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This doesn't mean it is a "success" in the context above. The population living there might have lost most of its previous technological abilities and stabilize
by cubefox 3y ago
This doesn't mean it is a "success" in the context above. The population living there might have lost most of its previous technological abilities and stabilized in a permanent "collapsed" state. There is no reason that humans have to go extinct when they lose their cultural achievements, after all, other animals survive without having those in the first place.
Humans would only go extinct if they lived in an environment which required a certain minimum of cultural ability, e.g. making clothes in areas with a colder climate, as humans don't have sufficient fur.
- timeagain 3y agoThis is a central theme in Vernor Vinge’s Deepness books. Space travel is slow (100s-1000s of years), so travellers are forced to calculate the likelihood that their destination will have experienced societal collapse by the time they arrive. The idea of a perpetually-sustained civilization is a failed dream. Technology helps societies bet larger and last longer, but also more dependent on the technology to sustain their growth.
- heavenlyblue 3y agoIn real life you could take a ship between two different distant lands and when you arrive it is ravaged by war started a couple of days ago
- cubefox 3y agoBut the population size theory says this is increasingly unlikely the larger the population gets. Even Gran Canaria was large enough to avoid the loss of crops for a thousand years, unlike the populations on the smaller islands.