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Very interesting work. I find it very hard to imagine that a society capable of building skyscrapers and venturing into space won't leave more clues of it's ex
by mathattack 13y ago
Very interesting work. I find it very hard to imagine that a society capable of building skyscrapers and venturing into space won't leave more clues of it's existence to subsequent societies. Certainly it will be much more permanent than what the Mayans are leaving us. Perhaps the clues will be cities, perhaps it will be radiation, perhaps it will be stripped land.
- ekianjo 13y agoI don't share the vision of the author but you'll be surprised how quickly any building may collapse once not maintained: plants will grow under concrete and end up breaking it over years and years, and erosion will progressively do the job as well. And sidementation will end up covering all that's left over centuries: look in Egypt, most of the ruins we found were deep under several dozens of meters of sand.
- mathattack 13y agoI think the point of the article is not the end truth of what he says, but just to encourage speculation, so I think all of us will draw different end conclusions. I doubt that we'll have as many iterations of society as he suggests. At some point we'll do something that kills all of us, and will then hand it off to the next species. If you look at Detroit, it doesn't take long for nature to take back buildings. I would just think that there are certain artifacts or clues that would be somehow visible. We are leaving much more artifacts than every civilization before us put together. But I might just be inserting my short term bias into the situation.
- fzltrp 13y agoSand is not sedimentation.