I feel like I have a deep reliance on society and technology, because I can’t fucking see without glasses and I’m too scared to do Lasik lol (also expensive).
People who wear glasses are screwed but not as screwed as people who rely on medication.
I have trained my children from a young age that, in case of zombie outbreak or alien invasion, I am to be left behind. I require far too many medications to function in a post-apocalyptic setting.
What oddly specific training. Is there a training regimen for a “Evangelion everyone got turned into Tang” situation too? What about the “Just got spider powers and a Canon event may be coming”?
My partner and I have discussed our wildly different willingness to try to survive in a post-apocalyptic world plenty of times over the years. He would work to survive and would probably thrive more than the average survivor. Me? I’ve always said I’ll likely head to the cough syrup section of the pharmacy.
This conversation came up earlier today, in fact. Well, I was recently diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. I’m still sorting out the right medication to get it under control and am dealing with a lot of pain, but way less than before starting treatment. I told him with this diagnosis, if society ever collapses in a way that causes me to be unable to get my medication? I’m out.
I’m on the same page. I’ve spent most of my adult life testing the limits of my skills, wit, and badassery. My conclusion from that is that I am not a badass and have no interest in trying to survive societal collapse.
Not that useful in scenarios besides reading: if you curl your hands in front of your eye and leave a very tiny opening you can create a pinhole that’ll make a tiny bit of your view in focus
Photo from Minute Physics demonstrating what you need to do for that:
Been using this trick to read my alarm clock since I was ten!
You could make “glasses” out of wood or bone with thin slits using the same idea
Neat! I have really strong vision, but know how to force them out of focus. It’s weird not being able to blur my vision when I’m doing this.
We could rely on scavenging what’s already been made. Even if it isn’t your exact prescription, a little might be better then nothing.
Your screwedness depends on how bad your eyesight is. Can you see well enough to tell a weed apart from the crop you’re growing when looking at arms length? Then that’s all the eyesight you need to be useful to a community
Pretty much this. Even if your eyes are bad-bad, generally you can find a task you can do, even if it’s “go spread fertilizer on the crop beds over here” or “hold this metal down at this end while I hammer the other end into shape.” People with bad eyesight have historically survived in conditions nearly identical to what a commune of survivors would be facing if the T-virus decided to escape tomorrow or whatever, it’s not magic. Depending on the community you wind up with, you will have SOMETHING that you can do to meaningfully contribute even without eyeglasses.
It took centuries to get to disposable contact lenses while trying to figure out the physics, both in optics and in manufacturing any sort of spectacles, at the same time.
Will the survivors of the apocalypse be able to pick up where we left off or will they essentially start from scratch? That depends on the apocalypse and on the survivors. Do documents and knowledge survive, perhaps in a stash or in digital form? Do the survivors include an optician or a material engineer? Chances look good if that’s the case. If no, life will get a lot harder for many people.
Restarting production chains and manufacturing facilities is going to be the biggest bottle neck.
If we imagine something like climate change wiping out 99% of the population, there just aren’t enough people to do all that. It’s going to be all hands on deck just to produce enough food for everyone. It will take a few centuries of rebuilding to get to that point.
You can make a rough magnifying lens by trial and error using glass and a hand grinder—not the same as prescription lenses, but for many it would be better than nothing.
Any glass? Any grinder? Can I find a broken window and start sanding it with sandpaper, as an extreme example?
Some glass is many sheets glued together, that could be trickier to work with
Thick glass that’s not tempered will be the easiest to work with
Pretty much any piece of glass and a series of sandpapers going from low to high grit will eventually work if you know what you’re doing
Yes, it’s not magic, it’s just the shape of the glass that makes the focus point of images be slightly closer or further apart.
Can I find a broken window and start sanding it with sandpaper, as an extreme example?
Yes, provided you have a way to polish it back to transparent again, after changing the shape.
https://www.engineeringforchange.org/solutions/product/adspecs/
Hopefully if enough of these get distributed it won’t be so much of a problem except for people with astigmatism.
https://www.epo.org/en/news-events/european-inventor-award/meet-the-finalists/joshua-silver
Joshua Silver, a professor of physics at the University of Oxford, first had the idea to manufacture adjustable lenses for the poor, removing the need for expensive equipment and professionals, in May 1985 after he had created a variable focus lens out of curiosity.
His invention allows wearers to adjust the glasses to their personal prescription without the assistance of a healthcare professional. They simply look at a reading chart and adjust the glasses until they can see the letters clearly.
The glasses use durable but flexible plastic lenses, which have fluid sacs filled with silicone oil between them. These glasses can easily be adjusted by the wearer by simply adding or removing some of the oil in the sacs.
The invention is not without its limitations, however. Currently, the principle only functions successfully with circular lenses, limiting the design opportunities. Additionally, the principle can only alter the magnification of objects, so the glasses cannot treat those with astigmatism. What these spectacles lack in aesthetics, however, they make up for in spades with utility and work on non-round lenses is already underway.
His stated goal was to make the overall cost of a pair of glasses as low as $19.
Holy shit this is amazing. I love inventions like this. This just oddly gives me a lot of joy. No need to waste hours on stupid eye exams, just adjust it whenever my eyesight deteriorates.
Awesome! But this probably takes forever to actually become a product that one can buy.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2008/dec/22/diy-adjustable-glasses-josh-silver
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2011/may/22/joshua-silver-glasses-self-adjusting
Original article I posted didn’t give a date, but the earliest articles about these glasses are from 2008-2011, so they’ve certainly been around for almost 20 years now.
I think they were really aimed at rural communities in poor countries, several of the articles I’ve read reference about 300,000 pairs being distributed.
Maybe contact lenses are apocalypse proof
Always keep a year supply of dailies on hand
If you have or can scavenge a laser pointer, just go hog wild shining it all around in your eyes. You have nothing to lose trying it at that point and maybe you get lucky and give yourself DIY lasik.
💀
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For myopia, only an issue for a couple of generations. If we’re living off the land again, myopia will stop being a thing as in the past.
Aristotle was writing about myopia over 2000 years ago…
But the first generation of survivors is gonna live like hell without glasses.
