Hello All;
I am an intermittent visitor to the Garden and whenever I need help or advice I usually turn to the community to help resolve the question.
So I guess the question is how long would it take for a fact or historical event to fade into legend or myth.
In particular if there was a massive global catastrophe such as a pandemic, global super storms, or any other global catastrophic event that decimated the population and destroyed most modern technology essentially sending humanity into the Dark Ages or classic Middle Ages.
Based on the above.
How long would it take for "modernness" to pass into legend or myth?
Research: Fact into Myth and Legends
Research: Fact into Myth and Legends
Theres a question but it doesn't get answered until some one knows what the question is so please ask it
Research: Fact into Myth and Legends
A book on that very theme came out last week, Neal Stephenson's "Seveneves". I'm all but a chapter from finishing it. The same theme was explored by Walter J Miller in "A Canticle for Leibowitz", a far more satisfying and credible book from 1961. I don't much care for Neal Stephenson's writing style but I do admire his imagination and hard work. Every aspect of "A Canticle for Leibowitz", by contrast, glows from the inside.
The problem with your "global catastrophic event that decimated the population and destroyed most modern technology" - taking "decimate" to mean the loss of most of the human population and not just 10% as the word implies - is that, as both authors point out, humanity is incapable of returning to a state of not knowing. Nobody in the original "Dark Ages or classic Middle Ages" knew even so much as the scientific method. No reduced society of the future will be capable of losing such knowledge, nor of a great deal more beside. Alongside the mythology of the collapse, the story-telling which would make meaning out of the calamity, there would always and inevitably run the recorded history and the pre-collapse knowledge of history. How long does mythologizing take? A year perhaps. A day. What version of reality came out of the Vietnam War, for example. It was being mythologized as it was happening.
As an aside, were you to replace all human presence on Earth by shifting the pre-industrial population of the planet to now, they'd never industrialize. None of the world's easily-mined resources exist any longer, and the stuff we're digging out now is totally inaccessible to pre-industrial engineering.
The problem with your "global catastrophic event that decimated the population and destroyed most modern technology" - taking "decimate" to mean the loss of most of the human population and not just 10% as the word implies - is that, as both authors point out, humanity is incapable of returning to a state of not knowing. Nobody in the original "Dark Ages or classic Middle Ages" knew even so much as the scientific method. No reduced society of the future will be capable of losing such knowledge, nor of a great deal more beside. Alongside the mythology of the collapse, the story-telling which would make meaning out of the calamity, there would always and inevitably run the recorded history and the pre-collapse knowledge of history. How long does mythologizing take? A year perhaps. A day. What version of reality came out of the Vietnam War, for example. It was being mythologized as it was happening.
As an aside, were you to replace all human presence on Earth by shifting the pre-industrial population of the planet to now, they'd never industrialize. None of the world's easily-mined resources exist any longer, and the stuff we're digging out now is totally inaccessible to pre-industrial engineering.
Nullius in verba ... ☎||||||||||| ... To Fate I sue, of other means bereft, the only refuge for the wretched left.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
Research: Fact into Myth and Legends
spot;1479983 wrote:
As an aside, were you to replace all human presence on Earth by shifting the pre-industrial population of the planet to now, they'd never industrialize. None of the world's easily-mined resources exist any longer, and the stuff we're digging out now is totally inaccessible to pre-industrial engineering.
So given that fact, we can squash the myth that a previous era of human development grew through an industrial age, hundreds of thousands of years ago, pretty much as the the present era has, before dying out We can, by your inference, only do it once. It could never be a cycle, obviously. We need to go as far as we can in development then find another planet else to colonise and that could never have happened previously.
As an aside, were you to replace all human presence on Earth by shifting the pre-industrial population of the planet to now, they'd never industrialize. None of the world's easily-mined resources exist any longer, and the stuff we're digging out now is totally inaccessible to pre-industrial engineering.
So given that fact, we can squash the myth that a previous era of human development grew through an industrial age, hundreds of thousands of years ago, pretty much as the the present era has, before dying out We can, by your inference, only do it once. It could never be a cycle, obviously. We need to go as far as we can in development then find another planet else to colonise and that could never have happened previously.
"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Research: Fact into Myth and Legends
Snowfire;1479984 wrote: So given that fact, we can squash the myth that a previous era of human development grew through an industrial age, hundreds of thousands of years ago, pretty much as the the present era has, before dying out We can, by your inference, only do it once.
So I have always thought. Where's the coal seams to power the steam engines? Where's the copper and tin deposits, where's the surface iron ore, how's your second Telford going to create his first railway with no wrought iron. And, as you say, if the Atlanteans or even the Dinosaurs had run a technologically advanced civilization, how come they left all those resources for humanity to inherit and bootstrap themselves with. There never was a Golden Age for us to recreate, we're doing all this from scratch.
So I have always thought. Where's the coal seams to power the steam engines? Where's the copper and tin deposits, where's the surface iron ore, how's your second Telford going to create his first railway with no wrought iron. And, as you say, if the Atlanteans or even the Dinosaurs had run a technologically advanced civilization, how come they left all those resources for humanity to inherit and bootstrap themselves with. There never was a Golden Age for us to recreate, we're doing all this from scratch.
Nullius in verba ... ☎||||||||||| ... To Fate I sue, of other means bereft, the only refuge for the wretched left.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
Research: Fact into Myth and Legends
Hello;
Thank you all for the response.
So I guess it makes sense that once learned it cannot be unlearned and I completely missed the fact that all the easily plundered resources would be gone making any future " golden ages" near impossible. However for my project I'll be able to use a little license and say that after 500 years society has lost much of its knowledge for lack of easy resources and will thus revert to a more middle ages type of civilization with maybe a bit modernity around the edges.
Thanks again everyone and hope to see you all in the future whatever it may bring
C
Thank you all for the response.
So I guess it makes sense that once learned it cannot be unlearned and I completely missed the fact that all the easily plundered resources would be gone making any future " golden ages" near impossible. However for my project I'll be able to use a little license and say that after 500 years society has lost much of its knowledge for lack of easy resources and will thus revert to a more middle ages type of civilization with maybe a bit modernity around the edges.
Thanks again everyone and hope to see you all in the future whatever it may bring
C
Theres a question but it doesn't get answered until some one knows what the question is so please ask it
Research: Fact into Myth and Legends
There we are, another Rand Corporation report sketched out for submission - I look forward to reading it.
Nullius in verba ... ☎||||||||||| ... To Fate I sue, of other means bereft, the only refuge for the wretched left.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
Research: Fact into Myth and Legends
From the movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
What happened to Kamala Harris' campaign?
She had the black vote all locked up.
She had the black vote all locked up.
Research: Fact into Myth and Legends
In essence, mankind is fundamentally lazy. Necessity really is the mother of invention. If an easy fix is readily available (i.e. Fossil Fuels) then little effort is made to look for alternatives. Only now that resources are starting to run out is realistic research finally being done, and even the last 10 years, or so, has shown major improvements in such things - in particular Solar Energy. Not long ago it was only practical if you lived in a hot environment & could only be used to heat water. Now all you need is light to provide a reliable source of energy. LED lighting is rapidly becoming the norm, using a fraction of the old filament bulbs, which would waste about 90% of their energy in the form of Heat. Even now, technology continues to advance in leaps & bounds, hopefully eventually to make the need for Fossil Fuels, of any type, entirely obsolete.