User talk:Josh Parris/Bootstrap

The main focus of this project should be tool-making. Human beings have not significantly changed since the Stone Age, from an evolutionary perspective in any case. We have better tools and the knowledge of how to use them.

How do you make a chisel? You need to make the tools to make the tools to make the tools to make the tools to make the tools to (repeat about 50 times).

For example - to make a really useful chisel, you first need blacksmithing. That means you need tools to find, excavate, and melt / refine ore. You need blacksmithing techniques, a forge, fire, anvil, hammer, etc. etc. etc.

Starting with Fire is a good idea, but you need to take very, very small steps if you want a random set of humans dropped on a colonial planet with literally nothing but a static copy of wikipedia to have a working computer within a generation or two.