Evolution

[alxian]

on a quick scale

 

its come to my attention that most species wide, major mutations, that create new species involve major environmental factors. solar flares, epidemic, distruction of habitat...

 

what if the flood happened and humans were kulled so that modern man was spared and allowed to evolve in a world with no competition? (save for large mammals which we apparently had little trouble competing with).

 

would the bible story of rapture possibly involve some major catastrophy that would claim billions? leaving the survivors in a world of excess? starting over with all the knowledge we have built up i think a world with an obidient and small population would switfly evolve into much more than it is now. basically right now not much evolution is tolerated because of all that we've built. incorporating all the flaws and avoiding change because of the difficulty of implementation. should our world be rended from beneath our feet, we could rebuild with the bets of our ability. the world would lack in population.. would that mean a baby boom or cloning?

 

should human evolution come down to rebuilding our population with genegineered hordes or a more natural man and woman approach?

 

(this also considering same sex couples being able to marry, they would need a way to merge their genetics, meaning at least for them modifying the young would be par for the course, while a man-woman combo would forgo (unless you do it with viruses attacking and modifying the emplanted developing embryo).

[Boerseun]

would the bible story of rapture possibly involve some major catastrophy that would claim billions? leaving the survivors in a world of excess? starting over with all the knowledge we have built up i think a world with an obidient and small population would switfly evolve into much more than it is now.

In my opinion, if there was a major disaster that killed off 99% of the population, the survivors would be too busy tilling the soil to spend time using all the information resources at their disposal. I think in a very short time, a couple of hundred years or so, society will degrade to the point where the majority is illiterate. Those still able to enjoy the luxury of studying and reading will eventually become regarded as mystics, or priests, as such - and the control they have over the physical world due to their advanced knowledge of, say, electricity or engineering, will enforce that perception.

Evolution will come into play where there is outbreaks of disease and a few lucky stiffs are immune by some genetic chance. They will survuve, and pass their genes on.

 

But I think the opportunities we have currently for study is dependent on millions of labourers freeing us up from the toil of agriculture, hunting, etc. Once those support systems collapse, students and teachers will become a rarity.

[alxian]

i'm certain that people would maintain their level of advancement. as long as their is power (which we know how to generate) our books, cd-roms, dvds and hdds will remain. we'd get them back up and running. it would just be a matter of rebuilding the nifrastructure of nations without resorting to fossil fuels, monarchs, etc you know those things that plague modern societies but seems so appealing to smaller groups where such institutions offer the simple answers and absolute power.

[Boerseun]

Think about it:

 

All the devices in your home, how much do you know about their operation?

 

Assuming, by some chance, it was possible to keep the power on, when your toaster blows up, how would you fix it? Your microwave? Your fridge, or even computer? Where would you find food? How long will it take after such a disaster for all the stored food to run out?

 

Any such hypothetical disaster would wipe out enough of the techhies to make the systems dependent on them collapse altogether.

 

Sure - there might be a rocket scientist somewhere who can build a rocket to go to the moon, but would he have enough knowledge of chemistry to liquify the needed fuel?

 

I think that civilization is balanced on a very thin tightrope, and any such disaster as you propose would send it over the edge, back into the so-called "Dark Ages" if we lose enough techhies, farmers, teachers, doctors, nurses, everything we tend to take for granted.

[Fishteacher73]

Sounds suspiciously Atlantian....

[bumab]

But the knowledge of what COULD exist would certainly encourage the survivors to free up as much people as soon as possible to get back what was lost. In the middle ages, nobody could envision a gas powered economy, so nobody looked for gas. We know it's there, we'd figure it out pretty quick.

[Fishteacher73]

I guess the best you could hope for is 3rd world conditions. They know about tthe existence of such things, but do not have them. Knowing and producing are two different feats. I know about nuclear reactors, but I doubt I could make one (no matter where I looked or what I studied).

[Skippy]

I guess the best you could hope for is 3rd world conditions. They know about tthe existence of such things, but do not have them. Knowing and producing are two different feats. I know about nuclear reactors, but I doubt I could make one (no matter where I looked or what I studied).

What you seem to forget is that the biblical rapture you refer to will take all of the hayseed Bible thumpers to Heaven and leave all the geniuses behind. :rolleyes: That being the case, you'll have all the science oriented people you need to run a nuke plant, for about 7 years anyway.

