100,000 years or 10,000?

Brightdreamer · Apr 9, 2014

NeuroGlide said:
Let's start with a bunch of people living by the bank of a muddy river. One of them invents the plow, it not even a good plow, just a sharpened stick towed between a couple oxen, but it helped them grow enough food to support craftsmen. Then someone got the idea to irrigate the land from the river, more food, more craftsmen. As the grain supply increased, storage became necessary. Clay from the river in the hands of potters solved that. Knowing whose was whose led to writing. Digging those ditches, and doing it well, developed the skills for engineering and mathematics and these led to architecture. Watching the river for floods showed them that it flooded regularly (spring) and that certain stars always rose just before they did. The large scale organization they needed for regulating the farmers planting became government and laws and a police force. Protecting the grains (and other wealth) from invaders who would take it required an army and an army required weapons.

And so Egypt became an Empire.

No, no, no - see, you start out with crude huts and wells and dirt roads. Then you learn how to hunt ostriches. So you build granaries and bazaars to feed your people, but then they get whiny and want to be entertained. And the gods want to be worshipped or they send plagues and destroy buildings. It's some time later that you finally learn how to farm on the flood plains... haven't you played the campaign through?

What? You mean reality isn't like the game Pharaoh? How about Children of the Nile?

King Neptune · Apr 10, 2014

jjdebenedictis said:
But you googled that, didn't ya? The internet is our memory, now.

I knew gutenberg off the top of my head, but I thought it might be nice to get commentary. The internet may be your memory, but it's my library.

Sherlock Holmes had an appropriate comment about keeping something in memory, while leaving other things in one's library.
"A man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber-room of his library..."
The Five Orange Pips

Nivarion · Apr 11, 2014

If we had a mass disaster (like Ragnarok) our children would likely only have word of mouth from those of us who survived, and our grandchildren would only have legends. Survival for the first generation would be very difficult, and the second would be burdened with forming their new societies. The third would be the first to begin writing them down.

If the elves live for a 1,000 years, then it would only take around 2,500 for Ragnarok to become legend even for them. Unless they have a short period till they begin reproducing. (say, sexually mature at 30 years old) IF they are the second, then 10,000 seems sufficient.

PaulLev · Apr 12, 2014

Maxx said:
If you gave them all smart phones and ipads and Google Glasses they would forget all about Ragnarok in a few days.

That, by the way, is the Socratic critique of writing presented in the Phaedrus, where Socrates says that reliance on writing will cause our memories to atrophy.

He was right insofar as we don't go around memorizing works as long as the Iliad these days, but ...

100,000 years or 10,000?

Brightdreamer

Just Another Lazy Perfectionist

King Neptune

Nivarion

Brony level >9000

PaulLev

I was here 3 months from now.