[OT] [I mean totally OT] Re: What can you "new"

[Sean Kelly]

Walter Bright wrote:
> Sean Kelly wrote:
>> I'd bet it takes longer.  Even with incredible knowledge, they'd have 
>> to build the technology from scratch, starting with improvised tools.
> 
> Huh, 99% of the people will be full time engaged just in food production.

If the people were dropped on another planet, there's not even any 
guarantee that it would have the same mineral resources.  And food, 
forget it.  People would have to experiment with local plants and 
animals to find out what was edible, could be domesticated, had 
medicinal use, etc.

There's a lot of really basic knowledge that we take for granted because 
our ancestors spent thousands of years experimenting and dying to find 
this stuff out.  A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy would be about the 
only truly useful text in such a scenario.