EXACLTY!!!
If we are fucking up Earth this fast who’s to say we DIDN’T do this all before; but on Mars and with much cooler tech. (Like what if Tesla wasn’t fucked over and he released global energy and his fabled death ray!)
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I’ve thought about how Mars could have lost it’s atmosphere, one of the moons is in a very unnatural orbit, maybe a solar flare hit mars and earth in the past and mars didn’t bounce back.
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I keep talking about this when folks ask my why I choose to learn primitive skills:
THE CARRINGTON EVENT
" Telegraph systems all over Europe and North America failed, in some cases giving telegraph operators electric shocks.[22] Telegraph pylons threw sparks.[23] Some telegraph operators could continue to send and receive messages despite having disconnected their power supplies.[24]"
Basically:
- Most anything electrical CAN potentially just catch on fire.
- Transformers at hydro plants will melt down (no more step-up to transport power)
- The major manufactures of these transformers are NOT in the Americas; and are already generally always on backorder.
FUN!
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North Pole moving - are we going to get a Pole flip - last one was 780,000 years ago ???
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I’ve been to Chichen Itza in Mexico. Spent a few days there actually. Got the whole academia tour thing from the locals and it was rather enlightening.
First thing being, unlike the pyramids in Egypt, Chichen Itza is NOT made up of giant blocks. Actually, its made up of tons and tons of rubble, and has a REALLY thin veneer on top that makes it look like giant blocks. We saw several examples where various buildings had begun to erode and hadn’t been restored.
Also, one point many never realize about Central America… There once WERE elephants there! Look at the Mayan / Olmec carvings at Chichen Itza, and you notice several depicting elephants or their trunks. Its possible they used them for labor I have to guess, but most people don’t even think there were elephants in the Americas.
It was also neat to see the “layering” and influences of different people throughout the Chichen Itza complex. Mayans didn’t build with columns, yet there’s rows of them (from the Toltecs and Olmec days). The elevated roads thru the jungle are impressive as well.
Its also fascinating that they build these MEGA buildings with “as of yet unseen” art, such as how the staircase at the main pyramid in Chichen Itza casts the shadow of a serpent on just the right days of the year. Or how the acoustics work in a GIANT open field in a jungle with a pyramid in front of you (If you ever go to Chichen Itza, DEFINITELY do the hand clapping thing)
The one thing I DO know… I would love a time machine to be able to go back and see how these civilizations functioned. Clearly some of these places were large citys, and I think it would be amazing to see how they built the CITY, not just a few stellar buildings… I mean, there’s Mayan built (raised) roads ALL over the Yucatan… THAT is also impressive…
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I wonder what people 10,000 years from now will think when they come across these remnants of our lost civilization. 
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I hope your optimism is borne out. My personal belief, the hopeful one, is in ten thousand years those humans still living will be living more like the animals we are, with the other creatures. Our departure from nature has been our undoing.
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I’m not sure I’d call it optimism… but what’s in a name? My “optimistic” take is pretty much the exact opposite of yours, that humans will one day figure out a realistic way off this planet. Of course, once we’re there, we’ll continue doing the same thing as we’ve done here; exploiting everything we can find, and trying to exterminate it if we can’t figure out a way to exploit it. Not exactly optimism…
There are too many of us, and not enough resources, unless we can figure out a way to break what we know as the “laws of physics” and turn them into mere suggestions of physics by generating energy from nothing. The pessimistic view would be that we can’t, and as with the tribe and their Coke bottle, end up fighting amongst each other incessantly. Fast forward 50 years, and you have Idiocracy; another 9,950 and you have another great extinction, followed by the survivors trying to learn what they can from the rubble that remains.
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Considering Mastodons… I think it’s rather dumb for folks to assume that their ancestors were not around helping us around and we just fucked it up for them so they all died off.
Solid point; similar to the penny drop in Romes colosseum.
They remind me of the highways in Florida; but the Mayans built their roads better. 
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Well I meant it seems optimistic to me that there are humans alive in 10k years. Space offers an emotional hope we cling to but we have to remain alive long enough to accomplish that. Looking at the science over the last 50 years I don’t see that happening.
I can certainly see some version of Elysium arising as the wealthy further distance themselves from the rest. But ultimately it’s probably too little too late. Turning people’s searching inward from outward is impossible.
So basically be excellent to each other.
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The core of the planet, molten metal, becomes the core of an enormous transformer with the atmosphere being the primary and the surface layer the secondary. All our piddly conductive bits are tinfoil on the tree. 
It’s actually always like that but a solar flare is adding a fuckton of energy to the system.
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This is what I want/hope for… something like Star Trek. A global civilization actually working together to improve ourselves instead of fighting over land or oil or people’s feelings 
We have a limited amount of time before we destroy ourselves, either through war or climate change, and have to start over, again. We need to get off this rock AND fix it. But then I see my customers everyday 
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Fair point, it’s a lot easier to have high hopes for mankind when I haven’t left the house in three days. 
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My mood darkens in the winter here. I understand my Scandinavian friends better at this latitude. lol
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The legend of Ardra
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Personally aI think no one should be allowed off planet until we learn how to look after this one, and everthing that lives on it properly.
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Allowed by whom? And who determines what looking after this planet “properly” consists of? Quis custodes custodiat?
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I like learning primitive skills, although I would not call them primitive. Just different skills for our time. Primatitve gives the impression of lack of thinking which is far from what they are.
I flint knap and was dissapointed after emigrating here that there is very little stone that can be knapped in NS apart from a bit of cherry in New Brunswick and the flint that was used as ballast in ships dumped overy the side of boats in the bay of Fundy.
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