Start the record
Begin, on day one, the deliberate transfer of what you know to people who will outlive you.
Everything for this step
- Field guide
- None yet. A guide goes deeper than a step: technique, identification and the hazards.
- Builds
- None yet.
- Reference sheets
- None.
- Track
- Records and writing, level 1 of 4 · next: Writing and the durable record
Why this matters
Knowledge is the only asset that can grow rather than deplete — and the only one that vanishes silently. A group of twelve holds skills that a group of twelve cannot re-derive. Tasmania lost bone tools and fishing over a few thousand years of isolation, not through catastrophe but through population falling below the number needed to keep a skill alive.
The shape of it
- Inventory the skills in the group now. Write down who knows what — medicine, machining, chemistry, farming, electronics, languages. Assume every one of them is a single point of failure.
- Assign an apprentice to every critical skill immediately, even if the apprentice is a child and the skill is not needed yet.
- Keep a daily log: weather, what was planted and when, what was harvested, what was tried, what failed and why. The failures are the more valuable half. In three years this log is a local agricultural science nobody else can reproduce.
- Record the calendar. Days since arrival, and the dates of first frost, last frost, first rain, and harvest. Without this you are re-guessing the planting date every year — and the planting date is the harvest.
- Protect any physical books above almost anything else. Dry, dark, off the ground, split across locations. See Take it offline for what to hold and how.
- Recite the important things aloud on a schedule. Oral tradition works, but only when it is rehearsed deliberately rather than assumed.
- Move to durable media as soon as you can — see Writing and Paper. Charcoal on bark is a stopgap, not a record.
Doing it, step by step
The summary above says what has to happen. This says how, with the numbers that decide whether it works.
1 · Inventory the skills in the group today
Write down, or recite and memorise, who knows what: medicine, midwifery, farming, animals, building, smithing, machining, chemistry, electronics, languages, teaching, navigation.
For each person and skill, note one of three levels: has done it, can do it unsupervised, can teach it. Assume every skill held by one person is a single point of failure. Review the inventory monthly and after every death, arrival or departure.
2 · Put an apprentice on every critical skill now
Every skill whose loss would kill someone or stop the settlement gets an apprentice today, even if the apprentice is a child and the skill is not needed yet.
Set a fixed time each week — at least a few hours — when the holder teaches and the apprentice does the work under supervision. Record progress against the three levels. A skill is safe when two people can do it unsupervised.
3 · Keep a daily log, in a fixed format
Same format, every day, by the named keeper, with a deputy for days they cannot:
- Day count and date.
- Weather: sky, wind, rain, and temperature if you can measure it.
- Work done: what was planted, harvested, built or made.
- What was tried, and what happened.
- Health: who was ill or injured, with what.
- Births, deaths, arrivals, departures.
In three years this log is a local agricultural science nobody else can reproduce.
4 · Record failures with their conditions
The failures are the more valuable half. Recording only successes guarantees the next generation repeats the same failure.
For every failure: what was attempted, the conditions — materials, quantities, weather, timing — what happened, and the best guess at why. A failed firing with its kiln log, a sown bed that did not come up with its sowing date and soil temperature — these are the entries that teach.
5 · Record the calendar and the natural signs
Days since arrival, and against them first frost, last frost, first rain, the start of the dry season, and harvest. Record the natural signs too — first leaf on named trees, first blossom, bird arrivals — which predict the season better than a count once you have several years of them.
Without this you re-guess the planting date every year, and the planting date is the harvest. See the calendar for how to fix the date from the sun.
6 · Protect the books above almost anything else
Physical books are the one thing the group cannot make again. Dry, dark, off the ground, split across locations.
- Dry: a sealed container or a dry building. Mould starts in sustained damp above roughly 65% relative humidity.
- Dark: light fades ink and weakens paper.
- Off the ground and away from outside walls.
- At least two locations, with a written list of which book is where.
- Inspect monthly for mould, insects and rodents.
See Take it offline for what to hold and how.
7 · Recite the load-bearing knowledge on a schedule
Oral tradition works, but only when it is rehearsed deliberately. Choose what must survive even if every written copy is lost, and recite it weekly, with the group repeating it:
- The water rule — how to make water safe.
- The rehydration recipe — see sanitation.
- The decision rule and the roles — see deciding how you decide.
- The planting dates.
- The plants that kill in this region.
Test children on it; the test is whether they can repeat it unprompted.
8 · Move to durable media and make copies
Charcoal on bark is a stopgap, not a record. Move to writing and paper as soon as you can.
Make a second copy of the skills inventory, the calendar and the critical procedures, and keep it in a different building. One copy of everything in one dry box in one building is one fire from losing all of it.