Preparing for Civilization Collapse Before Space Settlement
As of 2026 it appears we most probably do not have enough time to create a self-sufficient settlement in space before a collapse of civilization on Earth due to an advanced technological event, be it pathogen(s) and/or artificial intelligence application(s).
Let's call this an Advanced Freaking Technological Event Resulting in a Collapse of Civilization, by acronym AFTER-CC. There's also the possibility of an Advanced Freaking Technological Event Resulting in Humankind Extinction, by acronym AFTER-HE.
Therefore, we should plan for recovery from such an AFTER-CC, before the collapse of civilization occurs, such as archiving critical information we will need by storing it on local media instead of on the cloud. Remember, the internet will cease to exist in an AFTER-CC. Even if you can find the physical location of information, it might be encrypted and unrecoverable.
This would be the order of business, which we should plan for in advance:
- Storage of technological knowledge for establishing space settlements, onto local media
- Discussions on today's internet regarding how to establish of a worldwide organization with rules on how to try to prevent or delay another AFTER-CC
Of course, as regards #2, I doubt any such discussions will have a significant impact on how businesses and humans currently conduct their affairs. Many will just deny it, rationalize, imagine otherwise, and brush us off, all out of their own selfish self-interest. Many people will learn only the hard way, from actual experience.
In view of human nature, after an AFTER-CC, it will still be a race against time again to create space settlements before another, subsequent AFTER-CC. In other words, after a first AFTER-CC, and an eventual recovery of civilization, we are back in a race against time versus a second AFTER-CC.
Item 1 above we can achieve. Item 2 above might not lead to an effective prevention or sufficient delays of another AFTER-CC. We must try to do both, but item 1 is more important than item 2. We can control what we do ourselves, but controlling others is another matter, and the world is full of crazy and irrational humans.
Indeed, due to dual use of technologies for both good and bad, sharing of information in item 1 with any particular political entity may be contingent upon FULL compliance and cooperation in the drastic policies and intrusive measures of the worldwide organization. Hopefully, if there is an AFTER-CC then the paradigm shift in peoples' outlooks will be great enough for them to commit. However, knowing human nature and many evil and deranged people, there will still be major risks. At least we will know that we should focus more on space settlement as a priority.
Storage of Technical Knowledge for Establishing Space Settlements
Before we discuss the administrative ways this can be done, we need to address the technological methods of data storage.
In short, and simply stated, electronic data storage and hard disc magnetic storage fade over time, as do other storage media. Data centers keep data accessible by copying data from old media to new media from time to time. Here is the approximate life of various storage media, though some can last a little longer or shorter, depending on usage and environment:
| Storage media |
Approx. storage life | Type | Comments |
| Hard drives, mechanical magnetic spinning | 5 to 10 years | magnetic | |
| Hard drives, solid state device (SSD), thumb drives, MicroSD, etc. | 5 years | electronic | |
| Tape, magnetic | 10 to 30 years | magnetic | |
| optical discs, DVD or BluRay, ordinary | 5 to 25 years | chemical | |
| BluRay "millennium" optical discs, M-Disc | 100 to 1,000 years | chemical | Manufacturer claims ... believe it or not ... plastic discs |
| Punched cards, perforated tape | 1,000s of years? | solids | Paper or preferably other material |
| Documents printed into books | 1,000s of years? | solids | Paper or other substrate, ink |
| Laser etched onto glass or metal | Billions of years | solid | Sophisticated |
| Mechanically etched onto metal | Billions of years | solid | Can be more basic |
Therefore, since it may take many years, or decades, or longer for civilization to recover enough to attempt space settlement again, it looks like optical data storage and solid media would be best to have.
The most long term stable storage is so-called Write Once Read Many [times] (WORM) storage media on exceptionally robust physical materials.
There has been some experimental work, by Hitachi and Microsoft, to laser etch data onto quartz glass discs for archival data. Organizing that for production of long time storage media for the kinds of information we want to archive would be quite a project today. On separate and simpler storage, we could record the design of a device needed to be created to read this archival data in the future.
