So if we off ourselves with nuclear weapons, it's curtains for intelligent life in the universe?
We could certainly bomb ourselves back to the stone age. But how quick would the reascent be thereafter? And if we did manage to exterminate ourselves, how long before the raccoons or the bears discover fire?
I think the strongest influence in my mind, for good or for ill, is that the religious freaks are absolutely convinced that there can be no life elsewhere 'cause they ain't in the bible, man was made in g-d's image, and this backwater trailer park of the universe is the Center of All Creation. I freely admit this makes me think it can't possibly be true (but look what happened in _Nightfall_ 8) ).
You haven't hung much with the Mormons, have you? If you did, you would know that God lives on Planet Kolob, in Cancer, sector 2813...
:-)
Oh. You need to look at the URLs:
http://nowscape.com/mormon/mormons5.htm
http://nowscape.com/mormon/kolob1.gif
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/2003_01.html#002205
Interesting idea, looking for where civilisations would go rather than where they would arise.
Although I'm not altogether keen on us announcing ourselves loudly to the rest of the galaxy, it seems too much a refelction of our current Western values and ideals to assume that anyone who hears us will be delighted that we exist. Never mind assuming that we will actually understand them and be able to communicate with them.
Actually, Robbo, there's no reason in Christianity that there can't be life on other planets. Maybe you're relying too much on stereotypes of Christians.
I think that a recovery from being blasted back to the stone age could take centuries or millennia at the quick end or millions of years at the slow end. For all we know, homo erectus could've been capable of developing technology and yet somehow failed to do so; and our post-apocalyptic descendents could fail in the same way. While they're without technology they'll be very vulnerable to total extinction, because populations will be very low - plenty of hominid species and populations have died out over the last few million years. Also, it may be that all the easily accessible sources of metal ores and coal have been mined out and our putative neo-cavemen wouldn't possess the technology to mine less accessible veins. That would make technological development tricky. In any case, it's an interesting problem and one that I'll think about some more.
>> Also, it may be that all the easily accessible sources of metal ores and coal have been mined out and our putative neo-cavemen wouldn't possess the technology to mine less accessible veins. That would make technological development tricky.
Garbage dumps? Rusted cities? There's a *lot* of raw materials in there.
Why, the Statue of Liberty alone could make how many Babylon-class spears?
How useful is that material though? Suppose you're a neolithic hunter-gatherer and you're suddenly confronted by a rusting automobile. What're you going to do with it? You aren't even going to be able to easily cut the metal, let along shape it into many useful implements, if you only have stone tools. I think many of our other relics will be of similarly limited usefulness to our post-apocalyptic descendants. How much copper and other easily worked metals could be scavenged if none remains to be easily mined? Would it be worth the effort? Will plastics be of any use, or concrete? How could technological progress start up again in the forests of New York or the jungles of Singapore?
I'm clearly thinking longer-term than you. It will only take 1000 years--or less?--for the automobile to essentially rust away completely. And then you have some very high-quality iron ore deposits right where the car used to be. Just scoop up the dirt and put it over a hot-enough fire...
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