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SlothfulCobra posted:If most of the historical record from the modern era was lost, what would archaeologists 2,000 years from now be able to tell about the 21st century? If tomorrow a colony ship blasted off and settled Mars and everyone on earth dropped dead then they'd be able to tell a whole lot. If things just kept on keeping on for the next 2000 years probably not nearly as much because we're probably going to build over every site a hundred times in 2000 years, assuming no population crash happens.
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Mar 28, 2015 18:24
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Nintendo Kid posted:There are DVD/Blu-Ray compatible discs that are composed of thin layers of rock, which are expected to last very very long. http://www.mdisc.com/ Haha cool product, though I'm loving the exaggerated marketing for these guys: "Is your computer more than a year old? Your hard-drive may already be unreadable!"  Fork of Unknown Origins posted:If tomorrow a colony ship blasted off and settled Mars and everyone on earth dropped dead then they'd be able to tell a whole lot. If things just kept on keeping on for the next 2000 years probably not nearly as much because we're probably going to build over every site a hundred times in 2000 years, assuming no population crash happens. This is a very good point. For all that our current media might be quite survivable, it's quite probable that the vast majority of it will be reprocessed or thrown away into landfills within the next century. If you found a nonfiction book from the 1970s sitting around your house, there's a decent chance that you'd just recycle it if it was out of date. Some of the surviving objects will be treasured heirlooms, but others will simply be forgotten detritus and will probably end up being exposed to the elements and decomposing much more quickly. While a paperback might survive quite a long time on a bookshelf (pretty much contingent on the acidity of the paper and ink), it will decay within a year or two when in warm, wet, trash heap. Kaal fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Mar 28, 2015 |
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Mar 28, 2015 18:26
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Pictured: A fashionable lady of the late 20th - early 21st centuries.
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Mar 28, 2015 20:24
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Testikles posted:Pictured: A fashionable lady of the late 20th - early 21st centuries. Motel of Mysteries is so great.
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Mar 28, 2015 20:39
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Just change that caption to "Princess Beatrice: a fashionable lady of the 21st century" and you're not far off the mark. 
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Mar 28, 2015 20:41
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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I just know that the first thing they will find will be an image of lady Gaga and judge all of us by that standard.
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Mar 28, 2015 21:19
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As the absolute apex of all human culture and civilisation? I'll take it.
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Mar 28, 2015 21:56
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A partially degraded post game write-up leads future civilizations to believe that the super bowl was played to the death.
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Mar 28, 2015 22:09
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"Nobody quite understands what the great seer Bjork was trying to tell the people of her time, we can only presume it made perfect sense to them at the time."
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Mar 28, 2015 22:12
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PittTheElder posted:Just change that caption to "Princess Beatrice: a fashionable lady of the 21st century" and you're not far off the mark. Her eyes are freaking me out, never mind the hats. I can just imagine whole civilizations being named by the consumer products they find. "American Archaelogical Review: Just Found: A New Ford Culture II Burial Grave! A late antiquity burial site reveals the burial mound of a Ford Culture man who based upon the burial goods found on site, must have been a man of importance, possibly even a high priest or prince. A motorized chariot bearing the mark of Ford, the ancient god of vehicle travel, was found in a former riverbed. The man is placed at the driver's wheel symbolically driving the vehicle, presumably into the afterlife."
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Mar 28, 2015 22:20
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Agean90 posted:A partially degraded post game write-up leads future civilizations to believe that the super bowl was played to the death. "Here comes Football, America’s only sport! When the Referee blows his tiny trumpet and the heroes line up to kill each other in the shadow of the Uprights, it might look like a straightforward fight between two angry families, but the truth is that Football is guided by a complex web of Rules and Commandments, and they must all be followed faithfully at all times."
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Mar 28, 2015 22:33
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Dalael posted:I just know that the first thing they will find will be an image of lady Gaga and judge all of us by that standard. Could be worse. Think of the writings of Ayn Rand.
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Mar 28, 2015 22:48
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I'm curious about what sort of conclusions people will draw about the atmosphere and general "tone" of our society from the sorts of horrific crimes which go on constantly and which we just kind of accept. In the UK we've just uncovered a decades-long conspiracy by police, politicians (including a serving prime minister) and celebrities to sexually abuse children on a vast scale, which also apparently includes multiple murders of children by these people. These are crimes no less horrific than those attributed to Elizabeth Bathory or Vlad Tepes (to use medieval examples, and I'm sure there are classical equivalents), but we like to think of ourselves as so much more just and civilised, and our response to these sorts of outrages seems to be mostly a bit of "oh dear"-ing when we read about them in the tabloids. So much corruption and abuse is just accepted today as the price of doing business. I hope our descendants will not forgive us for what we ourselves seem to forgive. (to steal a line)
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Mar 28, 2015 23:00
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our descendants will probably be just as bad.
