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And then good luck rebuilding civilization now that every easily accessible resource has been mined/harvested out.
by cafebabbe 10y ago
And then good luck rebuilding civilization now that every easily accessible resource has been mined/harvested out.
- clydethefrog 10y agoLet's hope the beings that will rebuild civilization will learn from our mistakes.
- TeMPOraL 10y agoI don't know about you, but I like human civilisation, so this is not much of a consolation for me.
- mirimir 10y agoWell, but you'll likely be dead, no? And yes, I'm sure that parents fear for their kids. Maybe the AIs will pick up where we left off. They'll be sort of human. Especially if hybrids become popular.
- mirimir 10y agoWell, what did we learn from the Indus Valley folks? Or the Amazon folks? Whatever electronic records survive will probably get recycled long before they're read. And paper doesn't last very long. So arguably they'll just have folktales.
- SerpentJoe 10y agoNobody is rebuilding anything on this planet, not considering how deep we need to drill/mine at this point to get anything good, and the example will not be useful to anyone who arrives here from elsewhere.
- Razengan 10y agoIt's more likely that our successors will only inherit the harmful products of our civilization. Consider this: People today are still dying from landmines and poisons that were using during wars a 100 years ago [0]. They may remain around for over 300 years [1]. The things that will most immediately affect the civilization after ours will probably be our radioactive waste, the long-term effects of climate change, the extinctions caused by us, unexploded mines and bombs, and stockpiles of nuclear and other weapons. At best, the next civilization may dig up some of our machines and partially reverse-engineer them, but they'll probably never be able to access their original functionality. For example using our laptops/phones as a source of light, or their batteries as explosives. What little technology of ours that still fully works by then, will probably cause wars over its ownership, even if the tech itself is benign and beneficial. ---- If, like me, the idea of accumulation of technology over large expanses of time, across multiple civilizations and potentially multiple species is deeply interesting to you, you may love the world of Numenera [2] [3]; Earth, a billion years from now. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12187512 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12187512 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12188466 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12188466 [2] http://www.numenera.com http://www.numenera.com [3] https://store.steampowered.com/app/272270/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/272270/
- mirimir 10y agoRead Stephenson's Anathem. There's lots of good stuff in cities. And in landfills.
- sbov 10y agoUseless buildings are a great supply of resources, and for certain resources they are arguably even easier to access.