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lotsandlotstosay t1_j5u26zs wrote

What kinds of things can we put in place so that a future random species can understand who we were and what we did better than we understand the dinosaurs? Are we already doing them?

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JonesP77 t1_j5v2y4e wrote

As far as i know, stone will be the answer. Like the pyramids of gizeh and such stuff. Everything else will be destroyed by weathering. The pyramids will exist for many hundreds of thousand, even millions of years. Basically almost everything we build today will be destroyed pretty fast. We build in a very cheap and efficient way and nothing will last very long. Like if we would abandoned New York, there wouldnt be much left of it in 10.000 years. I believe even in 1.000 years it will be gone. Stone monuments like the people built in the past will exist for a very long time.

Oh, and satellites in the right orbit, where it takes ages for them to come closer to earth, if they manage to get to space again. Or if aliens want to visit us.

I probably forgot something but those are my answers.

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lotsandlotstosay t1_j5w3bk8 wrote

Oh that’s so interesting. So basically there’s just a limit to the amount of historical knowledge (like geologic timescales) that can be learned. At least within the limits of human intelligence

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F_Boas t1_j5vaz5v wrote

We already did. There’s plastic everywhere and a layer of nuclear fallout surrounding the entire globe. Those will be around long after we are gone.

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redfacedquark t1_j5vo1mv wrote

Railway and motorway embankments. Serious earth moving projects will be the last things to disappear.

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