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This is a tantalizing idea ripe for nerd sniping, but there are practical limits to how advanced previous civilizations could have become. If all of humanity we

This is a tantalizing idea ripe for nerd sniping, but there are practical limits to how advanced previous civilizations could have become. If all of humanity were catastrophically wiped out right now, and 50 million years from now, another species was investigating the planet, they'd find microplastics in rock and ice strata around the world, all at approximately the same age. There's no natural explanation for this material, so it would be strong evidence for a global species capable of extracting and processing hydrocarbons. Although many people don't believe it, the fact also remains that there would be similar evidence of atmospheric changes due to our activities. There might be no written record of our passing, all of our steel structures would be long gone, even Mount Rushmore long erased, and our efforts at interplanetary exploration could all be lost, but our plastics would remain. Some further reading: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/are-we-earths-only-civilization/557180/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/are-we-e... FWIW, I do think some prehistorical civilizations were more advanced than we give them credit for, and ongoing discoveries seem to support this. But we're almost certainly the most technologically advanced civilization the Earth has fostered to date.

dragonwriter 6y ago
You don't present an argument for an upper limit on how advanced past civilizations can have been without detection but for an excluded middle, because, sure, a civilization at our level would be easily detectable, but one that developed to where it could operate without environmental pollution and which could clean up the pollution that it made on the way to it's advanced state would not be so detectable.
- thaumaturgy 6y ago
  This is a line of thinking that wanders away from intellectual curiosity and into intellectual madness. You're describing a process that would somehow "undo" micro- and macro-scopic effects and chemistry in rock and ice records around the world -- including those on the ocean floor -- without, itself, leaving any trace. It would be like peeling the skin off an onion, running that layer through a food processor, and then delicately gluing it all back on, and not being able to tell the difference under a microscope. That's wizard wand technology, not fusion.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > This is a line of thinking that wanders away from intellectual curiosity and into intellectual madness. When we’re talking about the prospects of a more advanced human civilization in a time from which we have artifacts (but, obviously, not ones that are more obviously advanced than standing stones into which people read improbable histories), if you aren't going to lean hard into intellectual madness, what's the point? > That's wizard wand technology I prefer “sufficiently advanced” to “wizard wand”, but the former is, as they say, indistinguishable from the latter.
    - thaumaturgy 6y ago
      Heh. I tend to pretty rapidly lose interest in subjects when they go from "huh, that's kinda neat" to young-adult fantasy storytime. It's a mental self-defense against the kinds of ideas that sneak up on clever people and trick them into believing dumb things.
      - dmix 6y ago
        This sort of historical fantasy is surprisingly rampant. From History channel pushing 'ancient astronauts' to the founder of the 1619 NYTimes project writing an article claiming African people were helping mesoamerican Aztecs build pyramids and the Olmec stone heads - predating the arrival of Columbus and the Europeans [1]. I'm always skeptical of any sort of hidden ancient advanced culture claims. The capabilities of bored humans over an extended hundreds/thousand year timescales is always underrated. Even without modern technology trading and just the night sky to be inspired by. Same the complex earthworks and manipulations of the environment created by indigenous Americans which is the thesis of 1491 book [2]. Or even in the complex large scale network of Eel farming in by natives in South Australia which surprised the European explorers [3]. Or even how Convergent evolution works in nature. [1] https://www.scribd.com/document/466921269/NYT-s-1619-Project-Founder-Calls-White-Race-Barbaric-Devils-Bloodsuckers-No-Different-Than-Hitler-x#from_embed https://www.scribd.com/document/466921269/NYT-s-1619-Project... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1491:_New_Revelations_of_the_Americas_Before_Columbus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1491:_New_Revelations_of_the_A... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/23/budj-bim-indigenous-eel-trap-site-on-verge-of-world-heritage-listing https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/23/budj-bim...
- Broken_Hippo 6y ago
  Let me ask you: If the earth had some major event tomorrow and basically everything quit working, do you think we'd forget about things such as the internet, phones, indoor plumbing, vehicles, or electricity? No, probably not. We'd rebuild, though some areas of the world would rebuild better or more equally than others. I don't know why folks think the past was any different. This is the main reason I highly doubt the past was some weirdly advanced paradise. I mean, why the heck would we need to invent, say, the chimney if the past was so advanced? Sure, folks in the past were smarter than we give credit for and sure, we've eshewed some things in the past - but the major things have stuck around.
  - thaumaturgy 6y ago
    Ehhhh. It might be because so many recent events have given me cause to be disappointed in people, but I don't think a massive loss of cultural memory is all that implausible. We have great numbers of people now who either don't believe vaccines are safe, or don't believe the Earth is round, or don't believe in evolution, or don't believe in anthropogenic climate change. Even as little attention as this thread is likely to get, probably someone's going to read this comment and not believe at least one of those things. The irony of not believing one of those things while reading the comment on a device built by science, over a vast technological network of other devices built by science, likely won't occur to them. Now also think about how much of modern stuff we take for granted rests on technological principles that are totally unknown to the average person. I have no idea how a toilet works. It would probably take me years to build a working one from scratch. I read about the principle of the plumbing in a toilet, once, but I can't recall it right this minute. Toilets are among the inventions that have had the greatest positive impact on human societies, and I could do no better right this minute than dig a hole somewhere and put some dirt on top of it. Given a strand of copper and some magnets, I could make a crude motor or generator. But I have no idea how to extrude fine copper wire, how to identify copper ore, mine it, or refine it. I know enough to make a crappy magnet out of some iron, but it would take me a hundred years to manufacture a motor and a lead-acid battery, and without modern medicine, I could hope for maybe 20 years. I think there are plausible scenarios where something like a sufficiently destructive solar flare could do enough damage to reset the last thousand years of technological development, and in those scenarios, people would within just a generation or two stop believing that things like an internet ever existed.

