Well yes, and I don't mean to bring anyone down, but I think it's incredibly optimistic to imagine our current civilisation surviving 500 years into the future!

Well yes, and I don't mean to bring anyone down, but I think it's incredibly optimistic to imagine our current civilisation surviving 500 years into the future! Just to be clear, I'm quite sure humans will still be here, but I think there's a good chance we'll exist in much smaller numbers, in isolated pockets. Individuals probably won't have the kind of ready access to the sum total of human knowledge that we now take for granted. I'd be amazed if any digital information from today survives even one century into the future, never mind five.