lol, I adhere to the more simple model of “just because it was thousands of years ago doesn’t mean it wasn’t an advanced civilization.” I think it’s possible and that there are events which could cause us to lose the overwhelming majority of our technology and for a society to collapse into the Stone Age and basically “reset.” Arguably, the more advanced a society becomes, the more complex it becomes, and thus the more specialized, the more vulnerable it would be to total failure by losing only a portion of the population.
Example: lets say making a pencil requires 5 distinct steps and 5 distinct skills. if we have 5 guys who have the knowledge and skills to individually do all 5 steps to make the pencil, but 3 of those guys die. Well the 2 remaining guys can still each make a pencil.
But if we have 5 guys who all only know a single step of making the pencil. If 3 of them die, the remaining 2 can only complete 2/5ths of the process and thus, no more pencils.
The internet and our communications technology has made us collectively, VASTLY more knowledgeable, capable, and productive. But *individually* it has made us extremely specialized, ignorant, and incapable. It’s like we are becoming one giant organism with a collective brain, and each person (cell) only does its singular job. And we are doing those jobs to create a “brain” (internet). But that means that the more we become dependent on that “brain,” then the entire civilization dies if we ever lose it, or lose access to it. Our knowledge is increasingly not written on paper or stone or wood, but in bytes on a digital drive. Could there not be an event that wiped them all out completely at the same time? What would we be left with? How many would die?
Like going from single celled organisms to single cells inside a much larger organism - The cells used to be able to survive on their own, but after they become an organism, without the entire thing thriving, none of the individual cells can survive without it. If that is actually a transition we are going through in a sense, what if it happened before but the “organism” had a massive brain failure and we had to start over?
Let alone the possibility of an asteroid, super volcano, or the huge number of other disasters that could alter the entire structure of society and cause it all to break down.
Makes me wonder what the “reset threshold” is vs the complexity or size of the society. 🤔
And of course… it could be aliens 😂
(We hope you enjoyed this Guy’s much-too-long-response-to-nothing-but-a-meme take)
