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RobinZ comments on Open Thread, August 2010 - Less Wrong
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Suppose you know from good sources that there is going to be a huge catastrophe in the very near future, which will result in the near-extermination of humanity (but the natural environment will recover more easily). You and a small group of ordinary men and women will have to restart from scratch.
You have a limited time to compile a compendium of knowledge to preserve for the new era. What is the most important knowledge to preserve?
I am humbled by how poorly my own personal knowledge would fare.
In rough order of addition to the corpus of knowledge:
The scientific method.
Basic survival skills (e.g. navigation).
Edit: Basic agriculture (e.g. animal husbandry, crop cultivation).
Calculus.
Classical mechanics.
Basic chemistry.
Basic medicine.
Basic political science.
Basic sanitation!
Yes! Insert sanitation between 3 and 4, and insert construction (e.g. whittling, carpentry, metal casting) between sanitation and 3.
For survival skills, I'd suggest buying this one before the disaster, while there's still internet.