Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrifice in Aztec capital

Re:Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrific... by jcims on Saturday June 23, 2018 @03:40PM (#17383014)

When I see a bunch of skulls in one place like this, or in the catacombs, it makes me think of the accumulated experience of people. Not because of the brains in the skulls or whatever, but just that each skull represents a single human life. Most of the time these are adult skulls, guessing 30+ years each. That's a lot of living.

I just asked google to solve a couple of problems for me. What is the current population, and how many years do they experience in one hour on the wall clock?

Current world population according to Google: 7.6B How many years in 7.6B hours: 867,579.9

So we are nearly at a point where there are a million years of human live/conciousness/etc experienced every hour.

That's a lot.

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Re:Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrific... by dTal on Saturday June 23, 2018 @10:29PM (#17384622)

You inspired me to calculate the total amount of human experience, ever. I arrived at a figure of about 2.7 trillion years, ten times as many years as there are stars in the Milky way. In seconds it's 10^20 - 0.1% of all the stars in the entire universe.

I can't even comprehend the scale.

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Re:Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrific... by luigeevampa on Monday June 25, 2018 @02:41PM (#17394636)

Now imagine computers living the entire total amount of human experience every second. And think of the things they'll be able to do in the very near future.

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Re:Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrific... by jcims on Sunday June 24, 2018 @02:12AM (#17385219)

That's nuts

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Re:Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrific... by scarecrowbob on Saturday June 23, 2018 @04:54PM (#17383397)

This is kind of a neat idea.

Especially, it feels like fertile ground for speculative fiction about what would happen if it were collectivizable...

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Re:Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrific... by mmjaa on Sunday June 24, 2018 @05:23AM (#17385754)

Speculative fiction .. or religion? Because if there were some way we could access the sum total of all human experience, wouldn't that method be as close to "God" as it was ever described?

One wonders if this is, indeed, the concept being described, over and over again in every religion (and science) ever ..

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Re:Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrific... by jcims on Saturday June 23, 2018 @06:04PM (#17383702)

Indeed!! We’re closer than we have ever been, and that trend is likely to continue.

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Re:Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrific... by walterbell on Sunday June 24, 2018 @06:29AM (#17385927)

Thanks for posting this concept.

To what extent does mass+social media create collective subgroups of consciousness? What's the decay curve of a subgroup and how do subgroups compete, fork, merge or decay?

How do persistent records (oral memories, written records, national holidays, memorials, digital footprints, media archives, censorship) feed back into subgroups of collective consciousness?

How can collective consciousness be measured, monetized, directed, encouraged, suppressed, or otherwise manipulated for specific purposes, within a specific bounded timeframe of a single hour or day?

How do time zones affect the "nature/flavor" of consciousness in each hour, as populations sleep and wake and work and rest and ...?

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Re:Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrific... by Ritsuko_akagi on Sunday June 24, 2018 @06:38AM (#17385949)

human instrumentality project

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Re:Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrific... by slx26 on Sunday June 24, 2018 @09:53AM (#17386558)

I made a comment like this not so long ago, also here on HN, mentioning how every 4.2 seconds we collectively live a bit more than 1000 years. It really gives a lot to think about, indeed.

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Re:Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrific... by pdfernhout on Saturday June 23, 2018 @07:26PM (#17384021)

Wow! This is a a really cool observation!

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