Storage in a phonetic language such as English would make sense. However, if no civilization reads this material for millennia or longer, then there should be some kind of preface to introduce them to the English language, including pictograms. Thus, this project should involve theoretical linguists who scientifically study the fundamental nature of human symbolic languages and the cognitive processes involved, and prepare introductory material to help the finders know what they have found and how to read it. For example, it can make clear that what they've found is the design of rockets, previous knowledge obtained of the lunar poles, and so on.
As regards an AFTER-HE, archived information could be used by any subsequent intelligent species which may arise on Earth millions of years into the future, and/or aliens. For those purposes, at least for any aliens, we could include DNA storage of many humans, and possibly storage of DNA of many other species on Earth at this time which humans have not already driven to extinction.
Collapse of Civilization -- What Would It Look Like?
We are in an extremely interdependent world, with most people very specialized and dependent upon others for countless things beyond their own specialization. Only a small percent of people are specialists in things like electrical power production, a massive supply chain for fuels, transport of crops to cities, and so on. If there was suddenly a technologically created pathogen which killed or disabled a large percentage of people, then transport of fuels, supply of food to cities, electricity transmission, and many other things could fail. You can try to imagine what would happen next, with the worst chaos in cities ...
The main source of survivors may be rural people living among crops, the most fortunate in tropical areas, and those equipped with solar power (rooftop and other applications such as electrical irrigation pumps). For "preppers", a good shortwave radio should be on your checklist of good supplies to have.
Recovery of Civilization -- Rules and Rulers
There are many possibilities here, especially considering the likely fragmented and decentralized survivors, but the highest priorities would be trying to prevent or delay for as long as feasible another AFTER-CC (an essentially "carbon copy" of the first or other previous AFTER-CC), and trying to create a self-sufficient space settlement before another AFTER-CC. Or, as technology advances even further, of course, humans might become extinct ... but we have no choice but to plan otherwise.
The first tasks would be to create institutions with worldwide powers to monitor extremely closely potentially dangerous research and development, including of pathogens and artificial intelligence. Data centers could be limited in their size and kinds of applications. No more competitive race by greedy self-interested businesses out of control.
Any future research into things potentially dangerous to Earth's biosphere should be moved outside of the biosphere to pods in outer space, which can in turn be destroyed (such as by a small nuclear bomb) if they produce something very dangerous. Considering the benefits of developing various technological capabilities, humans are sure to want to pursue them, so it would be a matter of how to safely do so. We should not consider more work within Earth's biosphere of potentially catastrophic research and development. We should not consider theoretical laboratory safeguards within the biosphere. Of course, imagining completely successful implementation by humans just isn't realistic, so it must be moved to space pods.
Data centers can also be moved to space where they can be solar powered. This is better for Earth's environment. It can also make regulation and monitoring more feasible by a new set of rules. Since artificial general intelligence requires large data centers, we can look out for any which are not well monitored with realistic guardrails.
The development of artificial general intelligence can become not-for-profit, more centralized, and open source to those who are cleared to work on it. The ability to copy and distribute code could be disabled. The only exception would be backups which are encrypted and secured.
The only way that humankind will survive is by being realistic about human nature, and cooperation to put the Greater Good above selfish and selfcentered desires and interests. We must balance individual rights and freedoms with limitations on what people and companies can do with some kinds of advanced technologies which could be used to cause a collapse of civilization or extinction.
We will need a Global Constitution document. Now is a good time to start working on that. We can start with the best parts of the constitutions of various countries. That establishes the law. In addition, there should be a new document which is not a legal document but a general suggestive guideline for behaviors, similar to various religious texts today but modernized, based on scientific understanding of human nature, promoting the Greater Good over selfish and selfcentered obsessions, and highlighting the lessons learned about the damaging extremists and obvious failure of the past. If you want to help work on these two documents, then please let me know.
[End of brief summary. Details to be elaborated upon. If you want to help out, please contact me.]