[alxian]

and then the ground opens up and we get hell on earth.. ya ya..

 

but

 

i never thought of god taking away only the 600 million or so faithful.. and then only a fraction of them. false christians abound. they are amoung us.

 

legend has it that he promises he won't flood us again but cosmic radiation did the job too. otherwise disease or war (if amoung the taken are the leaders of the world, a power struggle would ensue, world war 3 or something).

 

in its aftermath even if god only took a handful of the faithful many would die. the population would crash.

 

as long as enough of the infrastructure remained rebuilding would take less than a generation or two.

 

 

as for our preparedness... good question. we seem to no longer panic in the face of disaster. either years behind televisions, or school training, or fluoride in the water supply, or something has tamed us some. people don't "freak out". they calmy register the emergency situation and follow directions... at least in the developed world. when the power went out not too long ago people remained calm. as long as whatever is to come is similar even if its on a grand scale i think people would live through it easily.

 

only in the case of true earth shatterring calamity where huge swathes of infrastructure are destroyed and fire falls from the sky would people panic.

[IrishEyes]

in its aftermath even if god only took a handful of the faithful many would die. the population would crash.as long as enough of the infrastructure remained rebuilding would take less than a generation or two.

But if He did take, even only a handful of the faithful, then there would not be even a generation to rebuild. I think that's the point that Skippy was trying to make. If there was a Rapture (like I believe there will be:) ), the people that are left will have 7 years at best to prepare for the end. Not nearly enough time to do what you are suggesting.

 

Barring a Rapture, a WWIII might do the deed, thinning the population enough for your purposes. Then you'd have your generations to re-build. I think Fish is more right though... 3rd world countries know about most of the 'advances' that we already enjoy (take for granted?), yet they can do little to attain what most of us have. They are too busy trying to stay alive to worry about what package DirecTV is offering this month. They stress about their children dying in the night from starvation, while we worry about the baby having a food allergy from a certain colored dye in the M&Ms.

 

If you took away the extra people, many of the people that make sure your day run smoothly (the people at the power plant, the dairy farmers, Juan valdez, the 24/7 Dell support guys), would be gone. How far could you get in the morning without that Venti Espresso Double with a shot of vanilla? Ugh! Perish the thought!!! I can't run a Starbucks cappucino machine. Can you?

[Boerseun]

This is actually a very interesting discussion!

 

What would be the critical mass in terms of population size, to maintain civilization?

And - what would be the results if it did crash? Would it be 3d World or Dark Ages? And how long to rebuild?

 

This sounds like excellent fodder for a brand, spankin' new thread thingy.

[alxian]

civilization is a relative term.

 

by todays standards most societies are huge compared to the babylons egypts and Teotihuacan of old. our societies also regard personal freedoms much more highly than most known ancient civilizations. not to mention that we cherish the lives of the individual much more than any of the ancients, we don't believe in sacrifice etc thus we do our best to make each individual life as precious as the next in order for everyone to meet their expected potential. thats what i believe will save us, each of us knows much more than whole cities could have in ancient times.

 

a technologically advanced society needs a global economy, of resources and knowledge to sustain itself. or at least a large enough population to create both excess in basic resources (water food etc so that no one is wanting for anything) and human labour (to keep resources and labour cheap).

 

critical mass thus means a society able to provide all the required resources to produce the bare necessities in quantity, then enough people to fill labour and services functions, and enough people for R&D (the guts of a technologically rich society), and lastly a few elites to govern it all. those R&D people are above the lower labour class, they (the labour class) must provide for themselves as well as those who don't grow food or build houses.

 

by the numbers farmers and builders have to account for a large amount of the population, the R&D peeps a relative few, but the more the better, they keep everything in working order and work hard to increase efficiency... the bureaucracy.

 

to look at the world itself you can see that most nations that exist in tiny geographical areas (such as japan) can only attain techcropolis status by importing those basic necessities resources, (in japans case food, building materials, labourers, pretty much everything).

 

if japan could grow its own food offshore, cheaper than importing it (in kelplike floating beds on the ocean, fueled by solar energy, supplimented by fish), even with a reduced population japan could retain its technological superiority over the world.

