If there's a sort of "apocalyptic" event but there are still surviving communities, will people be able to make eyeglasses again, or are people with vision issues gonna be fucked?

I assumed surviving doctors would do for people what they did for sawyer in lost.

Use what you can find to get as close as you can per eye.

Other than that, sucks to suck, And I say that as somebody who is both near sighted and far sighted.

We're fucked. Our genes told us.

One would think that if most of society is toast there will be a shitload of left over glasses that could be collected and then distributed to those in need.

I have never put on a pair that was even close to my prescription. In fact, this post made me realize I've been wearing my old glasses all day and that's why I have a headache.
- There are always exceptions to the rule. There are people that have super special prescriptions and then there are other people that just have the standard stuff due to age, etc.
  Based on that, the majority of people would have a pair that match them. Anyone else with special glasses would be shit out of luck because as the title says it’s the end of the world and only a few peops left.
  Let’s not be ruled by exceptions to the rule. It is only a tiny amount.
Glasses aren't all the same, you know. What if you have a really crazy prescription?
- Out of all the people with glasses in the world, there's somebody who's almost guaranteed to have the same eyes.

I know of a YouTuber called the blind homesteader. He has family and friends help him. They have quite the homestead and he often helps the community around his homestead too.

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.
- You probably wouldnt want to buy it. They aren't exactly a good fashion statement.
- 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.

People who wear glasses are screwed but not as screwed as people who rely on medication.

But I'll thrive with my untreated ADHD (unlikely)!
- I dunno, reading through common ADHD traits sometimes sounds like a description of the perfect post-apoc survivor lol
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.
- I too am certain to die so my plan is to heroically sacrifice myself. Full on "I got this" while my friends are pulled away screaming "nooooooooooooooooooo!"
- 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.
- I want to see a movie like The Road but it’s kids dragging their parent in an iron lung down the road.

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.
- I believe that our eyesight is worse than it's been historically. Sunlight shows eye growth and we get less of it today than 1000 years ago.
  It didn't really change the point we can be mostly somewhat valuable, but there may be more if it's with worse eyesight today.

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:

https://youtu.be/OydqR_7_DjI

I do much the same, make a tube out of my hands like I'm using a monocular. Works!
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.

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?
- i feel like there's some sort of childhood song about the dangers of silicosis we were supposed to learn but praise mandela didn't
- 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.

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.
- for less people you need less manufacturing capacity

Maybe contact lenses are apocalypse proof

Always keep a year supply of dailies on hand
- yeah but how much solution you got for stretching those dailies out

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.

Pretty sure LASIK involves cutting open your cornea and affecting the aqueous fluid to correct the refraction. They don't just shoot lasers into your eyes to make you see good
- Agree to disagree.
💀

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...
- Still owes me 20 bucks, just sayin
But the first generation of survivors is gonna live like hell without glasses.
- if we can make glass we can make simple lenses. I just don't know the limits as I'm neither an eye, lens, nor materials scientist.

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/lesson