Comment by hilbert42

There's a lot we could still do.

Let's assume we go back to the pre-transistor era—1946 and earlier, the world then was a very different place but it was still very modern.

It's too involved to list in detail but just take a look at what was achieved during WWII. The organization and manufacturing was truly phenomenonal. Aircraft production alone during the War was over 800,000 aircraft, manufacturing aircraft at that rate has never been equalled since, same with ships.

We developed huge amount of new tech during the War including the remarkably complex atomic bomb and much, much more.

And we did all this without the transistor, integrated circuit, CPUs, internet and even smartphones!

Now consider the planning and organizational difficulties of D-Day—probably the most complex and logistically difficult understanding ever—without the aid of modern communications, the internet and smartphones, etc.—all of which depend on CPUs. Right, that happened too, and it was a total success.

I wonder how a generation brought up during the post-silicon era would cope if all that were no longer available. It could happen if we had another Carrington Event or one that's even bigger (which has occurred), or say with nuclear EMP events.

WWII Aircraft production https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_aircraft_produc...

WWII Military production: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_W...