<story><title>Building a hut with a tiled roof, underfloor heating and mud and stone walls</title><url>https://primitivetechnology.wordpress.com</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>logfromblammo</author><text>The thing that terrifies me is that the law in many industrialized countries would consider the structure that he built to be unfit for human habitation, due to multiple severe building code violations.&lt;p&gt;100 years ago, it would have been an acceptable dwelling, or even desirable.  Thanks to the pace of progress, in just 50 years, houses built to &lt;i&gt;today&amp;#x27;s&lt;/i&gt; standards might be considered too primitive for human habitation.&lt;p&gt;And you have to wonder what is going to be invented before then that will make us look at the homes we are living in right now and think, &amp;quot;How did I ever live in such a backwards, primitive building?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;We might not even realize the importance of it right away.  If you think about an indoor flushing toilet, it doesn&amp;#x27;t seem all that remarkable, but now every residence needs to have at least one.  Grid power wiring isn&amp;#x27;t all that glamorous, but every home has it.  The thing that changes everything might be &lt;i&gt;boring&lt;/i&gt; at first glance.&lt;p&gt;And that&amp;#x27;s terrifying.  A human can see a device with the power to change the entire world and still say, &amp;quot;&lt;i&gt;meh.&lt;/i&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;And also aliens would probably need to kidnap at least 10000 in order to maintain a stable breeding population.  Otherwise, the humans would have to establish some pretty strict rules against monogamy and inbreeding, &lt;i&gt;and&lt;/i&gt; the aliens would have to carefully select a very diverse group to begin with.</text></item><item><author>bane</author><text>This guys&amp;#x27; videos are amazing. If anything should convince you that humans are a uniquely terrifying species it&amp;#x27;s these videos. Walking into the forest with nothing more on that a pair of shorts and a brain, he makes fire, tools, building supplies, ceramics, and entire living structures. The technology he produces by himself is &lt;i&gt;almost&lt;/i&gt; on par with many pre-industrial revolution societies where metals (even though they had them) were too expensive to waste on building shelters.&lt;p&gt;For example, if he designed things a little differently, this would pretty much be what the average Korean, now one of the most technologically sophisticated civilizations in the world, lived in up until the late 20th century [1]: tiled roofs, wooden framed houses (they interlocked with notches instead of twine), raised floors with underfloor heating (still copied in modern apartments), earth packed exterior walls. If he had time to pulp wood and make paper he could do interior finishing, and the addition of maybe 1 or 2 precision metal tools he could square off wood work even better and maybe even produce nicer floors.&lt;p&gt;In many civilizations, metal cookware was simply seen as more durable alternatives to ceramic cookware and even followed similar design motifs [2], it can sometimes be difficult to tell from far away if something is a bronze or ceramic pot they often look so similar [3]&lt;p&gt;Pre-industrial revolution, human-scale technology can get pretty impressive, humans managed to settle an entire planet and all of its climates with not much more than the product of their hands, some ideas and a little patience -- basically what this guy has done. If aliens were to kidnap a thousand pre-Industrial Revolution random humans from around Earth and dump them off on a suitable, but empty world. They&amp;#x27;d have it all colonized and populated in probably 10,000-20,000 years. That&amp;#x27;s not even geologic timescale.&lt;p&gt;Terrifying.&lt;p&gt;1 - &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Hanok&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Hanok&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;2 - &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.google.com&amp;#x2F;search?tbm=isch&amp;amp;q=ancient%20chinese%20ceramic%20bronze&amp;amp;tbs=imgo:1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.google.com&amp;#x2F;search?tbm=isch&amp;amp;q=ancient%20chinese%2...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;3 - &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.users.qwest.net&amp;#x2F;~rjbphx&amp;#x2F;BigPicture&amp;#x2F;PotteryGild.JPG&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.users.qwest.net&amp;#x2F;~rjbphx&amp;#x2F;BigPicture&amp;#x2F;PotteryGild.JP...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nkurz</author><text>&lt;i&gt;And you have to wonder what is going to be invented before then that will make us look at the homes we are living in right now and think, &amp;quot;How did I ever live in such a backwards, primitive building?&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you didn&amp;#x27;t see it, you might appreciate this article from a bit ago about preserving some of the last remaining turf farm houses in Iceland:&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  Until a century ago, and even into the 1940s, the nation’s 
  skyline was dominated by squat, clustered turf houses. Yet 
  despite turf’s vital role in Iceland’s history, you won’t 
  see much of it today. Over a few brief generations, 
  Icelanders have grown ashamed of and buried this 
  architectural tradition, which has taken on the connotation 
  of backwardness.
