I know it's not GDs forte .

The video below asked an interesting question.

If all items created by humans disappeared today, how long would it take us to get to the level of being able to create an iPhone 13 again?


Rules:
  1:  Anything created by humans is gone (goods, animals, crops, etc).  Knowledge would remain, but only in your head.
  2:  You end up on the ground/water safely (so no dying from falling from a plane, car, etc).
  3:  You have to get civilization to the level that they can create an iPhone 13.

My guess:
  I would guess it would take longer than last time due to most of the easily minable minerals being gone.  You might get some stuff from the mine trails, but everyone won't be concerned with that for a long time as they would have to build up the stone age tools to just survive.  So, it could be 87,000 years or longer.




From the actual video.


17:19
question on the on the blog once um there's a thought experiment um and i
17:24
actually want to hear what you think so if a witch kind of a dickish witch comes around and she says i'm
17:32
gonna cast a spell on all of humanity and all material things that you've
17:37
invented are gonna disappear all at once so suddenly we're all standing there naked
17:42
there's no buildings there's there's there's no cars and boats and ships and no mines nothing
17:49
right it's just the stone age earth and a bunch of naked humans but we're all the same we have the same brain so we
17:54
all know what's going on and we all got a note from her so we understand the deal and she says um she communicated to every human
18:00
here's the deal you lost all your stuff you guys need to make one working iphone
18:06
13. when you make one working iphoto 13 that could pass in the apple store today you
18:11
know in your previous world for an iphone 13 then i will restore everything how long do you think and so everyone
18:17
knows this is this is the mission we're all aware of the mission everyone all humans how long would it take us that's a
18:24
really interesting question so obviously if you do a random selection of 100 or a thousand humans within the population i
18:31
think you're screwed to make that iphone i tend to believe that there's
18:37
fascinating specialization among the human civilization like there's a few hackers out there

as long as it takes me to create an army of workers with LeanBeefPatty.

I am of the opinion that we have had civilizations in our past that have risen and collapsed because of war, disease, natural disaster, or other calamity. If you look at our recorded history which is approximately 6,000 years old then you have a starting point to answer your question.

Things don’t disappear. Matter cannot be created, nor can it be destroyed.

So for this thought experiment to be valid you have to start with deciding it this is a reset to day 1 of humanity, with a perfectly intact world untouched by humans, or are we starting on day 1 following a mass extinction event, in which case there would be remnants and relics.

Taken literally it wouldn't ever recover - all humans are made by humans.

Well.

Humans create humans so...

My answer is never

ETA: 1 minute

My guess: domesticated/domesticable animals (or the lack thereof) would be a bigger issue.

the Black Plague set back society by 400 hundred years.

You should read the manga "Dr. Stone" it's a fun story basically about this very idea

Might take longer than you think with the child morality rates that use to occur (over 40% for under 5) and the mother child birth death rates (8%).

Agree on other civilizations, but they built on top of what they had.

This would start people over at nothing and they would have to re-create everything.

Yep along with all the food that is grown as most have been bred by humans for tens of thousand of years.

Yep, but this is even more drastic.  In this, you would have to start all the way back at the stone age (if you could create it) and move forward from it.

I think there are more tires than doors.

The General series by David Drake and S. M. Sterling covers this.

You make a good point.  You can walk through many old cemetaries and check birth and death dates to confirm some of that.  However, modern man would have a better understanding of avoiding and protecting against the medical threats of the past just because of knowledge.  

Sure, lack of medicines and facilities would drive up the death rate noticeably, but even in a post apocolyptic world, our remnants of past knowledge would help us do a better job of maintaining life...I think.

Think it would take longer than that as we have mined out all the easily mined minerals/ores.

Plus we would have to re-create the stone age to build on up to it.

The question implies I actually have a desire to build back to where we are now. I dont. I dont want to return to this. Its toxic.

And just like that, Tyler was gone.

Covers a little of it, but not as drastic as what the exercise is.

The SafeHold series covers part of it also.

Modern man that would all be naked on the ground with no tools?  How do you treat people when you have nothing?  Washing of hands might help if clean water is available, but how many people know how to survive starting with nothing?

The only remnants allowed would be knowledge in your head.

