Future History

[Fri]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: D&D is going to screw far future archeology right the hell up.

This goes either in Media Discussion or Friendly Banter, but I'm kinda in the Friendly Banter Mood.

I remember Paul Attreides quoted something in Dune Messiah, about Earth's History. How Alexander The Great found the first Galactic Empire. How 'Emperor Hitler' kill hundred of thousands of people. How Rome and Berlin were empire's capital, then a series of 'civil war' moved it into New York.

So... what do you think future archeologist/xenoarcheologist from the 30th century will think about us. What will went down in the Terran Federation's History Book For Children? On the so called 'Based on True Story' Box Office Movie 'World War 2' premiered in Mars Cineplex?

Will they see our toilet cover as ceremonial collar? Or cereal mascots as colorful gods?

Put your silly ideas/theories here!

[DraPrime]

They'll wonder how on earth we got around on vehicles that only went 70 mph.

[Beholder1995]

They'll think we worshipped Homer Simpson, and sacraficed our brains to the metal box in which he resided.

[Fri]

I wonder... any archaeologist, or historian in the playground :smallwink: ?

I forgot who said this, but 'if a biologist don't know what's an organ for, he'll say it is for 'sexual attraction'. If an archaeologist don't know what's an artifact for, he'll say it's a 'religious artifact'

[Trizap]

They will think football was a sport where men kicked each other in the balls

They will think the TV was some kind of religious shrine.

or that video games was a device to sharpen peoples minds for education.

[Destichado]

They'll have a pretty good idea of exactly what we're doing, because we write about freaking *everything*, and all that gets preserved.

What they're going to wonder about is how we can say we have an obesity epidemic while all our published media depicts fantastically beautiful people with god-like figures. :smallwink:

Actually, those are the things archaeologists/historians really *do* wonder about: all the internal contradictions of a culture.
Why do the people who oppose the death penalty support abortion, and vice versa?
Why does a party promote staying out of international affairs right before embarking on a decade-long war?
What makes people think that public health care is an entitled right but not think that public entertainment is, too?
Why is it acceptable for an older person to sleep with an eighteen year old (but not a seventeen year old), but not acceptable to drink with them?


And sometimes, we historians get lucky, and discover that the people we're studying wondered about the same darn things. :smallamused:

[Leon Stormchild]

I wonder... any archaeologist, or historian in the playground :smallwink: ?



Umm...ask again after I finish university in 4 years and I'll be able to say yes.:smallbiggrin:

[snoopy13a]

Actually, I think the distant future will be more like Jane Austin novels then science fiction. I believe that we will exhaust so much of our natural resources that the future will be an largely agricultural society similar to those of before the industrial revolution.

[Trizap]

snoopy, your probably wrong, thats just to, too contrary, just too contrary, it just won't happen..........I don't know why....it just won't.

[13_CBS]

*Obligatory PBF reference (http://pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF209-Now_Showing.jpg)

[snoopy13a]

We won't see it. However, oil and natural gas supplies might run out in the next hundred years. There are large coal reserves which could last a couple hundred years (the United States' coal supply is estimated at a few hundred years).

Once coal is exhausted, we're down to nuclear power, solar power, wind and hydroelectric. Nuclear fission is a great power source but is there enough uranium for the next 10-20,000 years?* Wind and hydro could always be around but aren't as efficient and won't be enough to take care of all of the world's energy supply.

If we could get nuclear fusion to work, our problems would be solved but that may never happen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_depletion

So, if we run out of fossil fuels and uranium for nuclear fission, where are we going to get the power to run a modern society? Hence, back to Jane Austin-esque civilization with perhaps the upper classes having electricity from hydroelectric and/or wind sources.

Of course, this is in the distant future.

[Vespe Ratavo]

They will learn all they know about modern culture through the archived remains of the GiTP message boards.

They will wonder how humankind survived whilst insane pie-hurling drows and evil genius cyborgs ran amok.

They will wonder how we managed to defy death, coming back now matter how many times we were killed (or kissed).

They will believe that Lord Herman was our king, holding regular contests to judge those who were worthy to hold a place among the gods in Lord Herman's Rubbish Repository.

They will ponder our curious artwork, wondering why we only depicted people, places, and things in crude stick art.

And most of all, they will spend hours and hours reading every. Single. OOTS. Strip.

[Mr. Scaly]

I think that by then humans will have migrated to a sort of nomadic space ship culture since we'll have used the Earth to such an extent it won't be recognisable. There will be colonies elsewhere but the majority of us will all be living in zero G space stations, probably run on solar power. There will be two types of archeologists...one group who sees us as having the ideal land based culture and the other that sees us as primitives.

[Destichado]

Oh, if we're prognosticating the future: when we expand our reach for resources off-planet, the earth will rather quickly revert to its natural state.

