Global infocalypse

From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki
This is a proposal for a new Wikimedia sister project.
Global infocalypse
Status of the proposal
Statusrejected
ReasonIf an apocalypse would really occur, I don't think humanity will be able to look up on the Internet how to regain its current knowledge. --Sannita (talk) 16:47, 21 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A Seedbank is an in-case-of-global-emergency method of storing seeds. If global Apocalypse does indeed take place, the survivors of the human race can fight their way to these banks and restart global agriculture (hopefully).

But just as man does not live on bread alone post-apocalyptic man will need more help than just seeds. Man needs education and culture. Human society is going to need the accumulated information stored at wiki* and archive.org

There is a fairly large online community called Zombie Hunters. They are a survivalist group dedicated to surviving the upcoming zombie apocalypse (zompocalypse). But nowhere in their community do they discuss fixing society after it falls. I propose something other than just survival.

Cory Doctorow was recently having a similar conversation and came up with a similar result [1]. A site was formed called Outquistion. Their mission is to be a sort of tech missionary post-zompocalypse working to rebuild society, trade, culture and technology.

As of this writing their website was just formed, and doesn't cover the literary antecedences of their project.

I can think of two examples of an Outquisition type organization in post-apocalyptic literature. First would be A Canticle for Leibowitz that tells the story of: "The monks of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz take up the mission of preserving the surviving remnants of man's scientific knowledge against the day the outside world is again ready for it." Canticle has a group that primarily religious, and secondarily technological. A second example involves The Postman by David Brin. In The Postman a group out of Oregon State University are rebuilding society and reaching out to other communities with technology and trade, and are very close in design to the proposed Outquistion group, with vague missionary overtones.

Proposal[edit]

I propose a seed bank for the seeds of human knowledge. I propose a secure data center with Open Educational Resources. If an apocalypse should occur then the human race will have the resources available to shortcut their way back to a fully industrialized society as soon as possible.