SPOILER ALERT: We're screwed
I figure that the current civilized world will fragment and dissolve, much as did the Roman Empire, and be looted by barbarians, who will lose all knowledge of current medical and agricultural advances, leading to global starvation and pandemic, wiping out 90% of the population, and plunging the world into another thousand-year Dark Age.
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During the first Dark Age there was not that kind of population drop.
ruveyn
During the first Dark Age there was not that kind of population drop. ruveyn
Even when the Black Death is taken into account?
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During the first Dark Age there was not that kind of population drop. ruveyn
Even when the Black Death is taken into account?
even so. The black death did not touch China, India or the Americas.
ruveyn
During the first Dark Age there was not that kind of population drop. ruveyn
Even when the Black Death is taken into account?
Yup.
The biggest barbarian slaughter in history was the mongols who really did ride through the land exterminating everyone they encountered. The depopulation and reforestation effect was so large it is apparently possible to detect it in decreased global CO2 levels at the time.
It wasn't really evil foreign barbarians looting the corpse of the roman empire for the most part it was the oppressed masses reclaiming what was theirs on their land. It was the church that systematically decided to forget anything that wasn't in the bible, not the 'barbarians'.
Ichinin
Veteran
Joined: 3 Apr 2009
Gender: Male
Posts: 3,653
Location: A cold place with lots of blondes.
Yeah, that testosterone based lifeform is a big problem...
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"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring" (Carl Sagan)
Hm... that may be better than the universe eventually ceasing to expand and then collapsing back in on itself. All we have to do in an expansive, cold, dark, dead universe is keep enough matter to form a galaxy together, and figure out how to counteract increasing entropy. So... any ideas?
Why the glums chums?
The dismal doctrine of eternal and infinite repetition will come to the rescue. Sure, the odds are greater than 200,000,000 against one that any one trip will give the Lottery winnings, but think of the trip that does. All those 199,999,999 failures aren't that bad, and that is just a ratio of infinities of everything possible that can happen, both good and bad.
Calculating infinite ratios of ratios of infinity, or even trying to categorize them, is often tricky, or maybe impossible for the mere mortal, as Cantor discovered with brain strain.
And why is it "dismal"? Blame the Conservative right amygdala (the Right again?, Why is the Left always the most fun?, even in the brain game?). Some gobbledygook about the "survival value" of FEAR and PARANOIA, and the "danger" of TRUST and JOY.
Most of the literature is about exact repetitions, but there's no such limit, and the temptation to tinker with the odds is nearly irresistible, and the "length" of some ratios are malleable (the weak law of "natural selection" is one vague example (what's "natural"?)). As some religious zealots have determined, "nature" is another "pagan" deity, sometimes best denied or ignored. ("Human Nature" was pulled out of thin-air to deny ignorance).
Siger of Brabant is easier to understand, but limited, (Google "Siger of Brabant infinity Will Durant" for a few examples of short citations), while Nietzsche is much more of a challenge with his "Vicious Circle", but maybe nicer "Nietzsche's Philosophy of the Eternal Recurrence of the Same".
During the first Dark Age there was not that kind of population drop. ruveyn
Even when the Black Death is taken into account?
even so. The black death did not touch China, India or the Americas.
ruveyn
That was "The Age of Faith", not the "Dark Age", and most studies identify the source of the Black Death to China, as over many generations of survivors, some had important "hereditary" immunities developed.
Tadzio
4+ billion years away - what an optimistic person... we may not survive that long, we have:
1. A planet killer asteroid hitting earth causing global obliteration. That means Earth - Cajun style followed by a nuclear winter.
2. A cataclysmic event: such as a super earthquake spewing out crap into the atmosphere - or - a core-plume bursting through the crust of the earth. Both pretty much obliterate 98% of the lifeforms on the planet and destroy most of the food.
3. Gamma ray bursts, the result of an exploding star that would rip the atmospheres atoms apart if we're hit dead on.
4. A close explosion of a large star (type OB-classes) or something very large like Betelgeuse or Pistol star. If they "go boom" - we go "extincty bai-bai".
5. And ofcourse: humanity - destroying ourselves with our pile of nuclear weapons.
...and for fun...
6. The matrix gets a virus, and we all BSOD
Oh, please, we all know that ET experimentation with spaceship fuel is going to inevitably destroy the universe!
(See Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut, for very little more elaboration).
During the first Dark Age there was not that kind of population drop. ruveyn
Even when the Black Death is taken into account?
The Black Death was almost a thousand years after the fall of Rome.
There was a one third drop in the population of Western Europe in the fifth centurey after the fall of Roman Empire because of collapse of the empire's infrastructure and the return to preroman tribal society. Populaton levels didnt change much in the eastern Roman empire which endured for another thousand years.
But During those same dark ages the europeans impreved the roman harnesses for oxen. That enabled them to plough the tuff sod of non mediteranean europe and produce more food locally. The Romans relied on North African grain. And the populaton gradually went up.
By charlamagne's time ( AD 800) eurpe's population was back up to Roman Levels
Dial ahead to the 1300's - europe gets hit by the Black death and between a fourth and a third of the whole continent dies within a few months.
But even after that catastrophe europes population was stil several times what it had been way back in either Charlamagne's, or in Roman times.
Hm... that may be better than the universe eventually ceasing to expand and then collapsing back in on itself. All we have to do in an expansive, cold, dark, dead universe is keep enough matter to form a galaxy together, and figure out how to counteract increasing entropy. So... any ideas?
why would I tell you? I want the damn Nobel all for meself
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not a bug - a feature.
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Opportunities multiply as they are seized. -Sun Tzu
Nature creates few men brave, industry and training makes many -Machiavelli
You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do
Do you expect to live forever?
ruveyn
Do you expect to live in fear?
It's not fear, it's acceptance. Once you accept the fact that your life is finite, like "mostly" everything down there, you may have some peace of mind. And you might be able to die with fewer regrets.
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