Today's excerpt begins on page 484 of The Survivor Volume 2.
Western civilization doesn’t have to blow itself up to tear itself down, according to Roberto Vacca.
In his book "The Coming Dark Age" the University of Rome electronics and computer expert predicts a massive breakdown of our enormously complex technological systems between 1985 and 1995 — a “knockout" resulting in a return to a primitive way of life.
The quality that set Vacca’s book apart from many Prophet-of-Doom manifestos is the logic with which he describes not only the coming technological collapse but also the aftermath.
In the following excerpt, "Preview of Life In the Coming Dark Age", he speculates on the problems facing the survivors of a catastrophe we may not be able to avoid.
By ROBERTO VACCA
It is not necessary for a few kilomegatons of hydrogen bombs to explode for hundreds of millions of people to be killed.
The same result may occur by less violent and more intricate means: that is, by virtue of the fact that vast concentrations of human beings are involved in systems that are now so complicated that they are becoming uncontrollable.
This hypothesis of an apocalypse that is impersonal, casual, and unpremeditated is more tragic than the other.
My thesis is that our great technological systems of human organization and association are continuously outgrowing ordered control: they are now reaching critical dimensions of instability.
As yet, a crisis in a single system would not be enough to bring a great metropolitan concentration to a halt.
But a chance concomitance of stoppages in the same area could start a catastrophic process that would paralyze the most developed societies will lead to the deaths of millions of people.
One cannot demonstrate a priori, of course, that a chance coincidence of events decline, congestion, and slowdown must lead inevitably to disaster, not at least, in a developlng situation such as I describe.
It seems very likely, however, that the most developed nations we on the way toward breakdown on a large scale.
Countries that are less advanced than others (rather on the way to modernity, or still underdeveloped, or just backward) will only be involved in the crisis to a marginal extent.
Seventy per cent of the population of the world will not be much injured by the first wave of destruction.
On the other hand, the more advanced nations will be more vulnerable to harm that will accompany the breakdown of the great systems: in the dark age that would follow, their total population might be halved.
Since these nations would include Europe and the Soviet Union, North America and Japan, some 900 million people would be involved, or about 30 per cent of the present population of the world
The death of 450 million people in the world's most developed countries would mean that scientific development, technological research, large undertakings in civil engineering, industrial mass production ac low cost, the whale organizing and directive structures that function in modem society, would come to a complete stop.
Along with a certain setback that the countries of the Third World would suffer, there would be grave secondary consequences: manufactured goods, finished and durable products, medicines, production facilities and managerial know-how previously supplied by the more advanced nations all would be missing.
There is one fact that will bring notable relief to many survivors, the grim problems facing chem will at least be completely different from those that have been tormenting them in past years.
The problems of an advanced civilization will be replaced by those proper to a primitive civilization, and it is probable that the majority of survivors may be made up of people particularly adapted to passing quickly from a sophisticated to a primitive type of existence.
The first benefit to be enjoyed by the survivors will be the end of congestion: there will be too few people left in circulation to cause any congestion at all.
One must point out, however, that many who now deplore the oppression, injustice, and intrinsic ugliness of life in a technically advanced and congested society win decide that things were better when they were worse; and they will discover that to do without the functions proper to the great systems — without telephone, electric light, car, letters, telegrams — is all very well for a week or so, but that it is not amusing as a way of life.
To some of the survivors it will be an obvious advantage that so many durable goods will be available in excess of demand.
The death of the greater part of a city's population will make houses and dwellings of all types available far in excess of need.
If, before the knockout (KO), there had been on an average one car to every two inhabitants of a city, after the KO there will be some two or three cars per head, and for a time the survivors will be able to satisfy their transportation needs simply by using one of the many abandoned vehicles.
The car Industry will disappear.
Later, when old cars have been used up and there are no new ones, abandoned cars will be the obvious source of spare parts, until new needs begin to renew industrial production.
Then, production will be on a small artisan scale, fulfilling small commissions or making single parts.
Buildings will show a similar gradual breakdown — an initial superabundance resulting in the disappearance of building as a great industry.
A small number of people, forced to rely on themselves, will be unequal to the adequate maintenance of the buildings they are using; and they will give no attention at all to those they are not using.
Empty buildings will be raided for fixtures or odd pieces having some structural value, and this, along with damage due to weather, will cause collapses.
These will bring down other inhabited buildings.
In the long run. therefore, houses will be much scarcer than they were before the KO, and new ruins will become a typical feature of the urban landscape.
Ancient and noble ruins will be covered and obliterated by new ones in accordance with a process that was familiar in the former Dark Ages.
Vandalism will add to collapse and destruction in cities, and inasmuch as it will not cause direct harm, it will not be punished, but will be one of the few entertainments still available to the young.
After the KO, during the original Dark Ages, the distinction between new and secondhand objects will lose the great importance that it has present.
The only distinction will be between things that are effectively usable and those that are broken and beyond repair.
Again, this will happen at first because of the availability of many secondhand things in good condition.
Then new objects will become extremely rare, so that there will no longer be anything derogatory about the term "used."
Further, new products will often be of much poorer quality than used products made of better material and in accordance with finer methods of production.
Before the KO the standard of living reached by a large number of people in the advanced nations made it respectable for them to buy books and antiques secondhand, but certainly not clothes: to acquire a used garment was almost unthinkable.
After the KO used clothes would not only be bought or bartered, they would be heirlooms.
One hopes that at least this new state of things will gratify today’s detractors of consumerism and all who are annoyed (perhaps not unreasonably) that fashion should be so powerful in the field of consumer goods.
A very severe restriction of the movement and use of cars will follow from the scarce and irregular availability of oil products and gasoline.
As a consequence, journeys for pleasure will become very rare and will be reserved for the powerful or for tramps who will have to go long distances on foot.
There will be a large increase in the percentage of people who have never moved from the place where they were born, neither for work, nor for sight seeing, nor for any other reason.
The scarcity of travelers will provide opportunity for the revival of brigandage.
Pilgrimage will be the motive for undertaking fairly long gurneys.
Indeed, we may expect that the new dark age will favor the revival of a religiosity as simple as it will be widespread, and expressed in forms that today are unforeseeable.
In the field of economic relationships an important element in the modern consumer structure that will be missing at once is credit.
In conditions of extreme instability, no one could possibly give x creditor meaningful guarantees of future payment with interest.
It is very likely that at first all forms of money will lose whatever value they have and that exchanges will be solely by barter.
There intrinsic rarity will suffice to keep gold and silver coins in use, and the old convention would be reestablished.
Thereby the weight of coins and ingots would be the sole determinant of their value every merchant would include in his office equipment a small balance for weighing gold and silver.
Short-term advantages can accrue to the so-called developing countries inasmuch as they are actually subject to be colonized by, or oppressed by more advanced countries on their way to regression.
When the regression of the advanced nations becomes effectively obvious, their apprehension of others will cease and the less developed rations will experience relief.
But it will probably be brief, because in the long run much graver problem will emerge, not only because finished products from the regressing countries will then be lacking, but also because generalized armed conflict is likely to be the pattern, either between nations in retrogresslon, or between those that have not yet advanced, or at a more microscopic level between cities, villages, or families, and between individuals.
Kurt Saxon thought civilization would have collapsed by now.
He spent the majority of his life collecting knowledge of home based business.
His goal was for all his readers to survive at a more comfortable level than those that were less provident.
He knew the importance of communicating at a level folks could understand.
Most of what he has compiled for our benefit can be easily understood by everybody.
He also includes a subtle sense of humor.
You can find the majority of his life's work here.
Hear him read his stories.
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