Chapter 36 Synthetic Materials
Obviously, this small and exquisite heater is not suitable for large-scale use as a heating device in a doomsday disaster.
Everything that cannot be produced industrially on a large scale is meaningless in this case, let alone such expensive toys that can only be used by a small number of people.
After all, in addition to the cost issue, what needs to be considered more is how to enable more people to survive this disaster, rather than making the lives of the few who can already survive this disaster more comfortable.
This is actually the true meaning of the existence of order and rules, and the true embodiment of civilization.
If there are no rules and order, then the strong will be able to plunder the weak at will, making the strong stronger and the weak weaker.
The most intuitive embodiment of rules and order - law, is to weaken the strong and protect the weak.
If the weak feel that the law is favoring the strong, it must be an illusion, because without the law, the strong will plunder the weak unscrupulously, and even trample on the weak's right to survive and life at will.
The existence of law prevents the strong from wantonly plundering the lives and survival rights of the weak, and protects their existence.
Although in the eyes of some people, this may be for exploitation and oppression, it is undeniable that the existence of order always protects the weak, and it is precisely because of this that the famous saying-- Bad order is better than no order.
Starting from this sentence, for Purficott, she actually had two choices when dealing with this disaster.
First, choose to increase the level of protection as much as possible so that a few "elites" can survive with a higher probability.
Second, choose as many as possible to ensure that more people survive. The price is that everyone's survival standard will be reduced to a very low level, which can only guarantee survival.
Choosing the former is the so-called most rational choice.
Because the total amount of resources is limited, under these conditions, instead of diluting these precious resources and allowing more people to survive with a low standard of living, it is better to ensure a high-quality living standard for a small number of elites .
After all, there are actually dangers and hidden dangers in low-level survival guarantees, because lower survival guarantee conditions mean that it has a lower fault tolerance rate and a lower ability to withstand crises.
If the environment remains unchanged at a certain baseline, then there is no big problem in doing so.
But once the environment deteriorates and exceeds the upper limit, the entire social system will collapse.
Concentrating the same resources on a small number of elite groups can greatly improve their survival probability and have more resources for redundant design.
In this way, even if the environment changes or other disasters occur, you will still have a higher chance of survival.
However, there are also flaws in doing so, that is, a stable social structure requires a majority of the grassroots and an overall number that reaches a certain scale.
Only ensuring the survival of a few people can indeed increase their chances of survival, but a small number of elites cannot support a stable social structure.
So the most ideal situation is to maintain a certain number of people with a relatively low standard of survival, part of which is used to maintain a stable base of social structure, and then maintain a small number of elites above this base.
But this is an ideal model, and in a sense it is actually very difficult to achieve. Because it is difficult for policymakers to grasp how low this so-called relatively low standard of living is and what a certain number of people actually is.
Although sociologists and biologists can calculate the number of people needed to maintain natural reproduction and genetic diversity of human populations, they cannot guarantee that this number will be enough to survive the apocalypse.
The reason is also very simple, that is, they cannot guarantee that major changes will not occur in the future that will cause the population to decrease.
And there is another crucial point. Although a relatively low standard of living has a higher ability to withstand stress than allowing as many people to survive as possible, this higher is only a relative term. , no one can guarantee that it can just survive the changes in the environment.
So in comparison, it is much easier to make a choice if you are more emotional and allow more people to survive, or if you are more rational and ensure that a few people survive as much as possible.
And there is a more critical point. The former does not need to consider who to let live, and the latter does not need to consider who to let live.
But more than this, Purficott still needs to solve the problem before him.
“I have a friend who has been studying the subject of artificial synthetic materials. Maybe he can help us.” Oliver’s mind was spinning quickly. Since it was impossible to achieve personal warmth by making an alchemical device, then he could use it to keep himself warm. Clothes or other aspects to solve this problem.
From this point on, a friend he knows who studies synthetic materials can undoubtedly come in handy.
Perfect was not surprised when he heard that Oliver said he knew someone who researched synthetic materials.
Although this world has not developed the discipline of chemistry because of the existence of alchemy, this does not mean that chemistry does not exist.
In fact, just like the world before Purficott's time travel, early chemistry was actually a part of alchemy, but there was no mystery in the original world, so the confusing parts of alchemy gradually disappeared, and it became more pragmatic and truth-seeking. Chemistry developed accordingly.
But in this mysterious world, it was alchemy that developed, so the subject of chemistry was not separated from alchemy, it was only a part of alchemy.
So this also leads to the fact that projects that were originally classified as chemical research still belong to the category of alchemy in this world.
For example, in the original world, chemical research on plastics, chemical fibers, polyester, acrylic and many other synthetic materials was born. In this world, it is complete alchemy.
However, precisely because they all belong to alchemy, these studies are relatively unpopular.
After all, what alchemy can do is not comparable to what pure chemistry can do. At the very least, chemistry is also based on scientific principles, but Perfectcott’s Philosopher’s Stone does not talk about this. It can break the conservation of matter and equality. price exchange principle.
So for the alchemists, what they pursued was a higher level of material transformation, such as turning stone into gold and immortality, rather than inventing polyamide fiber to roll stockings for women.
These material changes can be obtained without the involvement of any mysterious power, and do not even require the activation of alchemy. Under normal circumstances, only those alchemists who are not good enough but not good enough will study it, so they often Some are looked down upon.
However, Purficott did not have any prejudice against this. She just said to Oliver: "You can ask your friend to try to use artificial methods to make synthetic materials similar to cotton. If he can If he can do it, he can be a part of the Arctic scientific expedition plan.”
(End of this chapter)