March '24: How to Invent Everything...

[Cheryl]

One of the books that tied!
How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler by Ryan North. Nonfiction!

"What would you do if a time machine hurled you thousands of years into the past. . . and then broke? How would you survive? Could you improve on humanity's original timeline? And how hard would it be to domesticate a giant wombat?

With this book as your guide, you'll survive--and thrive--in any period in Earth's history. Bestselling author and time-travel enthusiast Ryan North shows you how to invent all the modern conveniences we take for granted--from first principles. This illustrated manual contains all the science, engineering, art, philosophy, facts, and figures required for even the most clueless time traveler to build a civilization from the ground up. Deeply researched, irreverent, and significantly more fun than being eaten by a saber-toothed tiger, How to Invent Everything will make you smarter, more competent, and completely prepared to become the most important and influential person ever."

I, for one, am looking forward to it!

[Cheryl]

Ok, wow, this is dense with information. And a lot of it is presented in charts, tables, appendices, etc., which I have difficulty reading at any speed. And tbh it does seem more like a history of the world, or at least a history of civilization, at least so far.

But here on p. 13 I'm already learning things! For example, I had never come across the fact that even deaf babies babble. Hm. Do any of you know more about that?

[Deborah]

I tried to read it once before and ended up sending it back to the library without finishing.

[[deleted user]]

The author seems to have avoided/ignored the most important point about time travel to the past: do you really want to risk changing the future and history, thus condemning to disappearance all those you knew and cherished? To simply survive: okay. To introduce new things to the point of changing history: think seriously about that before doing it.

[Cheryl]

Yes, it's not really about time travel. That's just a catchy title. Although his 'theory of TT' is that you're creating a new timeline, so nothing in your original is changed.

Nonetheless, I'm enjoying it! Mostly it's stuff I kinda already knew. And it's presented as if everything you try will work well enough & soon enough so you'll be able to keep going and do more & more advanced stuff. But I do have notes:

"Specialization unlocks doctors who can devote their entire lives to curing disease, librarians who can devote their entire lives to ensuring the accumulated knowledge of humanity remains safe and accessible, and writers who, fresh out of school, take the first job they find and devote the most productive years of their lives to writing corporate repair manuals...."

"Potatoes are one of the two plants that contain all the nutrition humans need! You can live entirely off potatoes." (I looked this up; apparently they even have protein!)

I need to look up the bonobo Kanzi who can cook.

"'My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition there.'" Indira Gandhi

I also learned that the 'canary in the coal mine' wasn't developed until 1913! Apparently it was inspired by a disaster in 1896. (I think there are tour guides who tell the history wrong to tourists.)

[Cheryl]

(More to come; I'm not quite halfway yet.)

[Cheryl]

So, I'm finally approaching the section on Logic. This is important, depending on how the author explores it.

Coming up is philosophy, art, medicine, and music. Strikes me as very weird to organize them this way. First aid much earlier, at least, I would think.

Also, what about diplomacy and persuasive speech? How is the stranded time traveler going to be able to invent all this stuff if he's been killed or locked up as crazy or as a practitioner of black magic?

[Cheryl]

Done. I didn't read every word, esp. electromagnetism, chemistry, and the charts that are in even finer small print. I can't actually imagine using much of this beyond first principles as a stranded time traveler, or in a post-apocalyptic setting, but maybe someone more technically minded could? Still, there's so much that is so fascinating. I do recommend everyone take a bit of a look at it, at least!

[Cheryl]

"Scientists are often seen as turbonerds, but the philosophical foundations of science are actually those of pure punk rock anarchy; never respect authority, never take anyone's word on anything, and test all the things you think you know to confirm or deny them for yourself."

I need to investigate the gamma garden, from which experiment in radiation-induced mutations they developed the red grapefruit.

"The association of the upper classes of Europe and North America with gout around the 1800s CE has been traced to them drinking out of their fancy lead glasses."

"'You will hear thunder and remember e, and think: "she wanted storms."'" Anna Akhmatova

Implication in footnote is that Vitruvian Man isn't accurate, or forces proportions, or something; I need to investigate.

[Cheryl]

"'There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories.'" Ursula K. Le Guin

Good words for Scrabble and other word games, also, the parts that make the 'hinge' apparatus for a boat's rudder: pintle, gudgeon.

Ok, that's it, I think, all that I marked. I'd definitely be interested in what other readers, you all, mark!

[Cheryl]

I do recommend you at least try the book. I'm not the only one who found it unexpectedly interesting.