Footnotes:
What would be reasons for archiving information in case of an AFTER-EH? The main thing which comes to mind would be an attempt to warn the next sufficiently intelligent species possibly millions of years into the future that they'd better prioritize space settlement, and noting our historical record for them for their history books. Aliens may also come across our planet. Aliens may have received Earth radio wave broadcasts in distant space, but be missing a lot of information which could be provided otherwise for their history archives and for helping others learn from our experience. Also, if we preserve samples of our DNA in a way which would last millions of years or longer, then that may be useful, such as recreating humanity and seeing what we create and become in many more instances, instead of having a dead end. Storage of DNA to be viable for millions of years or longer would also be a good thing to add to our to-do list, combined with labelling the container in some linguistic method designed for aliens to read and comprehend before opening.
Regarding comparisons of media for longevity in storing digital data, this is sometimes called "digital permanence", but it's hard to find discussion on the internet in the above context of a potential collapse of civilization and archiving for the human survivors (nor for a subsequent species, nor for aliens). For example, current corporate work on digital permanence focuses on applications such as storing data which doesn't change, by putting it onto more durable media for long term storage, so that companies don't need to repeatedly migrate data from older to newer storage media. However, in decisions, a lot of weight is put onto relative cost efficiency.
If civilization collapsed and current storage media were not accessed for a long enough period, then the vast majority of the data of our current civilization would simply be lost in a relatively short time. What keeps most data alive over time is migration of data from an aging medium to a new medium from time to time.
The menu at the top of the page lists the pages of this website, shows you exactly where you are within, and suggests the next page to read.
Please note that you can rate this page at the bottom. Any feedback is appreciated. This is a lot of work and a huge challenge, so encouragement is appreciated.
This website is intended to be a brief summary. Much further details can be found in two other websites written and curated by the author of this publication:
https://www.SpaceSettlement.com -- details on the best solution for survival of humankind, for a wide range of people, from newcomers needing an introduction to engineers looking for the state of the art. It includes a professional publications database, and tries to track who is doing what, for collaboration, coordination, and working efficiently to reach our goals.
https://www.GAINextinction.com -- further details, where G.A.I.N. is an acronym for Genetics, Artificial Intelligence, and Nanotechnology, which are extinction threats we must try to prevent for the survival of humankind.
You can reach this website by any of the following:
HelpHumankindSurvive.com
HelpHumanitySurvive.com
HelpMankindSurvive.com
If somebody types either "humanity" or "mankind" instead of "humankind", they will still be redirected to this Humankind URL, so it doesn't matter which of the three you type. While "humanity" is stated more often, sometimes habitually, I think "humankind" better applies to this context. I also agree with this analysis of usages of humankind and humanity. Nonetheless, you can put any of the three between "help" and "survive" and you'll still get this same website. (Of course, uppercase/lowercase doesn't matter.)
The author of the text of this website is Mark Evan Prado. Copyright © 2023 by Mark Evan Prado, All Rights Reserved. If you want a printable, PDF copy of this presentation, such as for printed distribution rather than an electronic link to this website, please send me a request. I am trying to keep it within a few dozen pages of size A4 or 8.5x11 inches, in reasonably large print, and in simple to understand language. I'm not doing this for money nor ego, I'm doing this to try to help humankind survive, i.e., not go extinct. It is our responsibility within this generation. Please contact me for any collaboration or uses.
If you have any requests or comments, you can also connect with me, Mark, at +66-811357977 (+66-8-1135-7977) and I am on WhatsApp and Line, plus other apps. I am in Thailand but you can send messages any day at any time.
In the purpose and meaning of life, we are parts of something astronomically greater than just ourselves individually. (The author sees individuality as just temporary, and has a panentheistic outlook on the Universe. That's somewhat typical for some of us physicists.) The author is easygoing and is trying to selflessly help create a sustainable collaboration of individuals, companies, governments, academic institutions, and other organizations for the survival of humankind.
As President John F. Kennedy ended his inaugural speech in 1961, I'll end this the same way:
"Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on Earth God's work must truly be our own." [End of speech. Bold and italicized emphasis added.]
If you choose to submit feedback, then I wish to thank you in advance. After you click on Submit, the page will jump to the top.
[End of page.]