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There's a theory that I've seen on HN: in the event of a civilization-destroying apocalypse, future civilizations will find it incredibly harder to industrializ

There's a theory that I've seen on HN: in the event of a civilization-destroying apocalypse, future civilizations will find it incredibly harder to industrialize, because our current society has used up all of the cheap energy supplies and easy to extract mineral resources. I wonder if that is applicable here as a metaphor.

generalizations 4y ago
I've seen that theory here too. A counterargument is that we've also brought a lot of valuable resources to the surface. Industrialization may simply be 'differently hard'.
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  To apply that back to the metaphor, it's also said that one salutary side effect of the dotcom bubble is all of the infrastructure built during it, such as high-speed fiber, which were fundamental for the Web 2.0 wave. So perhaps that is the "surfacing" of resources that a later tech boom- our boom- profited from.
015a 4y ago
I've pondered this from the perspective of the Fermi Paradox; that Earth had a really fortuitous series of events where the planet went down one line of flora/fauna evolution that, despite millions of years of evolution didn't to our knowledge amount to intelligent life; experienced a global apocalypse which allowed that (plus later/earlier) flora/fauna to decay and become an easily available source of energy; then had a second line of evolution which did, for whatever reason, result in intelligent life; which now has access to all that energy from the last iteration. To me, that's a really convincing explanation for the Fermi Paradox. There may be other intelligent species out there, but evolution on earth seems to have a history of producing killing machines (and crabs. its always crabs). So, the gate to get to intelligent life isn't probable; and then you hit the gate of "does that intelligent life have enough local resources to escape the gravity well of its own planet", a gate which for earth practically required a prior chain of hundreds of millions of years of evolution, and an opportune asteroid impact to clear that chain out and make way for a new one to roll the dice again. The mitigating factor for the second gate is: There could be other resources which could provide the power to escape a gravity well independent of biological decay (e.g. uranium, hydrogen). But at least in human history: think of what it took for us to fully understand how to harness oil, let alone uranium or hydrogen, create a rocket, and get to space safely; we did that with the tremendous benefit of plentiful hydrocarbon resources (global shipping, computers, mining rigs, plastic, etc). At minimum; a species without this advantage would take a lot longer to get to our level; but we did it in just a couple hundred years. Universal timescales help, but they also work against; as the earth has showcased, planets get bombarded by civilization-ending asteroids often. So, either an element of luck, or: a species has to have these structural advantages, and apply them for the purposes of asteroid defense before the next one hits; or its all over and the clock resets. Point being if I were a betting man: there are probably between 1 to 4 civilizations in our galaxy (including us) which have reached a similar or greater level of technology; but a great number more that are functionally trapped in a steampunk age, unable to escape their own planets. My other more fringe theory for the Fermi Paradox, which to be fair is practically the entire plot of The Last of Us, is: that the Apex Predator on every planet that is capable of evolving carbon-based life is Fungus. Eventually, Fungus always wins; and takes intelligent civilization with it.
gowld 4y ago
In the event of a civilization-destroying apocalypse, energy needs will be tiny, so they can use the existing mines and fields and whatever.

generalizations 4y ago

I've seen that theory here too. A counterargument is that we've also brought a lot of valuable resources to the surface. Industrialization may simply be 'differently hard'.

Apocryphon 4y ago
To apply that back to the metaphor, it's also said that one salutary side effect of the dotcom bubble is all of the infrastructure built during it, such as high-speed fiber, which were fundamental for the Web 2.0 wave. So perhaps that is the "surfacing" of resources that a later tech boom- our boom- profited from.

015a 4y ago

I've pondered this from the perspective of the Fermi Paradox; that Earth had a really fortuitous series of events where the planet went down one line of flora/fauna evolution that, despite millions of years of evolution didn't to our knowledge amount to intelligent life; experienced a global apocalypse which allowed that (plus later/earlier) flora/fauna to decay and become an easily available source of energy; then had a second line of evolution which did, for whatever reason, result in intelligent life; which now has access to all that energy from the last iteration. To me, that's a really convincing explanation for the Fermi Paradox. There may be other intelligent species out there, but evolution on earth seems to have a history of producing killing machines (and crabs. its always crabs). So, the gate to get to intelligent life isn't probable; and then you hit the gate of "does that intelligent life have enough local resources to escape the gravity well of its own planet", a gate which for earth practically required a prior chain of hundreds of millions of years of evolution, and an opportune asteroid impact to clear that chain out and make way for a new one to roll the dice again. The mitigating factor for the second gate is: There could be other resources which could provide the power to escape a gravity well independent of biological decay (e.g. uranium, hydrogen). But at least in human history: think of what it took for us to fully understand how to harness oil, let alone uranium or hydrogen, create a rocket, and get to space safely; we did that with the tremendous benefit of plentiful hydrocarbon resources (global shipping, computers, mining rigs, plastic, etc). At minimum; a species without this advantage would take a lot longer to get to our level; but we did it in just a couple hundred years. Universal timescales help, but they also work against; as the earth has showcased, planets get bombarded by civilization-ending asteroids often. So, either an element of luck, or: a species has to have these structural advantages, and apply them for the purposes of asteroid defense before the next one hits; or its all over and the clock resets. Point being if I were a betting man: there are probably between 1 to 4 civilizations in our galaxy (including us) which have reached a similar or greater level of technology; but a great number more that are functionally trapped in a steampunk age, unable to escape their own planets. My other more fringe theory for the Fermi Paradox, which to be fair is practically the entire plot of The Last of Us, is: that the Apex Predator on every planet that is capable of evolving carbon-based life is Fungus. Eventually, Fungus always wins; and takes intelligent civilization with it.

gowld 4y ago

In the event of a civilization-destroying apocalypse, energy needs will be tiny, so they can use the existing mines and fields and whatever.