"Stanislaw Lem - Memoirs Found in a Bathtub" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lem Stanislaw)

Gravitronics, cybereconomics and synthephysics were all unknown in the Late Neogene, when
the catastrophe occurred. The economic systems of various ethnic groups callednashens were relatively
autonomous, and wholly dependent upon the circulation of papyr, as was the flow of supplies to the
Syrtic Tiberis colony on Mars.

Papyralysis ruined a great deal more than the economy. That entire period is rightly named the
Era of Papyrocracy, for not only did papyr regulate and coordinate all group activities, but it determined,
in some obscure way, the fate of individuals (for example, the "identity papyrs"). The functional and ritual
roles of papyr in the folklore of that time (the catastrophe took place when Prechaotic Neogene was at
its height) have yet to be fully catalogued. While we do know the meaning of some expressions, others
remain empty phrases (cheks, dok-ments, ree-seets, etc.) In that era one could not be born, grow up,
obtain an education, work, travel, marry or die except through the aid and mediation of papyr.

Only in the light of these facts can one appreciate the full extent of the disaster which struck
Earth. The quarantine of whole cities and continents, the construction of hermetically sealed shelters -- all
such measures failed. The science of the day was helpless against the catalyst's subatomic structure, the
product of a most unusual anabiotic evolution. For the first time in history society was threatened with
total dissolution. To quote an inscription carved upon the wall of a urinal in the Fris-Ko excavations by an
anonymous bard of the cataclysm: "And the heavens above the cities grew dark with clouds of blighted
papyr and it rained for forty days and forty nights a dirty rain, and thus with wind and streams of mud
was the tale of man washed from the face of the earth forever."

It must have been a cruel blow indeed to the pride of Late Neogene man, who saw himself
already reaching the stars. The papyralysis nightmare pervaded all walks of life. Panic hit the cities;
people, deprived of their identity, lost their reason; the supply of goods broke down; there were incidents
of violence; technology, research and development, schools -- all crumbled into nonexistence; power
plants could not be repaired for lack of blueprints. The lights went out, and the ensuing darkness was
illumined only by the glow of bonfires.

And so the Neogene entered into the Chaotic, which was to last over two hundred years.
Obviously, the first quarter-century of the Great Collapse left no written records. We can only guess
under what conditions government was maintained and anarchy avoided until the establishment, around
mid-century, of the Earth Federation.

The more complex a civilization, the more vital to its existence is the maintenance of the flow of
information; hence the more vulnerable it becomes to any disturbance in that flow. Now that flow, the
lifeblood of the society, had come to a halt. The last storehouse of information lay in the minds of living
experts; to record and preserve that information had priority over all else. But this seemingly simple
problem proved insoluble. In the Late Neogene, knowledge was so compartmentalized that no one
specialist could possibly assimilate the entirety of his field. Reconstruction consequently demanded
tedious, long-term collaboration of different groups of experts. Had the task been undertaken at once --
so Polygnostor Laa Baar Eight of our Bermand Historical School tells us -- Neogene civilization could
have been speedily restored. In answer to the distinguished founder of Neogene Chronologistics, we
must point out the activity he postulates could indeed have led to the accumulation of veritable mountains
of knowledge -- but who would there have been to derive benefit from this? Certainly not the hordes of
nomads who left their devastated cities; nor their children, who grew up wild and illiterate. No, civilization
could have been saved only at the very moment when industry began to fall apart, construction ceased
and transportation ground to a halt, when the starving masses of whole continents first cried out for help,
including the colony on Mars, deprived of supplies and threatened with extinction. Clearly the experts