How did mankind survive all these years w/o knowing

[Gunfighter14e2]

Everything the media & gov pushes on you 24/7.
Or life w/o a cell phone? I've seen people in full blown panic mode because they left their cell at home.
How to get to X w/o a GPS?
How to do XYZ w/o the tube of U.
Are we living in a fucked up dystopian world or what?

 

[Mike Casselton]

We have been for a long time.

The only panic I have when the cell is left home is not being able to select MY music.
Oh well, I go old school and listen to the radio.

 

[Maser]

Same shit gets said everytime new technology arrives. My generation is the last generation to know what life was like without internet and smart devices. Dark times for sure!

 

[DarnYankeeUSMC]

Rand McNally road atlas. Paper clips on the pages because it's in alphabetical order and going from Arizona to New Mexico are twenty pages apart.

 

[AngryKoala]

Don't fold the maps!!!

 

[DarnYankeeUSMC]

Don't fold the maps!!!

Origami is easier

 

[Slash0311]

 

[Atomic_Lobster]

^^^^^
Been there done that

 

[SDet]

How did people get by before the compass? Star maps? Sails?

It keeps moving forward. The world gets smaller every day.

 

[Mudburner]

Yup. I've often said, if some people had to kill a chicken to live, they wouldn't know how to do it. Butcher a deer? Forget it. If city people ever saw where an egg comes from, they'd never want to eat it. But that's just... y'know, like, MY opinion, man.

 

[Maser]

Anyone remember the classic 1951 sci-fi movie, The Day The Earth Stood Still? If not, in order to show alien supremacy, electricity all over the planet gets neutralized for a half hour. I sometimes would like to see that happen today, but with internet.

 

[plh]

Best 6 months of my recent life was waiting for my cellphone to get shipped back after leaving it in Romania.

 

[ironman56]

How did people get by before the compass? Star maps? Sails?

It keeps moving forward. The world gets smaller every day.

Sun rises in the east , sets in the west , water runs down hill , what else do you need ?

 

[Makinchips208]

Um, without my phone I have no bear pit…

 

[kenny1773]

Sun rises in the east , sets in the west , water runs down hill , what else do you need ?

 

[Mike Casselton]

Don't fold the maps!!!

For what?

With a good base knowledge of our states layout, county and town layout. Most maps are unnecessary.

 

[Mike Casselton]

How the fuck did I read that as Don't FORGET the maps?


I get the folding thing, but I'm a folder

 

[AngryKoala]

How the fuck did I read that as Don't FORGET the maps?


I get the folding thing, but I'm a folder

It is easier to store that way but I got my head slapped when I was younger for it so even now I still won't do it haha.

 

[Mike Casselton]

It is easier to store that way but I got my head slapped when I was younger for it so even now I still won't do it haha.

We had to do the navigating once we were able to read.
By the time I was 8, I could have navigated someone from Florida to Toronto

 

[AngryKoala]

We had to do the navigating once we were able to read.
By the time I was 8, I could have navigated someone from Florida to Toronto

It would be hilarious if GPS for phones and vehicles stopped working for a week. I wonder how many people would leave their home.

 

[theLBC]

old people can still read a map, but i haven't had a thomas guide in a long time.

 

[DocRDS]

I only panic when I misplace my wallet/billfold.

You dummies use maps? Pathetic. (and it drives my wife INSANE!)

 

[JerkyFreak]

When was the last time you tried to buy a map book?

In darkest South Africa we had to go to a small book store to find a map book. None of the usual places had proper maps. Only stuff in abundance were touristy maps. Very few people buy maps these days.

 

[Im2bent]

View attachment 8450166View attachment 8450168View attachment 8450169

I'm old and had a freaking awesome childhood to include playing chicken with the original lawn darts, but I have no recollection of thread around a hose bib if that is what I am looking at?

 

[Mike Casselton]

I tried to buy a Tampa and surrounding area paper map for training the step kids to navigate.
The aren't available.

My oldest daughter was ten when I retired. Her job was to not only navigate, but also pick the route from Rapid City to Tampa.