 

perhaps just having so many people so close together means critical mass is attained at a much lower population. while in the americas with such a huge surface area distance reduces efficiency, meaning our critical mass should we stay spread out with a reduced population would be far higher. more people wasting time moving around and not working (building or improving).

--------

hmmm

 

7 years... until the end of days.

 

what could we do in that time to prepare?

 

and would NA and asia pacific peeps (those in tokyo and other large urban centers) do if the electrical infrastructure was destroyed. their high population and low resources would mean massive population crash as a result of competition. proximity thus being a huge disadvantage. hope they have enough raw materials to put half the population on the water to fish, and have enough people able to fetch clean water to avoid epidemics.

 

we've built our societies such that even if the heads of state and "smart people" were elliminated somehow, that jo-anybody could take over. even people in 3rd world countries where the dollar is worth less than a jug of warm urine, is able to use the internet.

 

the electrical grid arguably would be much easier to rebuild than underground water ways. consider that most cities foundations are crumbling away, maintained rather than upgraded or rebuilt. if the earth shook many cities would perish simply because it would be impossible to dig up and rebuild those waterpipes. as an example montreal canada has a fairly large amount of pipes in critical status. we can't just dig 'em up and replace them, its simply not affordable. if we had a good enough earthquake this town would flood and die.

 

ok, so, again, *IF* the sky fell, the sea rose and earth shook, such that all of the electrical lines broke, *and* the power plants were swallowed by the earth, all the *smart* people perished and pious people ascended to heaven of smitten on the spot for being untrue believers, leaving only the atheists scientologists and smattering of other pseudo-religions... what would the survivors wake up to on the day after rapture?

 

a broken world, road and rail travel would be impractical, planes without runways or flight controllers would mean it would be suicide to fly and we'd have little way of determining if the destination was even there once in the air.

 

people would have to find fresh water, then create localized farms for growing food. establish martial law to control land ownership rights. shantytowns would be erected everywhere to house the homeless (basically everyone). disease would run rampant through the streets as clean water for washing would be seen as an excess.

 

if you think about it, technologically speaking we are fairly barbaric. our tech infrastructure so fragile it could be likened to tinfoil thin kleenex on the face of the world.. one quick sneeze and all we've built gets washed away.

 

by the end of the first year towns and countries would be restablished. travel on foot between cities only takes a few days to a week. not much would be happening anyway so countries would quickly reestablish themselves. if once the power was restored if we could find enough of the worlds larger servers and switches we could begin rebuilding the net?

 

 

once contries were up and running economies would be reestablished. without distraction (television)(work, as in frivolous services (lawyers) and corporations etc) people would break their backs earning an honest living rebuilding the infrastructure. this building would allow people who have no wealth to build wealth as well as prestige.

 

in a way then rapture would clear out the froofry religious peeps, allow us to reevalute the oil economy (though in NA we've been hording it for so long should rapture occur we're quite well prepared to use what we have instead of having to ship it in... sorry rest of the world.. you could use solar power i guess...).

 

besides the oil question you have the road systems. in the earth shook and reclaimed our ashphalt stitchings.

 

so... we'd have thousands of stable populations centers by the end of year 1.

 

should we call the new era 'AR'? after rapture?

 

AR japan would be flood, they have higher ground they could flee to, but its very likely that they would in desparation invade korea and eastern china to escape the flood waters and secure the place in the future (though with only 7 years to look forward to before the demonic invasion...)

 

 

it would not make sense to rebuild roads at first. perhaps creating an airborn infrastructure (blimps) would be better than wasting resources on roads. blimps also being much more efficient a mode of transport than cars or trucks.

 

by year 5 we'd have some of the big population centers reconnected. natural resources would be flowing once more. people would be hard at work mining those resources and gutting the old cities for resources.

 

then by year 7 with everything seeming rosy the ground would quake again and split.. prolly if antarcticas, ice sheets melted away (messing up the oceans currents), its thought that the bottom of the world literaly would be that portal between here and there, the demons would boil out of that underwater lake and lay waste to the realm of earth. as long as we had guns (and saved enough bullets for them rather than killing ourselves in that first horrible year, or batteries and lasers i think we'd be fine. we could toss the demonic carcasses on the fires powering boilers to make steam or put them to work in the fields as our slave subculture.

