Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

nautil.us

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 282 posts

Re: Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

#41

Post by redandblack »

BuyMyBitcoins wrote: post #18
DannyB2 wrote: post #4

If there were an industrial civilization here before us (modern humans) then it would be astonishing that in all of the fossils we have discovered, we've never yet discovered a single ancient nut, bolt, screwdriver, wrench, etc. Not one single wire or cast metal part. As per the article, that civilization would have to predate all of the vast history of evolution that we know of. Wouldn't some higher life forms from…

I figure that any industrialized civilization would have left indirect evidence of itself by mucking up the fossil record with introduced species. We intentionally and unintentionally introduce plants and animals far outside their natural range. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_exchange You would see some species inexplicably take on a worldwide distribution, or see species suddenly turn up on far away landm…

Obligatory Pratchett reference - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strata_(novel)

Re: Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

#43

Post by FredPret »

blueflow wrote: post #34
getmeinrn wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Random thought, but if we extrapolate the path we're on in terms of biodegradability and sustainability, it's not ridiculous to assume that a very advanced version of us would have developed the technology and legislation to ensure that all products biodegrade safely within X years.

This doesn't undo all the stuff that already is in the ground and rivers everywhere.

After a long time hanging around, some organism might evolve that eats it though

Re: Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

#44

Post by anon84873628 »

montagg wrote: post #26
leafmeal wrote: post #12

Obviously this doesn't apply when speaking on the scale of millions of years, but I remember reading that there may not be enough easily accessible energy sources (ie fossil fuels) left to jump start another industrial civilization if our current one where to collapse.

Well, maybe in another 65 million years, whatever's around will just use us and the rest of this era's biomass as crude oil in the next cycle.

Well, "why did so much coal form during the Carboniferous period" is an interesting question. One theory is that plants started to produce lignin (wood) and other novel compounds during that time, while fungi and bacteria had not yet evolved the ability to break them down. So lots of organic matter was piling up on the ground and not being released back into the atmosphere. (Fun related note, the oxygen level in the atmosphere rose to very high levels during this time, which enabled gigantism in insects and amphibians - organisms that depend on simple diffusion of oxygen for their respiratory system). Eventually all that organic matter could be buried and fossilized.

So anyway, since fungi and bacteria are more evolved today, it's unlikely that such massive buildup of organic matter would occur again. Any given burial event would trap less organic material, so the resulting fossil fuel deposits would be smaller and it would take much longer for a given amount of carbon to be buried.

Of course this is just one theory and there are many other factors in fossil fuel formation as well.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carboniferous

Re: Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

#45

Post by tarikjn »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #35
tarikjn wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not pre-human but challenging the understood modern human timeline of industrialisation — We have not found the tools, but we may have found the products; in the form of stone-based vases that archeologists attribute to the Early Egyptian Period but are believed to be from much earlier, and would have required tools that have not been discovered yet. The channel UnchartedX make a compelling argument about this hypoth…

What a silly video. The argument he's making is called a unilinear teleology. History is not an arrow-line march from less advanced to more advanced, and it's incredibly common for the apparent workmanship of artifacts to "regress" as styles and intentions change over time. Just look at all the people who complain about modern art because "classical takes more skill". Also, there's essentially nothing you can't do wi…

As someone who works with manufacturing, I don’t think it’s silly. Precision is not just a function of time available, manpower and talent, but also tooling technology. Manufacturing a single replica with today’s technology is believed to be challenging — and has not been attempted yet — but hopefully someone will take the challenge soon. There are no serious claims that these can be made with known ancient technology and time+manpower. Your response is often the response of people in archeology who do not understand precision manufacturing with hard materials, and shows how underrated these artifacts are.

Re: Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

#46

Post by contact9879 »

1270018080 wrote: post #15

Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."

I would argue that Betteridge's law breaks down when the point of the article is to invoke readers to ask themselves the question.

Re: Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

#47

Post by zen928 »

topspin wrote: post #21
SubiculumCode wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article indicated that surface turnover could have removed that evidence.

And yet we have 3.4 billion year old cyanobacteria fossils.

yep. these kind of thought experiments are cute but it's so easy to just immediately dismiss bad science that wants to ignore historical record to write paragraphs of fanfiction

the main crux of these arguments always depends on how it's hard to prove something didn't happen without exact historical evidence for every single organism in every single recorded geologic period, which is a terminating thought to actually holding a rational conversation. OK, cool, then we also: live in a simulation, are observed by aliens or influenced by aliens, move to alternate realities every time we sleep, etc. wow, so "interesting"!!

Re: Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

#48

Post by hoten »

xoa wrote: post #31

A civilization that got to "industrial" but didn't make it to the nuclear and particularly space age certainly seems like it could leave little trace over long periods depending on how the cards fell. However, if nothing else our civilization has made a habit of disposing of geosync satellites past their life time into super synchronous graveyard orbits that will last a really long time. At the rate things are going…

If we weren't already tracking those decommissioned satellites, would we know they were there?

Re: Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

#49

Post by naasking »

BuyMyBitcoins wrote: post #33
naasking wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many introduced species are there as a percentage of all existing species? This seems like an important number to calculate the probability that we might have missed such an introduced species given the fossil record we have. It could also be that introduced species are less likely to be found in the fossil record for whatever reason. Then again, maybe we have found such a thing but haven't recognized it for what…

That’s a good point, and I don’t have an answer. In my mind I was thinking of more obvious examples, like camels being introduced to Australia. Or cichlids from Lake Victoria being introduced into isolated lakes in North America. The idea being that you would notice some very obvious out-of-place fossils. I also assume that these species, often invasive, would outlast the civilizations that introduced them. So you co…

We would naturally just assume that the same species appearing in different places just implied that those places were closer together in the past + migration. And so we have Pangaea before continental drift.

If we lacked progenitors of those species in some places, we would just call it a temporary gap in the fossil record, of which we have many.

We're pretty good at inventing explanations. Eventually these gaps might start looking conspicuous, but I'm not sure if we're at that point yet.

Re: Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

#50

Post by blueflow »

FredPret wrote: post #43
blueflow wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't undo all the stuff that already is in the ground and rivers everywhere.

After a long time hanging around, some organism might evolve that eats it though

Which happened for all fossils already and they are still there.
Post reply on HN