Re:Thousands of underground gas bubbles poised to 'explode' ...
by Razengan on Thursday March 23, 2017 @06:06PM
(#13944791)
It's more likely that our successors will only inherit the harmful products of our civilization.
Consider this: People today are still dying from landmines and poisons that were using during wars a 100 years ago [0]. They may remain around for over 300 years [1].
The things that will most immediately affect the civilization after ours will probably be our radioactive waste, the long-term effects of climate change, the extinctions caused by us, unexploded mines and bombs, and stockpiles of nuclear and other weapons.
At best, the next civilization may dig up some of our machines and partially reverse-engineer them, but they'll probably never be able to access their original functionality. For example using our laptops/phones as a source of light, or their batteries as explosives. What little technology of ours that still fully works by then, will probably cause wars over its ownership, even if the tech itself is benign and beneficial.
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If, like me, the idea of accumulation of technology over large expanses of time, across multiple civilizations and potentially multiple species is deeply interesting to you, you may love the world of Numenera [2] [3]; Earth, a billion years from now.
Consider this: People today are still dying from landmines and poisons that were using during wars a 100 years ago [0]. They may remain around for over 300 years [1].
The things that will most immediately affect the civilization after ours will probably be our radioactive waste, the long-term effects of climate change, the extinctions caused by us, unexploded mines and bombs, and stockpiles of nuclear and other weapons.
At best, the next civilization may dig up some of our machines and partially reverse-engineer them, but they'll probably never be able to access their original functionality. For example using our laptops/phones as a source of light, or their batteries as explosives. What little technology of ours that still fully works by then, will probably cause wars over its ownership, even if the tech itself is benign and beneficial.
----
If, like me, the idea of accumulation of technology over large expanses of time, across multiple civilizations and potentially multiple species is deeply interesting to you, you may love the world of Numenera [2] [3]; Earth, a billion years from now.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12187512
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12188466
[2] http://www.numenera.com
[3] https://store.steampowered.com/app/272270/