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Mar 28, 2015 23:02
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Oberleutnant posted:I'm curious about what sort of conclusions people will draw about the atmosphere and general "tone" of our society from the sorts of horrific crimes which go on constantly and which we just kind of accept. In the UK we've just uncovered a decades-long conspiracy by police, politicians (including a serving prime minister) and celebrities to sexually abuse children on a vast scale, which also apparently includes multiple murders of children by these people. "People in the past were just like us!"
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Mar 28, 2015 23:06
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Baracula posted:"People in the past were just like us!" Winner.
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Mar 29, 2015 02:02
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Kurtofan posted:our descendants will probably be just as bad.
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Mar 29, 2015 03:54
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They'll be smarter than us, but I feel pretty safe with this (slightly stronger) summary:Kurtofan posted:our descendants will be just as bad
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Mar 29, 2015 06:17
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JaucheCharly posted:Could be worse. Think of the writings of Ayn Rand. Stories about the legendary heroes Howard Roark and John Galt circulated as part of an oral tradition before being codified by the poet Ayn, who, although we have no historical record, is believed to have lived in one of the early Californian city-states sometime between 1700 and 2250. The epics "The Fountainhead" and "The Atlas" are some of the last surviving examples of literature from this time period...
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Mar 29, 2015 06:36
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Scholars have found new evidence of a submerged city dating from the 7th century PX in the modern province of Tientsung. In ancient times, the area was called Louisiana, and scholars have reported that a rubbing of an inscription on a sunken temple spells out the characters "NEW ORLEANS FEDERAL BUILDING". This exciting proof of the use of symbol F in ancient English shows how the language was evolving at the height of the American Empire, possibly due to the influence of newly arrived peoples from what was known as Hispaniola.
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Mar 29, 2015 06:47
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The decline of the American military power began at Little Big Horn. The defeat of Custer caused President Grant, a notable general himself, to wail, "George, give me back my cavalry!" when he heard the news. This established the idea that the American government could not manage the western frontier, planting the seeds for centuries later, when the Lakota Sioux nation launched a sudden nuclear first strike as part of the Native American War for Independence (2155-2230).
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Mar 29, 2015 06:56
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PittTheElder posted:They'll be smarter than us, but I feel pretty safe with this (slightly stronger) summary: They'll know more about the Earth, the Universe, and the human body than we do, but history-wise most people's knowledge will be about on the line of the Time Masheen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3dhSnEtdWw
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Mar 29, 2015 07:02
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Oberleutnant posted:I'm curious about what sort of conclusions people will draw about the atmosphere and general "tone" of our society from the sorts of horrific crimes which go on constantly and which we just kind of accept. In the UK we've just uncovered a decades-long conspiracy by police, politicians (including a serving prime minister) and celebrities to sexually abuse children on a vast scale, which also apparently includes multiple murders of children by these people. For real? I just heard about Pakistani Benghazistas running white girl slave rings.
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Mar 29, 2015 07:08
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Tao Jones posted:The decline of the American military power began at Little Big Horn. The defeat of Custer caused President Grant, a notable general himself, to wail, "George, give me back my cavalry!" when he heard the news. This established the idea that the American government could not manage the western frontier, planting the seeds for centuries later, when the Lakota Sioux nation launched a sudden nuclear first strike as part of the Native American War for Independence (2155-2230). 
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Mar 29, 2015 15:15
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Arglebargle III posted:For real? I just heard about Pakistani Benghazistas running white girl slave rings. About the abuse rings involving ministers and police? Yeah, it's a fairly huge scandal that's rumbling along, and Margaret Thatcher (it has emerged) was suppressing police investigations into ministers who were part of the Paedophile Information Exchange - a group including government ministers who trafficked child porn and attempted to have the legal age of consent lowered, in addition to receiving direct funding from the government. There are also link emerging with the numerous celebrities that have been outed as rampant child abusers over the last few years, and multiple accusations of murders of children from other survivors of the abuse. Allegations have also been made of multiple cases of abuse by politicians directly and many claims of cover-ups. Naturally since most of the accused are rich, white, men they're nowhere near as demonised as immigrants who commit the same crimes. Which is kind of my point. It's amazing what we'll put up with when the perpetrators of crimes are socially powerful.
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Mar 29, 2015 15:31
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Oberleutnant posted:About the abuse rings involving ministers and police? Yeah, it's a fairly huge scandal that's rumbling along, and Margaret Thatcher (it has emerged) was suppressing police investigations into ministers who were part of the Paedophile Information Exchange - a group including government ministers who trafficked child porn and attempted to have the legal age of consent lowered, in addition to receiving direct funding from the government. What the gently caress? I don't want to derail this thread too much, but I hadn't heard about this...is there anywhere to read a summary of this?
