Civilizational Collapse, Part 4 • Hacker News Board

Re: Civilizational Collapse, Part 4

#41

Post by chrisco255 » Tue, Aug 27, 2019, 1:30 PM UTC

This quote: "Ecologically, these Archaic hunters and gatherers had moved one entire link down the food chain, thereby eliminating the approximately 90-percent loss in food value that occurs when one feeds on an animal that is a plant-eater."

This is just completely false. All meat consumed is bioavailable protein and nutrients. Even more so when it's cooked. Plants have reduced bioavailability due to high oxalate, phytic acid, and lectins.

Humans would have never evolved the ability to eat meat if it didn't confer a natural advantage over foragers.

Re: Civilizational Collapse, Part 4

#42

Post by monocasa » Tue, Aug 27, 2019, 1:31 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #32

imtringued wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't a lot of essential technology beyond energy, agriculture and mining. The biggest driving factor is actually making a society that rewards technological progress. Give that society half a millenia and it will invent computers again. If you wanted to let a society recover from technological collapse then you would merely need a list of possible inventions ordered by the date of their invention. 3D CAD model…

Oh you could shortcut tremendously. Once photography was invented (1830s) we could have had integrated circuits. If we had known they were possible. Which we do now. There's ideas that can survive long after devices turn to dust. The germ theory of disease. The Staff system. Ops planning. Cross-fertilization and hybridization. Optics. With these ideas, the devices can be recreated, and in a better sequence that we ac…

On the other end, we might not be able to reinvent nuclear technology. Quite a bit of that was based on the Shinkolobwe mine which had 65% uranium ore deposits. These days finding 1% uranium ore is a lucky find.

Re: Civilizational Collapse, Part 4

#43

Post by tim333 » Tue, Aug 27, 2019, 1:31 PM UTC

abhishekjha wrote: post #38

Isn't spacetime an all time storage system? You can't burn it, chafe it, erode it. Its is going to be there forever. Even if there's something that you think has been lost(like the library of Alexandria or the Roman empire) is waiting to be seen again. It is never lost. These `movies` of spacetime is being saved on a forever store.

Though kind of lost from the perspective of our bit of space time even if there's scope for historical recreation.

Re: Civilizational Collapse, Part 4

#44

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 27, 2019, 1:39 PM UTC

ddxxdd wrote: post #12

This feels reminiscent of the current issue of long-term data storage. Flash drives are volatile and can lose your data any minute. Solid State drives are slightly less volatile, and a hard disk has magnetic fields that will last decades, but nothing will keep our gigabytes of data alive and intact for future archaeologists. If the Library of Alexandria can burn, then so can any form of digital storage. On a side not…

[deleted]

Re: Civilizational Collapse, Part 4

#45

Post by curlcntr » Tue, Aug 27, 2019, 1:44 PM UTC

ddxxdd wrote: post #12

This feels reminiscent of the current issue of long-term data storage. Flash drives are volatile and can lose your data any minute. Solid State drives are slightly less volatile, and a hard disk has magnetic fields that will last decades, but nothing will keep our gigabytes of data alive and intact for future archaeologists. If the Library of Alexandria can burn, then so can any form of digital storage. On a side not…

And something else for any future intelligent species:

Today, fossils are dug up and flown around the world to museums etc. We publish but if that storage doesn't last or is undecipherable, future civilizations might have an interesting adventure trying to reconstruct the world of 100's of millions of years before our time.

I wonder if there has been any consideration of this or attempts at placing long-lived simple markings to guide?

Re: Civilizational Collapse, Part 4

#46

Post by solotronics » Tue, Aug 27, 2019, 1:45 PM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #41

This quote: "Ecologically, these Archaic hunters and gatherers had moved one entire link down the food chain, thereby eliminating the approximately 90-percent loss in food value that occurs when one feeds on an animal that is a plant-eater." This is just completely false. All meat consumed is bioavailable protein and nutrients. Even more so when it's cooked. Plants have reduced bioavailability due to high oxalate, ph…

Also, animals can digest many forms of plant that are useless as human food such as plains grasses and tree leaves. Vegetarianism is elitist in that many people on earth cannot afford to foregoe any availible source of protein and food, there are starving people already and telling someone in Africa they shouldn't eat a chicken that forages near their house is pretty narrow minded. I tend to eat vegetarian on my own but this is only possible because I am privileged in my income.

Re: Civilizational Collapse, Part 4

#47

Post by nvahalik » Tue, Aug 27, 2019, 1:46 PM UTC

When reading about what Physcon, I reminded me of an interview[0] I recently listened to with Drs. James Lindsay and Peter Boghossian. They bring up some of these very ideas and how they are encountering them today in our society: i.e. people who see science and reason as "master's tools" of "oppression".

It seems that everything old is new again.

[0]: https://youtu.be/YDFL3xwEEG8

Re: Civilizational Collapse, Part 4

#48

Post by petters » Tue, Aug 27, 2019, 1:47 PM UTC

abhishekjha wrote: post #38

Isn't spacetime an all time storage system? You can't burn it, chafe it, erode it. Its is going to be there forever. Even if there's something that you think has been lost(like the library of Alexandria or the Roman empire) is waiting to be seen again. It is never lost. These `movies` of spacetime is being saved on a forever store.

> Isn't spacetime an all time storage system?

I don't think it is? What does "storage" mean? It refers to something that keeps something else invariant over time. Spacetime is time itself and can not be considered "storage".

Re: Civilizational Collapse, Part 4

#49

Post by eigenloss » Tue, Aug 27, 2019, 1:51 PM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #41

This quote: "Ecologically, these Archaic hunters and gatherers had moved one entire link down the food chain, thereby eliminating the approximately 90-percent loss in food value that occurs when one feeds on an animal that is a plant-eater." This is just completely false. All meat consumed is bioavailable protein and nutrients. Even more so when it's cooked. Plants have reduced bioavailability due to high oxalate, ph…

Are you sure you're replying to the right post?

Re: Civilizational Collapse, Part 4

#50

Post by benj111 » Tue, Aug 27, 2019, 1:51 PM UTC

"When the Romans took over, they dumbed things down"

Without reading the cited book, the case doesn't seem to have been made for this.

"then we have the first four books by Apollonius on conic sections—the more elementary ones—but the other three have been lost"

Maybe the 4th volume was just wrong, or an index, or so highly valued it was separated from the other 3. Or maybe the rich hand side of the bookshelf got rot.

Is there any more to this?