aliens or not.

[mike]

I agree if you had technology that could take you off planet as easily as taking a bus trip down town.
The very context of war changes

Youve graduated to the next level, the wars on earth are small fish.

You could lose the entire planet to the russians or the chinese.... who cares you have all the other planets to play with.

The best way to maintain that advantage is to not so much as hint you have it.

Once the other side knows it can be done, they will eventually do it (nukes a prime example)

 

[Burnt State]

Not to bring this thread to the religious debate but 'aliens' could mean many different things and if many tales from the religious texts are to be believed there certainly seems to be a lot of non-human intervention, make of that what you will!

Maybe a better way to bring religion into it is as a reminder that human beings have a very consistent history of building incredible things to honor their gods, & where necessary, will enslave others to memorialize their gods. Belief is a powerful motivator whether you are sacrificing virgins or getting upset over what someone posts to the contrary of your belief on a forum.

Humans are certainly an inventive lot & we should not be so arrogant to believe that we are the pinnacle of our species. When we die out & the future archeologists dig through our trash what will they make out of a society led around on the leash of consumerism? Will they too be amazed at how such a sick society, that poisoned the planet thoroughly in less than a 100 years, could see back to the big bang? Incongruous, no?

What's more impressive, Trump Towers, pyramids or Pumapunku?

We seem to come & go in waves of invention & self-destruction.

 

[mike]

When we die out & the future archeologists dig through our trash what will they make out of a society led around on the leash of consumerism

LOL, that the dominant religion was the church of Santa

 

[Kim323]

"It's just speculation that can't be substantiated."

Fair enough, trained. It just seemed in your initial posts that you were stating facts, statements you were backing up with "innumerable civilizations" before recorded history, high technological achievement that caused them to go "off-planet" or be even now in hidden "pockets," and that furthermore there were "monolithic structures" extant today on earth that testified to their presence.

Another poster responded in a way that I thought verified what I thought of the seriousness of your original contention, and you responded back about how "losing a couple of generations of engineers" could cause everything to "start over."

So I asked for specifics.

My apologies.

It was my imagination.

I don't want you going too deep down that rabbit hole. Kim

 

[boomerang]

Up front: I am not well versed in ancient history.

The enigma of the ancients, as I understand it, is essentially their ability to quarry, shape, move and place massive stones and amounts of stone in ways we can't explain. Or perhaps the explanation is before us, but I do not comprehend it.

One must certainly be careful not to underestimate the power of human ingenuity. Yet--the ancients have left us with what seems a genuine mystery. Despite small scale demonstrations of heavy lifting techniques etc., I still have difficulty removing this mystery from my gray basket.

 

[trainedobserver]

Another poster responded in a way that I thought verified what I thought of the seriousness of your original contention, and you responded back about how "losing a couple of generations of engineers" could cause everything to "start over." So I asked for specifics.

I responded with, "It's been a while since I read the article that discussed this, but it talked about the idea that it wouldn't take that much to be thrown back into a stone age. A remarkably small amount of time has to pass where education is nonexistent before major technological backsliding occurs. Has this occurred in the past?" That is about as specific as I can get without doing a lot of digging.

How many generations of not training engineers do you think it would take before the modern technological world grinds to a halt? I don't think it would be many. What would be the likelihood that the secrets and techniques of Very-large-scale integration (VLSI) circuit manufacturing, for example, could be remastered after a few generations of inactivity? I'm thinking it would take hundreds if not thousands of years.

 

[Goggs Mackay]

Regarding Trainedobserver's point about how quickly society can lose technological capability and knowledge, I would like to add another dimension that is part and parcel of that line of thought.
In our modern world, in addition to the wealth of scientific knowledge and practical experience, there is also the fact that with modern transportation and the telephone and internet, knowledge can be shared more easily and it is easier to access a wide variety of the knowledge of others too.

In fields of scientific research and practical research for practical applications, everyone relies on using many different areas of expertise to get to an end product. For example, in making a laptop computer, the manufacturer could never have the breadth of capability to be able to make the whole thing from scratch. Perhaps the monitor is bought from a company that only makes monitors, the processor is bought from elsewhere too and obviously many, many more bits and pieces are also from a variety of sources. These sources may be located worldwide which is no problem right now with our worldwide transportation infrastructure in place but if that were no longer an option, I would not be surprised if many industries ground to a halt as soon as their current stocks ran out.