All technological progress is, by its very nature, environmentalist, in that it progresses from a less efficient to a more efficient use of resources. So-called damage to the environment results when the demands of the population increase exceed the ability of the pace of technological progress to minimize environmental impact.


Individually, our demands on the environment have done nothing but go down as time progresses -it's just that there's so darn many of us that it all adds up. If you want to minimize human impact on the environment, either hope for techo-paradise or a super-plague. :smallamused:

[Fri]

Yeah. If we're lucky, we'll be a space faring species before we ran out of fuel in earth. WE can just loot the other planets, can't we?

Like, in Asimov's Foundation series. It's so far in the future that they regarded earth as legend. The don't even remember where was human's home planet.

Maybe we wrote everything, but I believe that egyptian also write things. And how english language from middle ages are far different than current english.

Of course I don't know anything about real history, sociology, archeology, or anthropology though.

[Mr. Scaly]

You know, this assumes that humans will stay evolved in a recognisable form in the distant future. Suppose we all turn into...big balls of light before we find out old civilisation?

[Destichado]

Yeah. If we're lucky, we'll be a space faring species before we ran out of fuel in earth. WE can just loot the other planets, can't we? Most planets are blasted nightmares of basalt rock (of either the frozen or the molten variety) or titanic orbs of gas held together by liquefying gravity. If anything, we'll be improving them. :smallconfused:



Maybe we wrote everything, but I believe that egyptian also write things. And how english language from middle ages are far different than current english. Sure, the ancient egyptians wrote, but only a few of them did. Probably one out of every thousand -maybe one out of a hundred if we're optimistic. And writing was special, it was something you did for an important occasion. So between the rarity of it and the fact that it was reserved for important things -histories, marriages, religious rites, bills- we have an incomplete picture of what their life was like.

We, on the other hand, write *all the time,* about anything and everything that enters our heads: from the hotness of pop-stars to what we think of man-purses to our fears of future poverty and dystopia. :smallwink:

[Collin152]

You know, this assumes that humans will stay evolved in a recognisable form in the distant future. Suppose we all turn into...big balls of light before we find out old civilisation?

So what, we evolve into... Ghaele? Lantern Archons?
I suppose the process starts by evolving into an outsider... Let me know when the first Aasimar is documented.

[Mr. Scaly]

So what, we evolve into... Ghaele? Lantern Archons?
I suppose the process starts by evolving into an outsider... Let me know when the first Aasimar is documented.

Well either that or aboleths. So what is it, ball of light or squid thing?

[Shraik]

They're gonna think that they are going confused as to how old Car engines work, considering there is a possibility there will be no gasoline left. So everyone will just be saying "Che?" or something trying to figure out what started these things.

[Stupendous_Man]

We won't see it. However, oil and natural gas supplies might run out in the next hundred years. There are large coal reserves which could last a couple hundred years (the United States' coal supply is estimated at a few hundred years).

Once coal is exhausted, we're down to nuclear power, solar power, wind and hydroelectric. Nuclear fission is a great power source but is there enough uranium for the next 10-20,000 years?*

There is enough fuel for nuclear fusion to last several hundred million years, at current rates.

With the improvements in solar panels, we can farm solar energy very efficiently, provided that people are willing to put up with huge solar farms.

[ghost_warlock]

An online comic (http://www.pbfcomics.com/) did a few panels devoted to this concept. Pretty funny stuff!

http://www.pbfcomics.com/archive_b/PBF209-Now_Showing.jpg

[Moff Chumley]

An online comic (http://www.pbfcomics.com/) did a few panels devoted to this concept. Pretty funny stuff!

http://www.pbfcomics.com/archive_b/PBF209-Now_Showing.jpg

Failed your spot check.

In the future, bloggers will be held in aawe, and internet pirates will have action movies about them.

/great prophet

[Collin152]

They will ponder why there are so many mountains with my face carved into them.
Then I'll tell them all about how I became immortal and took over the world.

[alexeduardo]

They'll have a pretty good idea of exactly what we're doing, because we write about freaking *everything*, and all that gets preserved.



to our disgrace, I might add

[ArlEammon]

They will think we worshiped Gods called Valkrath, Selaniel, Chillar, Asmodeus, Furaxamor, Taunaru, Tannel and Varnel.

[Unique]

They will think that Shakespeare was a good idea, but was always ruined by bad acting.

The Matrix will be seen as cautionary media.

The Beatles will be revered as gods for a short time before they discover that Paul was never actually dead. (Cookie if you get the incredibly roundabout joke.)

Jesus will be believed to have been a minor deity that delivered toys to children on one day of the years, whilst Santa will be worshipped worldwide. This will be due to a series of amusingly blasphemous clerical errors, culminating in Pope Ethan II (Collocquially reffered to as the Pope that Turned Out to Actually be a Jewish Guy) saying, "ah, screw it, it works."

