These guys live for this: longnow.org
The messages that survived civilisation's collapse
61–70 of 74 posts
Re: The messages that survived civilisation's collapse
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>Another option: Time capsules of data sent out into space in containers that can survive re-entry in thousands of years. Ideally with a lot of flashy light effects and a persistent smoke trail on re-entry. Interesting idea indeed! How to solve the issue that there is a ~70% chance the capsules will re-enter and fall into an ocean area?
Perhaps, rather than have it orbit the earth for thousands of years, you could send it on a single, long trip. By having the projectile far away from earth, other satellites, and other gravity sources, you could improve precision and aim for exactly the center of the largest landmass. Or you could intentionally land in the ocean and make it float.
I like the message in a bottle approach! Maybe just flood the Earth with thousands of "bottles" which are shaped/constructed in a way as to not burn up on re-entry, land gently enough in the ocean and then float in salt-water for decades until they are found.
Re: The messages that survived civilisation's collapse
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a few projects like that already happening, like Github's code repository on Svalbard. That said, I think one big reason why the artifacts mentioned - Sumerians, Mayans, Egyptians, or even Vesuvius - were preserved was because they were lost; buried in the desert, overgrown in dense jungles, buried under volcanic rock and ash, etc. For something to stand the test of time, it has to be lost. Al-Quaeda and ISIS…
> For something to stand the test of time, it has to be lost. I agree. Some of the people quoted in the article advocated writing on a monumental scale in order to preserve it, but I don't think that gives particularly good odds of preservation. To add to the examples you cite, the Georgia Guidestones were pretty much a modern experiment in preservation through monumentalism; they painted a monumental target on their…
> Georgia Guidestones
I had never heard about this before. What an odd tale. It's a real-life story of people falling into FUD over something pretty innocuous.
Re: The messages that survived civilisation's collapse
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
I genuinely believe the people working on this problem are looking at it the wrong way. Instead of trying to make the waste repository into something highly visible, or mystical, they should instead choose a remote and inhospitable location where attempting to access the repository is economically nonviable for any future civilization. Assuming civilization collapses or regress to pre-industrial levels where the conc…
We have to keep current day expenses in mind as well. It's true that noone in the future would be dragging waste back from Antarctica, but noone now wants to drag it there either. Same with shipping it across a continent or ocean into a desert. And if we're talking 10k years into a post apocalyptic future, your deserts may no longer be a desert.
It's a fair point, but if the thought exercise is that we must do as much as we can to prevent a future catastrophe, I feel like the cost of an antarctic vault would be manageable compared to the cost of some military projects, moon missions, or even megaprojects in American cities.
Re: The messages that survived civilisation's collapse
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>making a robot/computer to last more than 1000 years isn’t in our wheelhouse yet. Yes, exactly my point - we can very nicely control landings to within a meter today. How can we make a craft land with any precision say 2-5000 years in the future? It'll require a power source good for 5000 years, a computer that still operates flawlessly for 5000 years, fuel that doesn't evaporate or degrade for 5000 years, and a ro…
Make millions of them and some will last outlier timespans. One low-power lightbulb that has been illuminated for over a hundred years: https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/longest-b...
Yes.
Making millions of them would likely also make all the other problems go away. Wit a million copies, we can forget about the controlled re-entry. While around 700k of them will sink in the oceans, there should still be 300,000 that will fall on land.
As long as the initial orbits, drag profiles, heat absorbtion profiles/patterns, etc. are sufficiently randomized so they all truly re-enter in a random pattern, there should be no need for propellant, engines, power, or controlled re-entry.
Re: The messages that survived civilisation's collapse
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or, you know, we just accept that just as humanity had a beginning it will also have an end. Our species, and the current civilization iteration, are most likely completely inconsequential and nothing more than a blip over the history of the universe. We are all going to die eventually, our civilization will fade into nothing and all our thoughts and knowledge will be forgotten forever. So what? It's kinda relieving…
But this doesn’t have to be so unless we want it to be. Modern humans are unlike all others in the sense that we have the capacity to extend our species to the end of the universe.
If multi star system civilizations are even possible, chances are we'd get enslaved or erased before we could even make sense of the threat.
Re: The messages that survived civilisation's collapse
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or, you know, we just accept that just as humanity had a beginning it will also have an end. Our species, and the current civilization iteration, are most likely completely inconsequential and nothing more than a blip over the history of the universe. We are all going to die eventually, our civilization will fade into nothing and all our thoughts and knowledge will be forgotten forever. So what? It's kinda relieving…
The civilization that doesn't want to survive indefinitely, will indeed die out sooner or later. Whether we're one of those, only time will tell. It's not really a choice or vanity thing; wanting to survive is innate because otherwise we'd already be beaten by those who want it more badly. I don't want to presume anything unnecessarily based on a simple comment, but if > It's kinda relieving [that we'll all die and b…
Lol thanks for caring. But I was raised a Christian and growing up to see the Hubble Deep Field and all advances of cosmology and realize we're likely not on some sort of divinely ordained trial for our souls but just existing for a bit and then gone has been a great realization for me.
I very much enjoy being a human monkey and wanna see how it plays out for me.
Re: The messages that survived civilisation's collapse
#68Related: How do we warn future civilizations about the danger of our nuclear waste? This has been studied and I always found it interesting: How to build a nuclear warning for 10,000 years’ time https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200731-how-to-build-a-n...
Ironically, the illustrated abridgement of the WIPP report that I first read about this is no longer available from wipp.energy.gov: https://web.archive.org/web/20060925110959/http://www.wipp.e...
(thanks, tineye, for 'sort by oldest' and keeping 404ed results)
Re: The messages that survived civilisation's collapse
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
The civilization that doesn't want to survive indefinitely, will indeed die out sooner or later. Whether we're one of those, only time will tell. It's not really a choice or vanity thing; wanting to survive is innate because otherwise we'd already be beaten by those who want it more badly. I don't want to presume anything unnecessarily based on a simple comment, but if > It's kinda relieving [that we'll all die and b…
Lol thanks for caring. But I was raised a Christian and growing up to see the Hubble Deep Field and all advances of cosmology and realize we're likely not on some sort of divinely ordained trial for our souls but just existing for a bit and then gone has been a great realization for me. I very much enjoy being a human monkey and wanna see how it plays out for me.
Alright, glad to hear :)
Re: The messages that survived civilisation's collapse
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
The space container idea could make for a really interesting book plot. It starts in modern day where they send the capsule up. Then skips forward several hundred years to society collapsing. Then skip forward a few hundred more to see how the myth of knowledge falling from the sky is being passed down. Then it keeps skipping ahead to see how the myth evolves. By the end you just have some super cryptic prophecy like…
They open the capsule, and find that it contains nothing but a complete transcript of the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard trial.
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