dragonwriter 6y ago

You don't present an argument for an upper limit on how advanced past civilizations can have been without detection but for an excluded middle, because, sure, a civilization at our level would be easily detectable, but one that developed to where it could operate without environmental pollution and which could clean up the pollution that it made on the way to it's advanced state would not be so detectable.

thaumaturgy 6y ago
This is a line of thinking that wanders away from intellectual curiosity and into intellectual madness. You're describing a process that would somehow "undo" micro- and macro-scopic effects and chemistry in rock and ice records around the world -- including those on the ocean floor -- without, itself, leaving any trace. It would be like peeling the skin off an onion, running that layer through a food processor, and then delicately gluing it all back on, and not being able to tell the difference under a microscope. That's wizard wand technology, not fusion.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > This is a line of thinking that wanders away from intellectual curiosity and into intellectual madness. When we’re talking about the prospects of a more advanced human civilization in a time from which we have artifacts (but, obviously, not ones that are more obviously advanced than standing stones into which people read improbable histories), if you aren't going to lean hard into intellectual madness, what's the point? > That's wizard wand technology I prefer “sufficiently advanced” to “wizard wand”, but the former is, as they say, indistinguishable from the latter.
  - thaumaturgy 6y ago
    Heh. I tend to pretty rapidly lose interest in subjects when they go from "huh, that's kinda neat" to young-adult fantasy storytime. It's a mental self-defense against the kinds of ideas that sneak up on clever people and trick them into believing dumb things.
    - dmix 6y ago
      This sort of historical fantasy is surprisingly rampant. From History channel pushing 'ancient astronauts' to the founder of the 1619 NYTimes project writing an article claiming African people were helping mesoamerican Aztecs build pyramids and the Olmec stone heads - predating the arrival of Columbus and the Europeans [1]. I'm always skeptical of any sort of hidden ancient advanced culture claims. The capabilities of bored humans over an extended hundreds/thousand year timescales is always underrated. Even without modern technology trading and just the night sky to be inspired by. Same the complex earthworks and manipulations of the environment created by indigenous Americans which is the thesis of 1491 book [2]. Or even in the complex large scale network of Eel farming in by natives in South Australia which surprised the European explorers [3]. Or even how Convergent evolution works in nature. [1] https://www.scribd.com/document/466921269/NYT-s-1619-Project-Founder-Calls-White-Race-Barbaric-Devils-Bloodsuckers-No-Different-Than-Hitler-x#from_embed https://www.scribd.com/document/466921269/NYT-s-1619-Project... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1491:_New_Revelations_of_the_Americas_Before_Columbus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1491:_New_Revelations_of_the_A... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/23/budj-bim-indigenous-eel-trap-site-on-verge-of-world-heritage-listing https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/23/budj-bim...
Broken_Hippo 6y ago
Let me ask you: If the earth had some major event tomorrow and basically everything quit working, do you think we'd forget about things such as the internet, phones, indoor plumbing, vehicles, or electricity? No, probably not. We'd rebuild, though some areas of the world would rebuild better or more equally than others. I don't know why folks think the past was any different. This is the main reason I highly doubt the past was some weirdly advanced paradise. I mean, why the heck would we need to invent, say, the chimney if the past was so advanced? Sure, folks in the past were smarter than we give credit for and sure, we've eshewed some things in the past - but the major things have stuck around.
- thaumaturgy 6y ago
  Ehhhh. It might be because so many recent events have given me cause to be disappointed in people, but I don't think a massive loss of cultural memory is all that implausible. We have great numbers of people now who either don't believe vaccines are safe, or don't believe the Earth is round, or don't believe in evolution, or don't believe in anthropogenic climate change. Even as little attention as this thread is likely to get, probably someone's going to read this comment and not believe at least one of those things. The irony of not believing one of those things while reading the comment on a device built by science, over a vast technological network of other devices built by science, likely won't occur to them. Now also think about how much of modern stuff we take for granted rests on technological principles that are totally unknown to the average person. I have no idea how a toilet works. It would probably take me years to build a working one from scratch. I read about the principle of the plumbing in a toilet, once, but I can't recall it right this minute. Toilets are among the inventions that have had the greatest positive impact on human societies, and I could do no better right this minute than dig a hole somewhere and put some dirt on top of it. Given a strand of copper and some magnets, I could make a crude motor or generator. But I have no idea how to extrude fine copper wire, how to identify copper ore, mine it, or refine it. I know enough to make a crappy magnet out of some iron, but it would take me a hundred years to manufacture a motor and a lead-acid battery, and without modern medicine, I could hope for maybe 20 years. I think there are plausible scenarios where something like a sufficiently destructive solar flare could do enough damage to reset the last thousand years of technological development, and in those scenarios, people would within just a generation or two stop believing that things like an internet ever existed.