[Coplantor]

Well, if any historian/archeologist survives my zombie apocalypse and the revoultion of the internet, I guess most of them will believe that we were ancient beings of unmatched wisdom and power, "look at those tall buildings!" they will say, "How did they built those things? Our investigations on feces shows that you can only build a three stories building with them", "Maybe, they did'nt used feces to build them?" *last historian gets hited in the back of his head* "Dont you dare sooubting the power of our own feces! How can you doubt of something you made yourself?" "Well, why dont we build using babies?" "Because we need them to increase our numbers and sports!"


In the future, everything will be done with feces, EVERYTHING!

[Unique]

You mean it's not already?

[Coplantor]

You mean it's not already?

Well, some combustibles, energy drinks, fast food ingredients and TV shows are, but not EVERYTHING!!!!, although, our scientists are working on that...

[Lord Fullbladder, Master of Goblins]

Religion will be pieced together from internet ramblings following the great falling-out of the mainstreams during or after the apocolypse. The Grand Celestial Crab and the Divine Whale will be amongst the greatest of the cults after that.

History, as written following the apocolypse, will record the Axis of Evil as a fell alliance between Megatron, Hitler and Darth Vader. The greatest heroes of our era will be recorded following idols in their images forged in plastic. Han Solo, Optimus Prime, Indiana Jones. These will be the legendary heroes of tommorrow.

[Coplantor]

Religion will be pieced together from internet ramblings following the great falling-out of the mainstreams during or after the apocolypse. The Grand Celestial Crab and the Divine Whale will be amongst the greatest of the cults after that.

History, as written following the apocolypse, will record the Axis of Evil as a fell alliance between Megatron, Hitler and Darth Vader. The greatest heroes of our era will be recorded following idols in their images forged in plastic. Han Solo, Optimus Prime, Indiana Jones. These will be the legendary heroes of tommorrow.

And He-Man, dont forget about He-Man!

[Lord Fullbladder, Master of Goblins]

Oh course. Also He-Man.

And Launchpad McQuack.

[JettWilderbeast]

The Beatles will be revered as gods for a short time before they discover that Paul was never actually dead. (Cookie if you get the incredibly roundabout joke.)
Paul Mcartney is dead! It hasn't been him for years! He died and they replaced him!

I reckon we won't have a human race to research us, in about 5 years time some freak science accident will happen and zombies will kill us all.

OR

The LHC will do us all in on wednesday.

[Fri]

the pbf reference had been posted, now I'll post the XKCD one.

Ah, XKCD. It truly have the secret of the universe...

http://xkcd.com/239/

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/blagofaire.png

[bosssmiley]

Future history? Diana Warrior Princess (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diana:_Warrior_Princess).

Oh, and our current age will probably be apostraphised as the New Dark Ages. Despite Google's stated intent to store all the world's data digital media ultimately isn't as stable or as easy to recover as ink and paper. Tried playing a BetaMax recently? Imagine a century from now.

These guys (http://www.longnow.org/) have put a lot more thought into the problem of storing records long term than we have...

[Fri]

Holy Cow. That's awesome beyond belief. I want one now. Diana: warrior princess and Elvis: The Legendary Tours.

[Ilena]

Yeah. If we're lucky, we'll be a space faring species before we ran out of fuel in earth. WE can just loot the other planets, can't we?

Like, in Asimov's Foundation series. It's so far in the future that they regarded earth as legend. The don't even remember where was human's home planet.

Maybe we wrote everything, but I believe that egyptian also write things. And how english language from middle ages are far different than current english.

Of course I don't know anything about real history, sociology, archeology, or anthropology though.

accually about looting other worlds ... not exacly ... see for oil and coal are made out of organic matter ... only urainum would be lootable for our current power sources, although ion engines run on xenon i think ... so capital ships would be using ion engines even if they have less thrust then chemical engines, they can keep running far longer

[chiasaur11]

I, personally, will encourage records of a "zombie plague" that was only stopped by ninja doctors.

We need to look cool for the future people.

[Mr. Scaly]

Well before we evolve beyond physical matter I suppose we'll discover that we worshipped a race of spiky headed people with yellow skin and only four fingers on each hand.

[Ramien]

In the future?

There's going to be a Computer. It's going to take care of all of us, leading most humans to become under-educated and bored, mostly given make-work jobs to keep unrest from spreading. People who care about the past are going to have a hard time telling the difference between entertainment shows and reality, leading to a lot of interesting confusion. Most people are going to trust no one and keep their lasers ready.

[chiasaur11]

In the future?

There's going to be a Computer. It's going to take care of all of us, leading most humans to become under-educated and bored, mostly given make-work jobs to keep unrest from spreading. People who care about the past are going to have a hard time telling the difference between entertainment shows and reality, leading to a lot of interesting confusion. Most people are going to trust no one and keep their lasers ready.

