It seems likely to me that almost all useful human knowledge would survive a nuclear war.

Except the day to day expertise in running and functioning in the current complex society, and the well-known and well-accepted boundaries between different power groups. I think we tend to underestimate the importance of that knowledge.

Plus knowledge is useless without an ideology that can sift the good from the bad with accepatable accuracy. And such ideologies may be in short suply after a nuclear war.

Eliezer: Great post. I hadn't known of Petrov before.

Like some brain-dead AOLer, all I can say is: me too.