A simple Question. How asre wastelanders and raiders able to read and write( and type in terminals) without any formal education?? How are there doctors and scientists when there are no textbooks (since they all got destroyed) and there are no schools, and people from the average raider to James so smart?? I thought the wasteland was to hellish to learn something... Als o Do wastelanders take showers??? They have to be clean somehow..

Well, the war was over 200 years ago.

There are some pre war books that are still readable, and perhaps wastelanders used holotapes to stay educated. And as for the shower... there still is water... irradiated water.. but water none the less.

Considering they're always dirty, I assume not unless you like dying of radiation poisoning.

Exactly if the war was 200 years ago, how are they educated??

Refer to:

What I meant was: The war was over 200 years ago. Thus, they surely would've figured out ways to educate themselves. After all, not all books were destroyed. They might have gotten some books from some old abandoned vaults (if they survived the creatures from inside) and as someone else said, use holotapes. As for bathing, who knows. Maybe they bathe in irradiated water?

But I don't see how them being smart is ridiculous.

Yea there might be books but they cant get college education, and there reallt cant be scientists as there are no colleges... plus life is too short for wastelanders to really get an education, they would first try to survive before actually learning, meaning they wont have alot of time to learn, and also if wastelanders take baths with irradiated water, wouldnt they be ghouls by now???

Well thats why most wastelanders are dirty, but the cleans ones must have a high rad resistance or rad away of some sort.

Good points, Dan. Sadly though, I am off to bed. So I must leave that to someone else to answer.

The educated people are all Enclave spies!! Well... they could be.

yes, some. it takes 50+ books and to get someone to give someone a middle school math education, 100+ for a general, rounded, middle school education. it takes hundreds of books today, and years of practice, to become a doctor. Yet, everyone talks English perfectly, can operate a computer perfectly, can write perfectly, and do all kinds of stuff that would take a normal person almost 20 years of schooling to do.

Maybe they are all super-geniuses? I dunno...Can I buy a vowel?

just because books and holotapes are around, doesnt mean everyone has access to them..
during the old west books had been around some time.. there were still a lot of morons.
even today in poverty stricken cultures, literacy and book knowledge isnt great

It depends where you are I suppose.

in "Highly Civilised" areas, such as Vault city, Rivet City, and NCR City, I'd expect a comparitively high litteracy rate (in NCR's and Rivet City's case, particularly more with the young as the I can see a formal schoolhouse in those areas) In more "fronter" areas, such as Modoc and perhaps Megaton lower education would probably take a back seat to agriculture, but maybe some basic words and figuring. In the true wasteland (Tribal), and Anarchic places (Reno), Litteracy mostly be for the rich and powerful; or those with a trade (and therefore probably reasonably rich all things considered).

In all cases, except for a place like the Enclave, or Vault City (which are highly organsied, Beurocratic, and Isolationist), I would expect literacy rates to be extremely low when compared to the real world. In those two locations (or other Suriviving vaults that have remained fairly isolated) I'd expect levels to be on par with the modern world, if not perhaps a little higher.

I would say along the line of how much education was taught in the Vault before they get out. These guys would just past the education to future generation. From there I would assume that knowledge would degraded to a point where people only need to know a few words to live out their days (like reading signs or how to to things books).

Also, its quite interesting in the case of New Reno.

Most wastelanders are descendants of those who took refuge in fallout shelters, Vault-Tec vaults or otherwise. Their knowledge, such as it is, is what remains of the teachings of past generations.

Okay, to answer your question with another question, how did the frontiersmen stay literate?

The answer of course is simple, reading and writing are not complicated tasks and so don't really require specialist intructors for it to be learned.

With a devolved society though, i am wondering for many how practical being literate is.. or would be in a true post-apoc setting......
in this day and age, people have access to vast stores of knowlede..
but im sure there are still typos this this thread...

In settlements, there is presumably at least informal education, though some like Ted Strayer are clearly uneducated.

In a post apocolypitic environment, you're seeing farming and hunting becoming incredibily important, Whilst being literate can help a bit, its not strictly required to be able to perform these tasks. In a world like fallouts, add mercinary/guarding.

Even some trades could be tought by rote, with no book, so elementary healers, builders, traders, etc could get by without it, although it would probably be easier if they were literate.

Hey dude, why are you singling Ted out? Uncool, dude.

You make me feel bad.

Only because he's the only big city person that is explicitly stated to be illiterate (in an NPC conversation with Mr. Lopez), unless I've missed someone.

You're right about that. There are some that can be inferred to be illiterate like Bryan Wilks, though he may just be functionally retarded. Then there are various wasteland dummies who may or may not be able to read (Sierra Petrovita, K. Ewers) but are still for all intents and purposes quite stupid.

It's enough to want to help Alejandra Torres start up that school, eh?

Well, who's to say the older survivors didn't teach their children what they knew after the war? It's not like suddenly everyone was a baby after the bombs dropped, and all.

Holotapes, books, and other things would help them learn, too. Think about Tribals, they grew up outside of cities, and live in little huts and use spears. While, those in cities are much more intelligent than the Tribals are. It's a matter of who you know, I guess.

Besides, who would want to play a game where everyone is a babbling idiot?