I don’t think I am. I’m saying that technological advance is much easier in a society with good infrastructure, and that that infrastructure may depend on having lots of reasonably cheap energy.
Scale.
Is your society 7 billion or 10 million? 10 million people can rebuild much of high-tech civilization and they won’t need a lot oil to do that. And then, of course, you go into a positive feedback cycle.
So. I ask: how many people does it take, as a minimum, to maintain our current level of technological civilization?
In the collapse-and-rebuild scenario you don’t need to “maintain the current level” right away. For example, you don’t need to be able to immediately build contemporary computer-controlled cars. The fully-mechanical cars of the XX century would do fine, for a while. All you need to do is have enough technology to not get stuck in a local minimum and get the positive feedback loop going. That’s a much easier task.
Of course by the time you’re done with the rebuild, your 10m people will multiply :-)
Scale.
Is your society 7 billion or 10 million? 10 million people can rebuild much of high-tech civilization and they won’t need a lot oil to do that. And then, of course, you go into a positive feedback cycle.
How sure are you of that? Here is a contrary opinion.
He answers a different question:
In the collapse-and-rebuild scenario you don’t need to “maintain the current level” right away. For example, you don’t need to be able to immediately build contemporary computer-controlled cars. The fully-mechanical cars of the XX century would do fine, for a while. All you need to do is have enough technology to not get stuck in a local minimum and get the positive feedback loop going. That’s a much easier task.
Of course by the time you’re done with the rebuild, your 10m people will multiply :-)
I’m really not sure it is.