2012?

[Prof B Hunnydew]

All it takes to get people out of a panic is a strong leader, and they're the most likely to survive of all humanity.  As such, panicing does not mean we'll forget the information.  After all, there might still be a library or two still standing full of the "how we did it" books.  I always knew there was a reason I approved of libraries.

The main problem with a panicing populace isn't that they'll forget the tech, but that a Hitler-ish type of leader will come to power.

Yea, Hitler-type would burn the books and write his own version of history... The other problem is Tech manuals now a days are going more and more paperless or to a CD or Hard drive format, which need a working computer to retrieve the data.  Books rot and Hard drive can be destroy if not protected.  One hopes, that high tech can snap back quickly from small isolated pockets of high tech, but you need an industrial base with high educated population to rebuilt our civilization. Some may not be willing  to try and/or will fight against any effort to bring it back, because of the evils it brings.  A low-educated peoples are easier to rule and control.  Just look at Taliban controlled Afghanistan..

PBH

[Brunhidden]

yeah, its kinda hard to stay in control when slightly over half your country hears that in other places women have things like freedom of speech, can vote, and are allowed outside of their homes without male escorts and have no fear of being stoned.

this was most true of the soviet union, and i actually have a second hand account of this.

greit, i live near a city called Milwaukee- Americas armpit, one of the most segregated and dirty towns in the country, and the only reason you cant smell the cows is because of the dead and rotting alewives (its a kind of fish, one so nasty nobody wants to eat it) heaped on the lake shore.

that being said a group of Russians from the USSR came to Milwaukee during the 80s for business reasons, they thought it was some kind of magical wonderland. once they returned home to the soviet union they were told that the tricky Americans built fake cities like this for the purpose of seducing its citizens.

i repeat- the communist government told its citizens that one of the biggest cesspools in America was in fact a fake city erected as beautiful as we could, populated by actors, and designed with the intent of fooling soviets into thinking America was some kind of land of wonder. what a load of okse dritt.

I hate to think what they told people who have been to DC, San Francisco, Seattle, and some of the other nicer big cities

after the fall of the Berlin wall and all that this group of about a half dozen Russians fled the country and moved to Milwaukee... they now agree that compared to most of America its an armpit, but also admit they've never been to the deep south or the north woods so they cannot make an accurate comparison.

Joseph Stalin -
- The people who cast the votes do not decide an election, the people who count the votes do.