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;roadsandkingdoms.com&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;turf-war&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;roadsandkingdoms.com&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;turf-war&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;(Separately, I&amp;#x27;ll mention that I really appreciate the level of effort you put into your comments here.  They are great!)</text></comment>
<story><title>Building a hut with a tiled roof, underfloor heating and mud and stone walls</title><url>https://primitivetechnology.wordpress.com</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>logfromblammo</author><text>The thing that terrifies me is that the law in many industrialized countries would consider the structure that he built to be unfit for human habitation, due to multiple severe building code violations.&lt;p&gt;100 years ago, it would have been an acceptable dwelling, or even desirable.  Thanks to the pace of progress, in just 50 years, houses built to &lt;i&gt;today&amp;#x27;s&lt;/i&gt; standards might be considered too primitive for human habitation.&lt;p&gt;And you have to wonder what is going to be invented before then that will make us look at the homes we are living in right now and think, &amp;quot;How did I ever live in such a backwards, primitive building?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;We might not even realize the importance of it right away.  If you think about an indoor flushing toilet, it doesn&amp;#x27;t seem all that remarkable, but now every residence needs to have at least one.  Grid power wiring isn&amp;#x27;t all that glamorous, but every home has it.  The thing that changes everything might be &lt;i&gt;boring&lt;/i&gt; at first glance.&lt;p&gt;And that&amp;#x27;s terrifying.  A human can see a device with the power to change the entire world and still say, &amp;quot;&lt;i&gt;meh.&lt;/i&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;And also aliens would probably need to kidnap at least 10000 in order to maintain a stable breeding population.  Otherwise, the humans would have to establish some pretty strict rules against monogamy and inbreeding, &lt;i&gt;and&lt;/i&gt; the aliens would have to carefully select a very diverse group to begin with.</text></item><item><author>bane</author><text>This guys&amp;#x27; videos are amazing. If anything should convince you that humans are a uniquely terrifying species it&amp;#x27;s these videos. Walking into the forest with nothing more on that a pair of shorts and a brain, he makes fire, tools, building supplies, ceramics, and entire living structures. The technology he produces by himself is &lt;i&gt;almost&lt;/i&gt; on par with many pre-industrial revolution societies where metals (even though they had them) were too expensive to waste on building shelters.&lt;p&gt;For example, if he designed things a little differently, this would pretty much be what the average Korean, now one of the most technologically sophisticated civilizations in the world, lived in up until the late 20th century [1]: tiled roofs, wooden framed houses (they interlocked with notches instead of twine), raised floors with underfloor heating (still copied in modern apartments), earth packed exterior walls. If he had time to pulp wood and make paper he could do interior finishing, and the addition of maybe 1 or 2 precision metal tools he could square off wood work even better and maybe even produce nicer floors.&lt;p&gt;In many civilizations, metal cookware was simply seen as more durable alternatives to ceramic cookware and even followed similar design motifs [2], it can sometimes be difficult to tell from far away if something is a bronze or ceramic pot they often look so similar [3]&lt;p&gt;Pre-industrial revolution, human-scale technology can get pretty impressive, humans managed to settle an entire planet and all of its climates with not much more than the product of their hands, some ideas and a little patience -- basically what this guy has done. If aliens were to kidnap a thousand pre-Industrial Revolution random humans from around Earth and dump them off on a suitable, but empty world. They&amp;#x27;d have it all colonized and populated in probably 10,000-20,000 years. That&amp;#x27;s not even geologic timescale.&lt;p&gt;Terrifying.&lt;p&gt;1 - &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Hanok&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Hanok&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;2 - &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.google.com&amp;#x2F;search?tbm=isch&amp;amp;q=ancient%20chinese%20ceramic%20bronze&amp;amp;tbs=imgo:1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.google.com&amp;#x2F;search?tbm=isch&amp;amp;q=ancient%20chinese%2...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;3 - &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.users.qwest.net&amp;#x2F;~rjbphx&amp;#x2F;BigPicture&amp;#x2F;PotteryGild.JPG&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.users.qwest.net&amp;#x2F;~rjbphx&amp;#x2F;BigPicture&amp;#x2F;PotteryGild.JP...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>xienze</author><text>&amp;gt; 100 years ago, it would have been an acceptable dwelling, or even desirable.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t think a mud hut was ever considered acceptable in any moderately advanced country back in 1915.</text></comment>