What I am saying, possibly quite clumsily, is that we are dependent on not only our combined technological know-how but just as much dependent on the infrastructure that supplies and supports our technological manufacturing and research?

The kind of situation I think is being alluded to in which we may lose knowledge in a few short generations can be illustrated by say, a nuclear exchange by major countries in the developed world. Once the oil and gas are practically run out, if we do not have new energy sources that can actually replace petrochemicals in both availability and portability (and affordability) then that is comparable also to a planet-wide disaster. Possibly a large enough meteor could destroy enough of mankind but not completely and the remaining population would have no chance of continuing anything like the lifestyle we enjoy right now.

I think many people are ignorant of just how precarious our set-up in the developed world is - the world that is dependent on cars and telephones and computers that are linked as things are right now. Our society is vulnerable to many different factors that threaten our current way of life which, anyway you look at it, is unsustainable. Most of us are guilty of burying our heads in the sand instead of dealing with the reality of how little time we have left in our lifestyle before it is curtailed by outside events.

The ironic thing is that the most under developed countries are the ones who would survive some catastrophies much better than we would. There are many regions of the Earth in which societies are not dependent on petrol-driven vehicles and computers etc and many of these places could continue as they are quite easily while the 'modern' world could be descending into anarchy when the power is no longer there in the petrol pumps and the electrical sockets in the home. How long does it take for supermarkets not to have essential foods on their shelves? Some minor fuel disputes have had effects on supermarkets in my country in just a couple of days! One can only imagine with some horror how quickly things could get very ugly when our transportation network is no longer working.

When people who have never starved in their lives start getting hungry I think we would see a side of humanity we never thought possible in the western world. I shudder to think of what could happen....

When you make the point T.O about engineering knowledge being lost in a few generations I think about myself personally - twenty years ago I had started a degree in applied physics at university and how much of that do I actually remember right now? Not a lot!

So if those who actually studied engineering/physics can forget the bulk of it within a couple of decades I can actually see only a couple of generations needed for the vast majority of such knowledge to be lost. There is a lot to be said for still printing books that store knowledge because who knows, one day a huge EMP event could fry unprotected electrical circuits, or the electricity supplies could stop and things stored in digital electronic format could be rendered useless in no time!

A recent movie called 'The Road' that stars Viggo Mortensen of Lord of the Rings fame, nicely illustrates how society could break down post-apocalyptic event and it is not a pretty sight!

 

[ALPHA ROMEO UNIFORM]

Gas & bio-fuel advances will come on-line . They will find more oil fields if not just take them from some else its survival of greed! UMV will dominate and not far from now the unmanned fighter will rule the skies. Don't forget anti- EMP developments would have been taken into account during the Cold War. Agree more likely man made disasters rather than natural.

 

[trainedobserver]

So if those who actually studied engineering/physics can forget the bulk of it within a couple of decades I can actually see only a couple of generations needed for the vast majority of such knowledge to be lost. There is a lot to be said for still printing books that store knowledge because who knows, one day a huge EMP event could fry unprotected electrical circuits, or the electricity supplies could stop and things stored in digital electronic format could be rendered useless in no time!

I wonder how long it would take for the signs of an industrial age to be lost to decay or natural disaster? There used to be a tv series called "After Humanity" or something like that which discussed the decay of the remains of human civilization after we pass along. I never watched the thing as it just seemed too depressing.