Might not be possible, all the most easily exploitable deposits of ores and fossil fuels are depleted. Chicken and egg scenario; need advanced tools to reach rich deposits of raw materials, need the raw materials to develop advanced tools

Is this the door vs wheel thing again….

Depends on the treadmill & magnets.

All the buildings are totally gone as is the corn unless you have original seeds that haven't been bred by humans before.

Leather would be possible if you could kill something and then skin it and cure the leather.

Not sure what the "door vs wheel" thing is.

Guess that's true too.  May never rise as far as the last time if everything easily gathered is gone.

It would be far easier the second time around due to the knowledge.

So many things were trial and error, so many deaths due to not understanding what was killing people.

having enough bodies to do the work needed to survive is a big deal.

knowing is half the battel.

for instance I now know about spears, those bars that help you throw them farther, bows and such that can be made with natural materials.
fire, bacteria, how to kill them.

sure I don't have the iron to build a drill, but I understand iron, alloy's steel, and once I get the raw materials, can build it.
I know how to get aluminum out of bauxite. I might not have the tools yet, but I know what tools I need.

now some of it will be those that can connect the dots, vs those that want, like that twilight zone episode where the guy knows starters revolutionize cars, but doesn't know how to build one and the mechanic says sure, everyone knows that, but they can't make one either.
but there are plenty of people that study the history of their field and would be able to help us stand on the shoulders of giants before us, even if the stuff they had doesn't exist anymore.

I would speculate, that you could do it in half the time assuming your knowledge could be recorded and passed down.

OST

I have had this exact same question but never watched a video of anyone discussing it, will return later thanks

Yesterday’s thread about the interwebz argument: are there more wheels or doors in modern life.

Am I the only one who remembers….

Or, was it all just a horrible nightmare?

You're assuming people WANT to rebuild a civilization whose pinnacle of achievement is the iPhone13.

Fight Club quote my dude....

The die off after this event would be pretty crazy.  Would probably be no one left but a few million after a year.

Might even be less than depending on how bad people are fighting over what wildlife/plants remained.

They didn't discuss it much as Lex and Tim never grasped just how hard it would be.

Must have missed it

Ah, been a few years/decades since I watched it.

About 10,000 years if most of the people died as well.

Or, it was my dream….and my nightmare…..

To wonder—are there more wheels or doors in modern life….

How are you going to get the knowledge to the next generation?  No books survive.  You would have to create them.

Everyone is going to be trying to survive and not die, so mostly brainy type guys are probably going to get killed off quickly.  Most of the food supply is gone as humans have bred animals/plants for generations.

Think it will take far longer than that.  Population is going to implode quickly though.

You will have to re-create agriculture and domesticate animals again which isn't going to be quick.

Ok, I’ll play for real.

Longer than it took to get here.

Reasons:

Most of the evolution of technology that got us here is lost.  An easy example is the fact that bronze metallurgy skills were simply lost.

Every time a technology become a couple generations removed from the original technology, the basic skills are lost.

I agree with the mining, but let’s face it—most modern manufacturing are dependent on semiconductors in the chips that control tech.  

Most Americans can’t read cursive nor drive a manual transmission—they aren’t going to reinvent communication satellites.

ETA: do people even remember how to make paper?  A significant number of US pulp mills closed.  Same with coal mines.  Water-powered mills?

There was a sci fi novel along these lines, where every so often there was a repeatable solar event that wiped the alien civilization back to the starting line. They started to catch on and built indestructible libraries to help the civilization restart a bit ahead the next time around.

Like children.

Laughs in Indian subcontinent...

Anathem?

Think they would be doing it on hides for a long time.

It would take longer than a single lifetime to start over from scratch, and the generations that follow will only have known a world without all that shiny cool stuff.

It would take thousands of years to go from the stone age to the space age, just like last time.

Hell, now that I think on it.  What would they even write down?

Advanced math, physics, etc would be worthless as it would take too long to get back to where they would be useful.

Guess you could do something like the Ten Commandments and a bunch of hygiene items.

Maybe some knowledge of mines for later generations, but it would need to be on stone or clay and then maintained.

well buildings and infrastructure would all be gone so it'd be starting from scratch. Without books and reference materials I'd guess 5000 years. I'd also guess 95% of people die.