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> The great pyramid is rather simple as far as art and cultural complexity goes. That may be so, but it remains as a feat of project unmatched in their histor

> The great pyramid is rather simple as far as art and cultural complexity goes. That may be so, but it remains as a feat of project unmatched in their history, the one great wonder that survived. I am not sure how many would be able to name the pyramids that came after. There's a huge amount of precision involved and a huge amount of effort required of the culture to complete. Similarly you could argue that with space exploration we've become significantly more advanced, our probes and instruments can do things the ones in the 60's couldn't. Yet, we haven't sent anymore humans past low earth orbit. In a sense we've advanced, the individual efforts remain great, but our cultural efforts have retreated, the weight of humanity is not where it once was. What's most going to be remembered of our culture in 5000 years?

dorfsmay 8y ago
The International Space Station gas happened since, which has been continuously lived in. That's an achievement compared to a short trip on the moon kicking a few rocks.
- sixstringtheory 8y ago
  And we’re getting more efficient at launching vehicles to transit. We have the same boosters being reused!
max76 8y ago
> What’s most going to be remembered of our culture in 5000 years? There is a good chance that computers will have an uninterrupted existence for the next 5000 years, and we’ll be remembered for creating the first network with 1billion+ users, similarly to how the Romans are remembered for their roads and aqueducts. This is a particularly exciting case because large amounts of data we generate could survive! In the case that history is largely forgotten, similarly to how we have a heavy fog around knowledge of society 5000 years ago, I can imagine future archeologicists being very surprised to find large piles of fissionable materials. This has the potential to be very sensational in future pop culture.
- UweSchmidt 8y ago
  It has been suggested that since we have exhausted the easily accessible ressources on this planet, human civilization would have a hard time restarting from scratch. Either this society continues (and solves huge environmental challenges along the way), or we have a scifi scenario, where a group of humans on faraway planets forget about old Earth, or no one will be able to remember or rediscover us.
  - max76 8y ago
    We could have pre-industrial civilizations that arise on Earth if we exhaust the natural resources. I imagine that we have enough scrap metal lying around to not prohibit post-disaster civilizations from working with metal. It’s really a matter of how bad the ecological disaster is, I can imagine a point where it’s bad enough to cause a collapse of our current civilizations but not bad enough to prohibit smaller less technologically advanced civilizations.

dorfsmay 8y ago

The International Space Station gas happened since, which has been continuously lived in. That's an achievement compared to a short trip on the moon kicking a few rocks.

sixstringtheory 8y ago
And we’re getting more efficient at launching vehicles to transit. We have the same boosters being reused!

max76 8y ago

> What’s most going to be remembered of our culture in 5000 years? There is a good chance that computers will have an uninterrupted existence for the next 5000 years, and we’ll be remembered for creating the first network with 1billion+ users, similarly to how the Romans are remembered for their roads and aqueducts. This is a particularly exciting case because large amounts of data we generate could survive! In the case that history is largely forgotten, similarly to how we have a heavy fog around knowledge of society 5000 years ago, I can imagine future archeologicists being very surprised to find large piles of fissionable materials. This has the potential to be very sensational in future pop culture.

UweSchmidt 8y ago
It has been suggested that since we have exhausted the easily accessible ressources on this planet, human civilization would have a hard time restarting from scratch. Either this society continues (and solves huge environmental challenges along the way), or we have a scifi scenario, where a group of humans on faraway planets forget about old Earth, or no one will be able to remember or rediscover us.
- max76 8y ago
  We could have pre-industrial civilizations that arise on Earth if we exhaust the natural resources. I imagine that we have enough scrap metal lying around to not prohibit post-disaster civilizations from working with metal. It’s really a matter of how bad the ecological disaster is, I can imagine a point where it’s bad enough to cause a collapse of our current civilizations but not bad enough to prohibit smaller less technologically advanced civilizations.