Replying to Avatar HoloKat

If human civilization went extinct, future inhabitants could potentially find traces of ceramics even after a million years.
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Nemo 1y ago đź’¬ 1

There was an interesting book about this concept called “The World Without Us”.

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

It discusses the various things that would be left as signs of our current society if every person just vanished off the face of the planet.

If I recall correctly. One of the longest lasting human made things on the plant would be Mount Rushmore, as it slowly gets worn down by rain. The other things are a bit more intangible like radioactive signatures.

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HoloKat 1y ago đź’¬ 1

Fascinating. On a long enough timeframe everything disappears.

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Nemo 1y ago

Even the radioactive markers would be mostly caused by the “sudden vanishing” of humans from nuclear power plants, leaving them fully unattended.

In the long run, even Sol consumes the Earth in its lifespan ~10million years from now.

And if that seems bad for humanity, consider the average lifespan of any given species is only about 2 million years, so humans won’t have much to worry about there.