She picked the exact route I've always used. And, as long as she was awake, she navigated to include distance and numbered exits.

The best part was if she woke up, she had to figure out where we were.

 

[DarnYankeeUSMC]

This one stays on the back seat of my 85 Pontiac wagon.

 

[mosin46]

yea,always wondered how we became the dominant species and settled the whole planet without computers and cell phone. not to mention without the internal combustion engine. proud to be a luddite. to me,computers are 1 of the 5 worst things the human race has developed/invented. see "Dune" re the butlerian jihad. frank herbert was a true prophet.

 

[DarnYankeeUSMC]

I'm old and had a freaking awesome childhood to include playing chicken with the original lawn darts, but I have no recollection of thread around a hose bib if that is what I am looking at?

It's not thread. It's from filling water balloons. Sometimes the rolled edge would just tear off when you tried to remove it after filling it

 

[Fig]

My last elk hunt I got made fun of for laminated topos and a compass. One of the fucks I went with got lost following ONX to a misplaced pin. I was able to text him instructions based on his lat and Lon, but otherwise he’d have spent a night away from camp. He was totally panicked.

Not saying I don’t use ONX and GPS, but I don’t rely on them even at sea. I own a Mk 6 Sextant, a set of Ho229s, and do sight reductions. I don’t get “lost”.

 

[Ronws]

When I was a kid, there was no readily available roadside assistance trucks. You changed your own flat tires.

Or help out a damsel in distress. I was coming up Josey Rd, which always had a bunch of yahoos doing at least 60 mph. This was in 2001 or so.

A lady's car was stopped in the right hand lane. I stopped behind her. Flat tire. She had two small boys in the back seat. And she was about 6 or 7 months into the next child about to be born.

I got out my 4-way lug wrench and the lug nuts were jammed on tight. So, I grabbed my 3/4" conduit bender and used it as a largish hammer. Then I got the car jacked up and swapped out to the donut in no time. Put the flat in her trunk and wished her well.

I got back in my truck and waited until she was able to pull away. I don't remember her name. I hope there are still people today who will have that basic skill.

I am not a knight, I am an asshole and a sinner. But I also do the right thing when I can because it is the right thing to do, as my mother taught me, which is only reason I tell this story.

Edited to add. At this time in my life, I had hair that, even in a ponytail, reached halfway down my back. I did not think then or now how she might be scared at someone who looked liked the Minnesota Vikings mascot be behave.

 

[supercorndogs]

Origami is easier

Even when we were little kids. My older brother could fold the map back up first try every time.

 

[K470]

Every time I drive into a state I stop at the first rest area or visitor center and pick up a road map for the state.
Also if you check the State Department of Highways website a lot of them will allow you to download pdf's of highway maps for that state. You can print your own road atlas.

 

[mosin46]

people think i am weird and retarded. i am but not because i use paper maps and insist on directions to new places written down on paper. it just amazes me how utterly useless comp map quest,google maps etc are. no detailed roads or too many shown. never can a clear route be figured. they can pinpoint your house for any enemies you have,however.

 

[sirhrmechanic]

How did people get by before the compass? Star maps? Sails?

It keeps moving forward. The world gets smaller every day.

Actually, we have regressed both technologically and “mentally” in the past decade or two and “screen time” is not helping.

The skills we have lost as a nation (and as a species) are getting to be terrifying. Because without the grid and without the Internet to look everything up or get a YouTube tutorial… most are helpless beyond screwing in a lightbulb.

If we lose big power transformers to a mass-grid failure… there is:

- no one to fix them
- no blueprints to the create them
- no engineer to design them with pen and paper
- no foundry that can make the castings.
- no equipment that can make the windings.
- no lathe to finish the parts
- almost no one who can run the equipment to make a transformer
- no power to run the equipment to make the transformer.
- no truck to carry it where it needs to go.
- no infrastructure to move dozens or hundreds.
- no way to retrieve the data needed to “repair” the system(s)

So we would be back… not in 1890 before electricity. We would be back in 1650’s. Before the Industrial Revolution.

