundamentals of how our modern world works, and how you could reboot civilisation if you ever needed to...? Check out The Knowledge - available now in paperback, Kindle and audiobook.
Read this sobering and though-provoking cartoon on The Nib by Mike Dawson. ‘The Breakdown’ is about how we imagine the apocalypse in films and sci-fi novels, compared to the reality for the rest of the world that is already upon us today.
“For them, the collapse happened long ago.”
See the full cartoon here, and definitely read to the end!
Want to read more about the behind-the-scenes fundamentals of how our modern world works, and how you could reboot civilisation if you ever needed to...? Check out The Knowledge - available now in paperback, Kindle and audiobook.
To celebrate the paperback publication of The Knowledge, the UK publishers Vintage are running a prize give-away!
THE WORLD HAS ENDED!
Sorry, I meant to put the word ‘Imagine’ at the beginning of that sentence. Panic over.
But imagine if it had. Maybe a viral pandemic, an asteroid strike, or perhaps nuclear war. Maybe even a zombie apocalypse. Whatever the cause, the world as we know it has ended and you and the other survivors must start again. What key knowledge would you need to start rebuilding civilisation from scratch? Once you’ve scavenged what you can, how do you begin producing the essentials? How do you grow food, generate power, prepare medicines, or get metal out of rocks? Could you avert another Dark Ages or take shortcuts to accelerate redevelopment?
That’s why you need The Knowledge by Lewis Dartnell, a book which explains everything you need to know about everything.
Obviously you’d save a copy of The Knowledge in the event of a catastrophe…! But what Vintage want to know is: What other book would you save if you could only grab one as you fled to the bunker?
To enter the give-away, email your answer to vintagebooks@randomhouse.co.uk with ABOOKALYPSE! in the subject line. See the Vintage competition website for full details. And you could win this amazing survival kit from The Bushcraft Store.
The Survival Store’s Small Ultimate Survival Kit contains:
Want to read more about the behind-the-scenes fundamentals of how our modern world works, and how you could reboot civilisation if you ever needed to...? Check out The Knowledge - available now in paperback, Kindle and audiobook.
I was thrilled to have been invited to deliver a mainstage TED talk about the thought experiment behind The Knowledge and exploring the behind-the-scenes fundamentals of how our world works and what enabled civilisation to progress through history. TED have written a blogpost of the talk, and you can watch the video online here.
The gasifier stove demo worked well, almost too well, and came alarmingly close to all the hairspray they’d put on my head…
Want to read more about the behind-the-scenes fundamentals of how our modern world works, and how you could reboot civilisation if you ever needed to...? Check out The Knowledge - available now in paperback, Kindle and audiobook.
The starting point for The Knowledge is a global catastrophe that destroys our technological civilisation and forces survivors to start again from scratch. Such a possible eventuality offers a superb scenario for exploring the behind-the-scenes fundamentals of how our modern world actually works, and how it progressed and developed over centuries and millennia of history. Whilst researching for the book, and continuing still on the web Discussion board after its publication, I’ve had many fascinating and informative conversations with people who’ve been thinking about similar topics for far longer that I have.
There is a large community around the world making active preparations for disaster; people who identify as preppers or survivalists. Of course, aspects of this movement cover a wide spectrum.
On one hand are everyday people living in regions vulnerable to natural disasters, such as the earthquakes near San Francisco, taking precautions like keeping a few days-worth of canned food, bottled water and battery-powered lights to wait-out at home a blackout or temporary disruption of other public utilities, or else preparing a bug-out bag to escape the city at the early warning signs.
On the other extreme are those who anticipate global catastrophe within their lifetimes; some moving to isolated, fortified compounds and devoting their life savings to stockpiling consumables and weapons to protect their families from looters after societal collapse. Unsurprisingly, it is this tail of the distribution that TV shows like Doomsday Preppers tend to focus on, but preppers in fact include an enormous range of people with different lifestyles and motivations.
And the movement has been going for a long time, building in waves in response to world events, as this guest post from Chris Ruiz charts.
Interest in prepping has been on a steady rise over the past few years. This is not to say that the idea of preparedness never existed before. People have been actively preparing for emergencies, including possibly life-threatening disruptions, since the first nomadic clan decided to raise crops instead of hunt and gather. In this article we will look at 3 major waves of interest in preparedness from recent history. This will give us context for where we are today and show that being prepared is a well-worn road, not just some new fad based on some questionable reality shows on television.
Want to read more about the behind-the-scenes fundamentals of how our modern world works, and how you could reboot civilisation if you ever needed to...? Check out The Knowledge - available now in paperback, Kindle and audiobook.