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Mar 29, 2015 16:35
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Pornographic Memory posted:What the gently caress? I don't want to derail this thread too much, but I hadn't heard about this...is there anywhere to read a summary of this? partial summary. Apologies for the derail everybody. e: Thatcher's involvement. communism bitch fucked around with this message at 16:50 on Mar 29, 2015 |
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Mar 29, 2015 16:48
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Dunno, most people I know are pretty furious about it. Of course nothing happens, because politicians would rather crack down on durn pedo immigrants than other politicians, but both groups are getting the string em up response among the public.
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Mar 29, 2015 16:50
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Pornographic Memory posted:What the gently caress? I don't want to derail this thread too much, but I hadn't heard about this...is there anywhere to read a summary of this? The last few pages of this thread here are most of the recent revelations.
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Mar 29, 2015 18:14
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I was reading the comments on a video about the dark age and I found these little gems.quote:Around 23:50 the narrator refers to the Byzantine army as self proclaimed romans. That is silly because they were the real romans. They never called them selves Byzantines, Constantine the great moved the capital of Rome to a city called Byzantium and changed it's name to Constantinople, today the city is called Istanbul in modern Turkey. The Eastern Roman Empire did not fall until 1000 years after the west. So when these Roman soldier said they were Romans, it's because they were real Romans. Someone replied: quote:When Rome fell the empire collapsed. End of story. There is no eastern half after that just a completely new and separate nation state. All of the former roman provinces formed into new nations just like they did. So why are you not calling them Romans as well? It just goes downhill from there.
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Mar 29, 2015 23:10
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Thats kinda tragic because the two arguments you posted are pretty good summaries of both sides of that debate.
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Mar 29, 2015 23:12
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Except for the part where the second guy starts talking about nation-states like those were a thing in the first millennium. That's kinda bananas.
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Mar 29, 2015 23:41
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The second guy makes a lot of sense if you don't really have an awareness of Roman history. I mean how can you be Roman without the city of Rome? But the reality is that it was very common for the seat of imperial rule (Constantinople) to not have direct control over Rome - generally because it was being held by another ruler who was either cooperating or working at cross-purposes with the emperor. In the middle and latter imperial age, Romans became very comfortable with the idea of the empire being divided up and ruled jointly. Indeed they were also fairly comfortable with the idea of Rome as being just another province - since the economic and cultural heart of the empire was in the East. So when the Western Roman Empire was lost, there was never a sense that the Eastern Romans were no longer "Roman" - they had been Roman for many centuries and continued to be so, independent of what was happening elsewhere in the empire. Conversely, the Russians had never considered themselves Roman, maintained few Roman customs or traditions, and had no particular interest in making that kind of claim. Supporting point: If the Confederacy had seized Washington DC and won the Civil War, the remaining American states would not have become a bunch of "self-proclaimed Americans". America would have lost territory, yes, but it's not like Oregonians would have ceased to be Americans just because the national capital was lost. Kaal fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Mar 30, 2015 |
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Mar 29, 2015 23:55
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On the other hand, non-Byzantines didn't always call it the Roman Empire even at the time.
Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 00:12 on Mar 30, 2015 |
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Mar 30, 2015 00:04
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Silver2195 posted:On the other hand, non-Byzantines didn't always call it the Roman Empire even at the time. Can you give examples?
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Mar 30, 2015 00:18
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BurningStone posted:Can you give examples? It was commonly called the Empire of the Greeks in the west during the Middle Ages. So common that official imperial policy was if you showed up or sent a letter and called them Greeks instead of Romans you were thrown out immediately. I don't have a quote off hand. Nobody in the empire called themselves Greeks until the very end of the 1300s, when they were willing to do literally anything if it would get the west to come save them from the Turks.
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Mar 30, 2015 00:51
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I would like to draw a direct parallel between the mutilation of political rivals in the Constantinople-based era of the Roman empire and the modern New Jersey mafia tradition of kneecapping opponents.
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Mar 30, 2015 02:21
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I just call them the Byzantines be cause its a good way to differentiate it from earlier periods.
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Mar 30, 2015 02:48
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Grand Fromage posted:It was commonly called the Empire of the Greeks in the west during the Middle Ages. So common that official imperial policy was if you showed up or sent a letter and called them Greeks instead of Romans you were thrown out immediately. I don't have a quote off hand. I think it happened during the spat between Empress Irene and Charlemagne.
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Mar 30, 2015 03:44
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The early Merovingians minted coins with the Byzantine Emperor on them because they acknowledged his overlordship, Gaul being one of the ancient provinces of the Byzantine Empire.
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Mar 30, 2015 03:48
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