 

[tyder001]

I watched one episode. It did get rather dull and depressing after a couple of shows. I think if they had put it all in one episode it would have held up better. You can only look at so many weeds and fallen buildings and wild dogs and then? ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

 

[Kim323]

Good posts, trained, tyder, goggs, blowfish, boomerang, burnt state, and yes, mike, too! I enjoyed reading them. My point about trained's loss of knowledge so quickly was regarding these engineers postulated as being way, way before recorded history, very high tech civilizations that somehow perished. But trained and I no doubt have belabored that too much! I agree with all of you that when the speculation moves to some catastrophe, nuclear exchange, or an asteroid hitting, or societal breakdown occurring somehow in the future of our times now, the speculation becomes all too real, frightening really. And I agree that with us now, a large enough event, whatever that may be, could/probably would cause some sort of reset. Hence, perhaps we should start purchasing some of those foods, seeds, and so on from the advertisers on the show. I personally know people who are stockpiling! Kim

 

[trainedobserver]

... I agree with all of you that when the speculation moves to some catastrophe, nuclear exchange, or an asteroid hitting, or societal breakdown occurring somehow in the future of our times now, the speculation becomes all too real, frightening really.

So don't think there is even a remote possibility that this may have already happened at some point in the distant past and erased all vestiges of industrialized society (along with their recorded history) except for pre-fab buildings and the odd stone edifice that just won't crumble back into the earth?

 

[Goggs Mackay]

It seems to be quite a popular thing in the USA, preparing for some future disaster. Stockpiling food and water in a bunker etc.

To be fair though, compared to the UK, the US does have more than it's fair share of natural disasters which make such preparation very sensible. Tornado's, floods, hurricane's, earthquakes - you don't need WWIII or a meteor strike in the US to make it wise to have a store of certain things.

@Kim - if things were so bad as to make Trained's observation a reality, namely, the loss of engineering knowledge due to a catastrophe - me, personally -maybe cos I have no kids - I kinda have no intention of scraping an existence post-catastrophe. I always thought since the 80's when all those nuclear holocaust films came out (The Day After, Threads) that I would much rather just go out in the initial blast rather than eek out an existence whilst dealing with a slow death from radiation poisoning. In such circumstances I have no moral qualms about suicide whatsoever. It would have to be desperate though, I do not underestimate the strength of survival instinct in human's.
It would be really sad but I can totally see in such circumstances such horrible things such as raping, pillaging, vigilante gangs, theft, murder etc. A lot of humanity would go straight out the door when things get bad. Like in war, those times may be when you get to see the absolute worst and best of humanity. Let's just hope we never get there.

 

[Kim323]

Trained, what am I going to do with you? Give me your hand so I can drag you out of that rabbit hole! Kidding, typing one fingered on iPad, and the smiley face icon is somewhere I can't see it. Ok, it is possible, I will grudgingly admit! And, goggs, yes my feelings exactly. I've often said to my sons, engineers both, one with his masters in aeronautical engineering from Stanford, just what do they think of all this. They sort of smile indulgently at their old man, and shake their heads. But I tell them that if that asteroid is heading here for a full and sure hit, that I want to be sitting right in front of that window it's going to hit first on contact. Over with quick. But I tease them too about their fields hiding alien bodies and they really shake their heads. Kim

 

[Kim323]

Now, trained, I am being dragged by myself kicking and screaming to this, but I will never say that I cannot CONCEIVE of what you hypothesize. After my last post above, I had a light go on, and I thought, wait, oh no, I DID read a book about.................... In fact, I "taught" it with a very small group of high school students a few years ago as a discussion book, with each of the kids having their own copy. It does postulate what would it be like if man were to suddenly, and not just man, but, well you can see for yourself with this link to amazon. I couldn't find my copy at home, but here's a link I hope the forum computer parses more simply. If not, you can go there and search for The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. He talks about the New York subway and sewer system, all sorts of titillating detail of what would happen if man were to suddenly evaporate, and all our systems, etc. were left to themselves.

Here's the link:

The World Without Us: Alan Weisman: 9780312427900: Amazon.com: Books

Very fascinating book, and don't rub it in. Kim

 

[Kim323]

The kids, and they were a select bunch, DID find the book a tiny bit tedious, but they enjoyed it and our discussions. I attributed the tiny bit of slog they had to go through in parts of the book NOT to the writer's style or research, but to the simple fact that to US, OLDER, this sort of thing fascinates. To a modern day kid, well, THEY ARE IMMORTAL, so there's not the same sort of titillation, horrific as it may be, with envisioning the world suddenly without US. Kim