Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/07/31/primitive-technology-enter.html
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Oh I dunno man, I get this feeling we already have discovered the VR age…coughcoughlife-is-a-simulation-on-some-bored-IT-guy’s-desktopcoughcough
Obviously FAKE. Every one know jet fuel can’t melt steel. How would some wood based fire melt rocks into iron?
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Man, I really love the videos from Primitive Technology! So incredibly calming to watch. There is something about the lack of talking, the trees and greenery, the quiet hard work, and seeing the result - it’s like meditation for me, esp if I had a bad day.
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I remember in jr high school shop class watching a 16mm film about people who had very primitive living conditions in Africa making their own iron/steel farming implements like hoes and shovels - and maybe some kind of plow, by starting with mud puddles of red water as the source of iron. They made goatskin bellows that were pumped up and down kind of like a butter churn.
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These videos are my happy place.
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I like how he advanced the state of the art by designing a blower that runs from a bow. Or had some ancient tribe done that already?
Gave you a Like just for mentioning GURPS. 
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Pff. He hasn’t even invented religion yet.
…unless he isn’t planning on going for a cultural victory! Time to start domesticating horses, chaps.
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2.25 Million followers. I think he has reached cult status.
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He’s following that other tech tree:
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[quote=“boingboing, post:1, topic:82452”]a guy (who never identifies himself) navigating the wilds of Far North Queensland, Australia with nothing more than what he fashions with his own hands.[/quote]Also no shirt. None of it could possibly work with a shirt on.
If he’s really traveling with “nothing more than what he fashions with his own hands” I’m most impressed with his construction of a digital video camera…
IIRC he’s not living this way as some sort of statement—it’s just something he does for fun, on the weekend.
But yeah, if he had to hunter-gatherer up (projecting heavily here), he (I) probably wouldn’t have the spare time for these cool projects, or any way to learn how to even attempt them.
He might take up with a crowd of hunter-gatherers who would appreciate his inventiveness, and feed him in exchange for making labor-saving tools.
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“Oh yeah, the guy that makes houses for us so we don’t have to sleep in the rain? We like that guy…”
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these projects of his often take a long time to complete, so he’d have plenty of time for a bit of hunting and gathering in between. also, if was in a real primitive community, he probably wouldn’t be building these things by himself either. he has done a lot of research into these methods though, if he had been dropped in the middle of nowhere with no pre-existing knowledge he wouldn’t be able to do half of these things.
This reminds me of something I’ve been asking myself lately: what would it take, in terms of effort and time, for a population left in the wild, with a wide range of available raw materials, and all the knowledge and know-how, to reach various levels of technology from scratch?
I’m thinking of asking the question on the xkcd forums.
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