 

then in another 500-1000 years AR the demons would demand emancipation and visible minorities everywhere would grin to thmeselves at how history repeats itself.

[Boerseun]

Thanks for the elaborate post - couple of good ideas there.

 

I think you're being a bit optimistic, though. If a big crash did occur for some unknown reason, money systems would go, all currencies will become equally worthless. An individual's worth would be measured to what he can contribute to society. But how do you compensate him for it?

 

In my view, the remaining people in cities will try to re-establish themselves, but with communication breaking down between large centers, there won't be a central organization. You'll see the re-emergence of city-states, and you might even see petty wars between cities as they eventually get contact going and try to achieve dominance in whatever new government will emerge. There's no gaurantee that everybody will automatically work towards the same noble goal of 'getting everything working' again. Individuals cherish their personal freedom, and with the collapse of society, the opportunities for 'Strongmen' to come to the fore will be abundant - resulting in small despotic states where the guy with the most guns rules the show. What's he gonna do when the ammo runs out, though? I think such a collapse will set civilization back at least a thousand years.

[alxian]

if money becomes worthless peeps with more non-liquid assets, assets of value, such as raw materials, livestock, knowledge etc will become kings.

 

what happens to the old and feable?

 

just hope you aren't old or feable.

 

im thinking bigger buildings if they survived would be turned into residenses.

 

also like i said besides those with trade knowledge who'd be building houses and infrastructure on trully grand scales (rebuilding the ruined one or creating something altogether new and more efficient, like the german autobahn rather that the silly systems we have.)

 

those who can build would be richer than astronauts while theorists would surely die off, starving.

[Skippy]

Boersun is right, this is an interesting discussion that probably warrants its own thread.

civilization is a relative term.

 

by todays standards most societies are huge compared to the babylons egypts and Teotihuacan of old. our societies also regard personal freedoms much more highly than most known ancient civilizations. not to mention that we cherish the lives of the individual much more than any of the ancients, we don't believe in sacrifice etc thus we do our best to make each individual life as precious as the next in order for everyone to meet their expected potential. thats what i believe will save us, each of us knows much more than whole cities could have in ancient times.

I think it is debatable to assert that "we cherish the lives of the individual much more than any of the ancients." Have you read the headlines in your local paper lately? Teen murders other teen because he wanted his basketball shoes and others stand by without taking action. A mentally handicapped girl is gang raped in a school gym while others watch and the school's principal and asst. principal encourage the father of the girl to just let it go. Then you can get into the whole abortion issue and choosing one individual over another for convenience's sake - some would equate that to the sacrifices of old. How about what is done to the celebrities - their lives mean 'Everything' and 'nothing' at the same time to their fans, for some it is their reputation/career that suffers for others it is their families, for Diana it was her very life.

 

im thinking bigger buildings if they survived would be turned into residenses.

I think that would not happen, or if it did, it would be very short term. If the power grid is affected, large buildings would have no light, no air conditioning, electric appliances would be useless so no refrigeration and it takes some fairly powerful pumps to push water up to the 10th floor, much less the 30th. Refuse and human waste would pile up and the stench would be overwhelming. In my thinking, the first move would be towards the larger cities as people would be trying to determine what happened and what was being done to get "back to normal." But soon, the need for food would send people away from the concrete and glass to the dirt where the food can be found. Bo Cephus' lyrics will seem prophetic because "A country boy can survive."

 

...while theorists would surely die off, starving.

AGREED, the "intellectuals" would finally be seen for what they are...useless.

 

if money becomes worthless peeps with more non-liquid assets, assets of value, such as raw materials, livestock, knowledge etc will become kings.

That comment brings to mind the old westerns with the cattle barons having a small personal army to defend his holdings. Or maybe the "Mad Max" or "Waterworld" scenarios.

 

An individual's worth would be measured to what he can contribute to society. But how do you compensate him for it?

Revert back to a barter system - quick, fast and in a hurry. Paper money would be most useful as a fire starter or maybe toilet paper. Precious metals might have some usefulness as an exchange medium for their ornamental uses, but people who have chickens will be exchanging eggs for milk from those who have cows...etc. The handyman will get paid with foodstuff.

 

:)

[alxian]

so henry how did you make out with those chickens i sold you?

 

 

they were tasty.

 

bob smacks his forehead.