The “Wait Buy Why” thought experiment I can’t stop thinking about.
Here’s the deal: An evil witch casts a spell on the Earth, making all man-made objects vanish in a puff. Everyone is exactly as they are, except completely naked with nothing around them except the land God made… and everybody else.
The witch tells humanity she (he?) will restore everything exactly as it was if – cue the cackling – we can produce an iPhone 7.
Tim Urban from Wait But Why tells the story much better than I do and provides his own view of what would probably happen next. First, a rush to fresh water. Then a dash to hunt, gather and start farming. Then the epic mission of assembling the materials and know-how to build an iPhone. It’d be pretty bad.
For some reason, I can’t stop thinking about this question. In an age of total technological dependence, what would happen if it all ceased tomorrow – and how long would it take us to rebuild?
It’s not a totally theoretical question. Attacks on the electrical grid, a large solar flare, or a massive cyber assault could all throw us into the Stone Age, at least for a while.
Here’s a few questions I have about what might happen if the wicked witch made an appearance. I don’t have the answers, but would love to hear your thoughts.
When would the carnage end?
As Tim describes so eloquently, the world’s seven billion people couldn’t possibly be sustained without advanced farming techniques, a sophisticated global food supply chain, and a developed water treatment and sanitation network.
The situation in the immediate aftermath of the witch’s attack would be apocalyptic.
There’s a saying that civilisation is four good meals away from total collapse. In this scenario, perfectly decent people would turn savage warriors, hunting in packs to secure water and food supplies and eviscerating anyone who got in their way.
At what point does the carnage end and some kind of stable order emerge? Is it a matter of days, months, or even years?
At what size does the population become sustainable with only the most basic technologies? Presumably fertile regions like the Middle East and Europe would sustain the largest populations. Some areas, like the desert- ridden south-west United States, might see all human life move away or perish.
We know the future – but does it help?
Once order is established, people might reasonably start to turn their attentions to re-discovery of past invention. First, this would focus on the basics – developing a decent plough, transporting water from lakes and rivers to settlements.
But then those who until so recently had access to the extraordinary tools of 2017 might push themselves to see how far they could go. How hard can it be to generate electricity? Could rudimentary radios be used to communicate across large distances?
Of course, nothing is easy when you are starting with nothing. Finding materials; attempting assembly without tools; and coordinating with others all become painfully difficult to accomplish. And then there’s the issue of know-how: I know how nothing works. Do you?
Could you explain how to make an aerial vibrate at the right frequencies? Or what are the components of a sewing machine?
Could you take apart a steam engine and put it back together again? Or blow hot sand into glass?
I wonder – just by knowing that these things can be done, how much time does that save in the invention and development process?
History is some guide to this. Once the iPhone came to market, suddenly all phones went touchscreen. Yes, the technology had got better and the manufacturers were selling their wares. But just knowing that touch screens could be used effectively in phones probably had an impact in accelerating the shift to the new technology.
If we knew the iPhone was possible in 1700, would we have got there any quicker?
iPhone or Samsung?
And then there comes the issue of the spell.
Generation 1 might be obsessed by it. If only we could figure it out, they might plead, we could be out of this mess and back to browsing Insta on high speed trains while munching on M&S cubed mango fruit packs.
But as time went on and the pace of progress failed to meet the early hopes, people would do what they always do: get on with their lives.
As generation 1 turns to generations 2, 3, 4, and 5, the spell would morph into a collective myth. Perhaps a religion would form around the iPhone’s iconic shape – Appleology. No one would remember the origin, but the belief in its importance would be so strongly held as to keep its followership fully engaged.
As humanity pushed ever forward towards its iPhonic goal, and trains and planes and automobiles starting appearing on newly-minted streets and over freshly-farmed countryside, a doubt might start to creep into the Appleological order.
With the Mokia 2301 marking a new milestone for mobile technologies in the 2370s, the people could begin to ask themselves:
Why build the iPhone 7…. When you could build a Galaxy S8?
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