But the computer is our friend!

You should be happy.
Friend computer wants you to be happy.

[Coplantor]

But the computer is our friend!

You should be happy.
Friend computer wants you to be happy.

Happiness is mandatory!

[Phase]

Before we evolve beyond physical matter...

What is it with people thinking that we'll eventually evolve into some energy being? How would being less substantial ever be such a player in natural selection to the point that we actually turn into energy...

That defies the laws of nature, people.

[Mr. Scaly]

What is it with people thinking that we'll eventually evolve into some energy being? How would being less substantial ever be such a player in natural selection to the point that we actually turn into energy...

That defies the laws of nature, people.

Wishful thinking I guess. I mean, what bothers a normal human that also bothers a cloud of energy?

[Collin152]

Wishful thinking I guess. I mean, what bothers a normal human that also bothers a cloud of energy?

The laws of thermodynamics/physics?

[puppyavenger]

What is it with people thinking that we'll eventually evolve into some energy being? How would being less substantial ever be such a player in natural selection to the point that we actually turn into energy...

That defies the laws of nature, people.

well, once we figure out cloning, genetic manipulation, all the intricate of the human body, and whatnot, we may be able to do it.

and balls of energy can fry people who try and eat them.

[Moff Chumley]

Metahumor? Overused Irony? Chumley?

[Coplantor]

Well before we evolve beyond physical matter I suppose we'll discover that we worshipped a race of spiky headed people with yellow skin and only four fingers on each hand.

Well, I kinda control the evolution of human kind, and Im forcing it into something really different to pure energy beings, in a couple of years all of humanity will be... you know what? Lets keep it a surprise! Oh, you will be all like "Hey, I didnt saw that one coming!" once it comes!

[Sam]

They will think we are stupid and ignorant savages... just like how we view previous generations. Honestly, the historians will have a clue, but most of the populance won't. The historians, for the most part, have been rather accurate.

Of course, they will probably think the whole twentieth century was with the 70s fashion:smallbiggrin:...

[Mr. Scaly]

Well, I kinda control the evolution of human kind, and Im forcing it into something really different to pure energy beings, in a couple of years all of humanity will be... you know what? Lets keep it a surprise! Oh, you will be all like "Hey, I didnt saw that one coming!" once it comes!

You're turning us all into fish, aren't you?


The laws of thermodynamics/physics?

Maybe but I don't understand those. Therefore they don't exist. :smalltongue:

[Collin152]

You're turning us all into fish, aren't you?


Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, fish to fish.

[Unique]

Actually, I'm the one trying to turn us into fish, as fish are delish..

ummm...

ous.

[Collin152]

Actually, I'm the one trying to turn us into fish, as fish are delish..

ummm...

ous.

The fish
was delish
and it made
quite a dish.

[Unique]

Oh, new prediction:
Link, Mario, Samus, and Master Chief will all be believed to be "War gods."

Oh, and Collin, I do something along those lines about every thirtieth time that I post in a corrupt-a-wish thread.

[Headless_Ninja]

^ On a similar note, they may believe that war was such a fundamental part of all of our lives that we only followed science through the teachings of the Warrior-Physicist Gordon Freeman, who led the extermination of the Headcrabs and the domestication of the Vortigaunts.

[chiasaur11]

^ On a similar note, they may believe that war was such a fundamental part of all of our lives that we only followed science through the teachings of the Warrior-Physicist Gordon Freeman, who led the extermination of the Headcrabs and the domestication of the Vortigaunts.

Let us not forget Barney (the security guard, not the dinosaur).

His wisdom saved many.

Also, many will assume a cat based cult was formed, using images of their lords to ensure safe delivery of a coded message.

[blakyoshi7]

Oh, new prediction:
Link, Mario, Samus, and Master Chief will all be believed to be "War gods."


Conflict between worshipers of The Three and worshipers of Master Chief will be dubbed the 'console wars', due to mainly being fought in computer simulations.

[Sam]

I hate to rain on your parade, but you do realize that the artifacts like these will only be in a few places? The poorer parts of the world won't have things like master chief- they will have Bugs Bunny plastered on the walls of their huts.

Yes, the future historians will believe that the decadent west turned away from the One True Disney lead by Walt, who will someday return!

Or, they will read the internet- does this stuff ever truely disappear? If not, they will think we are sex adicts because... actually that would be an accurate idea. I mean, if you look at the Victorian Era, that was the second item that went in the house with electricity!

[Fri]

You know, I agree with chiasaur. We must be more proactive.

Since they might find traces of the internet, we must build our image in the internet as something cool.

They might be very amused at journals for Large Hardon... Hadron Collider.

They'll think it actually did something... opening the portal so that the headcrabs and the combine can take over the world!

See?