Except that the Industrial Revolution only happened because there was a Renaissance that involved accelerating technological and intellectual pursuits after a “Dark Ages” that lasted arguably from the 300’s until the 1300’s… oh when plague wiped out 50 percent of Europe’s population.

Odds are “next time” it will be 80-95 percent because that’s about how many people can live on the planet doing subsistence agriculture.

And could be worse… if our reactors and other “stuff” deprived of power and human care… deteriorates and poisons large swaths of land… the numbers could be worse.

There were about 350m people on earth in 1400, estimated. They had the skills that evolved into modern man. Lost? Not entirely. But unless the “right” people survive bad things… we start all over again.

Pardon mad max rant… but when our progress spirals in the other direction… we’ll be lucky if a few million make it.

And most of them will be isolated, tribal, and going back to very old ways.

Sirhr

 

[sirhrmechanic]

It would be hilarious if GPS for phones and vehicles stopped working for a week. I wonder how many people would leave their home.

Leaving would not be the problem… it would be getting back.

Alive.

Sirhr

 

[Gunfighter14e2]

Leaving would not be the problem… it would be getting back.

Alive.

Sirhr

I've seen full blown melt downs and medical issues, when a rides GPS stops working. Same with many who have maxed out their C/C's and get denied at the register. To me a large segment of mankind, is on the fast track to hell, and all it would take is one link to break.

Sadly when the fire starts, the following fire storm will consume the unprepared rapidly,...

 

[Ronws]

people think i am weird and retarded. i am but not because i use paper maps and insist on directions to new places written down on paper. it just amazes me how utterly useless comp map quest,google maps etc are. no detailed roads or too many shown. never can a clear route be figured. they can pinpoint your house for any enemies you have,however.

It's not because of the paper maps.

JK
I had the right to remain silent. I did not have the ability.

 

[SDet]

Actually, we have regressed both technologically and “mentally” in the past decade or two and “screen time” is not helping.

The skills we have lost as a nation (and as a species) are getting to be terrifying. Because without the grid and without the Internet to look everything up or get a YouTube tutorial… most are helpless beyond screwing in a lightbulb.

If we lose big power transformers to a mass-grid failure… there is:

- no one to fix them
- no blueprints to the create them
- no engineer to design them with pen and paper
- no foundry that can make the castings.
- no equipment that can make the windings.
- no lathe to finish the parts
- almost no one who can run the equipment to make a transformer
- no power to run the equipment to make the transformer.
- no truck to carry it where it needs to go.
- no infrastructure to move dozens or hundreds.
- no way to retrieve the data needed to “repair” the system(s)

So we would be back… not in 1890 before electricity. We would be back in 1650’s. Before the Industrial Revolution.

Except that the Industrial Revolution only happened because there was a Renaissance that involved accelerating technological and intellectual pursuits after a “Dark Ages” that lasted arguably from the 300’s until the 1300’s… oh when plague wiped out 50 percent of Europe’s population.

Odds are “next time” it will be 80-95 percent because that’s about how many people can live on the planet doing subsistence agriculture.

And could be worse… if our reactors and other “stuff” deprived of power and human care… deteriorates and poisons large swaths of land… the numbers could be worse.

There were about 350m people on earth in 1400, estimated. They had the skills that evolved into modern man. Lost? Not entirely. But unless the “right” people survive bad things… we start all over again.

Pardon mad max rant… but when our progress spirals in the other direction… we’ll be lucky if a few million make it.

And most of them will be isolated, tribal, and going back to very old ways.

Sirhr

I feel like you've mentioned this a few times in the last few years. I agree that it's a problem, but it's not phones or social media.

Very few of those companies are hiring in the US, and pay goes from meh to terrible.

Demand is growing, doubling in 10 years, but no one wants to expand.

These issues started decades ago and started high up the chain.

We wouldn't be dead in the water. The blue prints and people exist. They won't be the same parts, they wouldn't be as efficient or small, but we'd bounce back.

 

[XLR308]

Shit I haven't had a cell phone in almost a year now and sure as hell don't miss it.
Although my wife has been pushing me to get one lately.

 

[TheHorta]

Electricity ruined everything.