The year is 3500.
Humanity is dead.
Eventually, aliens find our planet. . .
What could they learn about our species?
What will remain of it?
When humanity dies out. . .
Posts
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21
submarine communication cables are built to last.
Nuclear test sites too.
They will learn we were a bunch of duchbags to the rest of species.
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@7000series
A) Humanity isn't going to die unless the entire biosphere dies.
B) The only way the entire biosphere can die is by a catastrophe of such incredible rarity that it hasn't happened for over a billion years
C) Knowing what catastrophe that is will greatly affect what is left
The least likely to damage records that I can think of is near luminal heavy particle radiation penetrating down to the ocean depths. Transistor latch based storage would be unreliable after that. Secondary photon production would also destroy film.
Bulk physical iteration storage would be all that would be left: so books, CDs, inscriptions on stone.
Some libraries are very well built, their rooves could conceivably last for a 1500 years without leaking.
CDs are are resistant to most chemical attack and could persist for tens of thousands of years in a dark wet place. So I guess it depends on how much stuff is on CDs. We can count on a lot of songs and enough old encyclopedias to decipher every language and the outline of our history.
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@7000series
Presumably the Entire Planet will remain.
And rather a lot of constructed debris.
Bearing in mind that 3500 is only 1476 years from now,
And Stonehenge and the Pyramids are estimated to be 4000 to 5000 years old.
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@7000series
They’ll learn pretty much everything essential if the doomsday data bunkers last.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Knowing what catastrophe that is will greatly affect what is left
It will be a big red giant. You are welcome
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Humanity isn't going to die unless the entire biosphere dies.
This is not true.
A global famine would wipe out humanity, but it would not wipe all life from the face of the Earth.
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@WyIted
He said 3500 ADKnowing what catastrophe that is will greatly affect what is leftIt will be a big red giant. You are welcome
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@7000series
Humanity isn't going to die unless the entire biosphere dies.This is not true.A global famine would wipe out humanity, but it would not wipe all life from the face of the Earth.
There is no realistic scenario where everyone dies from hunger or disease.
There are 8 billion of us and if all but 500,000 die that isn't even close to the worst bottleneck our species has faced.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
He said 3500 AD
Estimates are this is billions of years off but they have no clue. It could happen before you get the chance to read this.
Sleep well
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@7000series
The documentary Life after People covers this. David Brin hypothesized that Mount Rushmore would be the last noticeable landmark.
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@7000series
Some of the many possible contributors to anthropogenic hazard are climate change, global nuclear annihilation, biological warfare, weapons of mass destruction, and ecological collapse.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
So if we were to revert back to our worst historically discovered bottleneck as a species, we would need 99.99875% of people to suddenly die. This is also a very generous estimate as that historical bottleneck pushed through with stone tool technology, and there would be much better existing tools for the survivors today. It's very likely the human species would persist with much lower numbers than 100,000. Modern tools should be able to compensate for much of the lack of genetic diversity.
People who still believe climate change of a few degrees or elevated radiation from either the sun or nuclear weapons could possibly cause that many deaths have zero concept of science, geology, and earth history.
Before Humanity dies out they will say revert back instead of just revert.
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@Greyparrot
Modern tools should be able to compensate for much of the lack of genetic diversity.
Minimum genetic viability is something of a myth.
Bottlenecks basically means an increased degree of incest (no not direct incest but direct incest is the most extreme form).
This exposes recessive traits both positive and negative. In the cruel light of natural selection recessive flaws are eradicated.
The population itself doesn't die, it is purified in a sense.
Or in other words if one man and one woman are the last two left in North America, their kids will have to reproduce with each other. It's not genetically possible they are incapable of producing children without a genetic flaw (or else they would express the flaw themselves).
So worst case 1/4 of their children (on average) have the negative trait. If it was some central European dynasty where that one kid with the recessive flaws HAD to be heir things might get worse. In the real world though if those children are male they'll die or father no children. If they're female they'll die and mother less children.
This isn't just genetic theory, many small islands have been populated from seed populations of only only a handful of humans and instances where non-human animals populated the island have been seen where the original population was only two.
I picked 500,000 because I can't fathom a disaster that wouldn't leave that many alive (so long as there was still a biosphere). That's probably a good estimate for the number of people in complete isolation who wouldn't be touched by the most deadly and virulent disease as well.
People who still believe climate change of a few degrees or elevated radiation from either the sun or nuclear weapons could possibly cause that many deaths have zero concept of science, geology, and earth history.
Agreed.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Genetic diversity was important in a world with multiple environments and multiple threats. Today, nearly all of this is irrelevant as we can control almost all aspects of our living environment. Freezing to death, malaria, lack of water.... there's no need to have biological hybrids to survive these hybrid environments (hairy people with elevated metabolism, sickle cells, etc...)
34 days later
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@7000series
The year is 3500.Humanity is dead.Eventually, aliens find our planet. . .What could they learn about our species?What will remain of it?