16 January 2006

25 Things I’ll Miss From Civilization

by Benjamin Shender

This list comes in order that they came to me sitting at my computer. There is no attempt to prioritize them. Any comment must include a contribution to this list. If you do not have a contribution, you cannot comment. Sorry, that’s the rule.

Hubble Space Telescope

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Comments

bicycles (unless we can blacksmith them from melted down engines?)

Comment by limukala — 16 January 2006 @ 7:14 AM
Hey –

Metal Not Required

Janene

Comment by Janene — 16 January 2006 @ 10:06 AM
the ability to obtain new norwegian black metal albums

and

video games

this next one is my girlfriend’s contribution to the list.

porn

on second thought, i’ll go with that one too

Comment by Rory — 16 January 2006 @ 12:14 PM
trains, transportation being able to take you farther distances than you could otherwise go in a short period of time.

My Family.

Comment by Miranda — 16 January 2006 @ 12:26 PM
Books. There is no way that someone living a nomadic lifestyle is going to be carrying around that much unnecessary weight.

Comment by JimFive — 16 January 2006 @ 1:18 PM
Oh I’m pretty sure we can bury a library somewhere and go and visit it every so often

Can’t live without my books.

Comment by Miranda — 16 January 2006 @ 1:48 PM
Good lists! I especially agree with the food and the books :-). I will add:

Clothes Dryers

The more I thought about this question, though, the more I realized how much I WON’T miss.

Comment by Vicky — 16 January 2006 @ 4:02 PM
The most soulful, versatile, beautiful, and powerful instrument that man has ever known:

The electric guitar.

- Chuck

Comment by Chuck — 16 January 2006 @ 6:03 PM
Laboratory science.

Okay, I know stuff like quantum physics isn’t very practical, but still, it’s nifty.

Comment by L33tminion — 17 January 2006 @ 4:12 AM
Thesis #23: Civilization has no monopoly on knowledge

And don’t even START on quantum physics and ancient knowledge. Ever read The Dancing Wu Li Masters?

Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 17 January 2006 @ 10:12 AM
I can’t believe that no one mentioned hot showers on demand. I love steamy showers. I’m going to miss them so much

Comment by Roxy — 17 January 2006 @ 11:01 AM
splash some cold water on me, I’m all good.
ahh…refreshing.
Don’t worry Roxy, I’m sure we’ll find hot springs somewhere =)

I’ll miss roller coasters. Man those things are cool.

Comment by Miranda — 17 January 2006 @ 11:14 AM
GL: You’re misinterpreting my claim. I wasn’t claiming that civilization has a monopoly on knowledge, just that some hypotheses cannot be validated outside of the context of civilization, if for no other reason than energy requirements.

Comment by Anonymous — 17 January 2006 @ 3:37 PM
GL: Don’t misinterpert my claim. I wasn’t claiming that civilization has a monopoly on knowledge or scientific experimentation. I was merely claiming that some hypotheses cannot be verified or disconfirmed outside of the context of civilization, if for no other reason than that the energy requirements are too high.

Comment by L33tminion — 17 January 2006 @ 3:41 PM
The Dancing Wu Li Masters that Giuli mentioned suggests that quantum physics may have been known to some primitive peoples. G-d only knows how, because obviously it wasn’t a particle accelerator, but however it happened, tribal shamans came to a lot of the same conclusions that quantum physicists are now looking at a long, long time ago.

I don’t know what that implies, but there you are. So, if what you like about quantum physics is the worldview that knowledge implies, well, it looks like you may not have to give that up, after all.

Comment by Jason Godesky — 17 January 2006 @ 3:46 PM
Sorry about the doublepost. Anthropik is acting strangely today…

Comment by L33tminion — 17 January 2006 @ 3:46 PM
JG: I could have the worldview that belief implies without knowing anything about it. In fact, I could have that worldview even if those hypotheses were entirely false.

There’s a difference between belief (even correct belief) and knowledge, namely justification. I think that laboratory science provides a framework for learning (as opposed to speculating) about the mechanics of the universe that would not exist in a privative society.

Comment by L33tminion — 17 January 2006 @ 4:14 PM
From the perspective of the Enlightenment, you’re entirely correct.

Comment by Jason Godesky — 17 January 2006 @ 4:36 PM
How, exactly, does your perspective differ?

Comment by L33tminion — 17 January 2006 @ 5:04 PM
My perspective? Heh heh … let’s just say I’m withholding judgment. I like the scientific method, but I’ve been thoroughly disabused of the notion that it is the One Right Way to learn. My studies of shamanism have left me with more questions than answers. I’m not prepared to go all New Agey with a bunch of mystical crap–but I can’t really account for all of it, either. I don’t know what to think about it. It’s a black box to me. It’s another way of knowng, that’s for sure. I don’t know how it works, but it certainly seems to, and I’m not sure yet what to make of it. All I know now is that the Enlightenment is not the only game in town.

Comment by Jason Godesky — 17 January 2006 @ 5:10 PM
Hey –

Jim and I talk all the time about what he sees as a horrible consequence of any sort of crash — the loss of ‘pure’ science. Science for the sake of knowing, rather than doing… but I keep insisting that he is too pessimistic.

i don’t know how we might build a particle accelerator in a post-crash world… but I DO know that humans are ingenius, and that scientists (and everyone else) in civilization FIRST throw money (Energy) at a problem and THEN get creative when the money (energy) dries up. So what happens in a world where the paradigm is completely different?

Even now, our scientists are realizing that the best lab we have for understanding fundamental particles is our atmosphere as a whole… perhaps, in the future, quantum physics experiments will be run using relaticely simple sensors spread across the globe to capture data…

Don’t dismiss it, just because you don’t have all the answers today, by yourself, without consideration…

Janene

Comment by Janene — 17 January 2006 @ 5:13 PM
Roxy said: I can’t believe that no one mentioned hot showers on demand. I love steamy showers. I’m going to miss them so much

Wow, there’s another Roxy on Anthropik? What are the chances!

And I also like hot showers (and hot springs are even better, M!), but nothing beats a summer twilight dip in an Adirondack lake.

Comment by Raku — 17 January 2006 @ 5:17 PM
JG: We’re pretty much in agreement, then. While I like having my options open, I’m not dissing the alternatives.

J: Excellent point.

Comment by L33tminion — 17 January 2006 @ 5:20 PM
Oh wow… didn’t even catch that one! Who’dda thunk it?

Janene

Comment by Janene — 17 January 2006 @ 5:20 PM
We’re gonna have to crash out pretty hard, and maybe side-step the chaos for a few years…

But after that, I’m pretty damn confident I’ll be able to scavenge up enough gear from civ’s enormous carcass to cook up as many hot showers as I desire. (and for at least one outta two roxies…)

Down the road a few more generations from that… well, who can guess what we’ll want or need…

Comment by JCamasto — 17 January 2006 @ 5:49 PM
There is no reason that I know of why “advanced” technology has to be metals and electricity. Personally, I’m holding out for the crystal-powered bio-ships.

Comment by Benjamin Shender — 17 January 2006 @ 11:34 PM
Going to miss the strategy of owning a business…

Comment by Rick Larson — 17 January 2006 @ 11:40 PM
I know that they aren’t very efficient, but I’m really going to miss disposable diapers. I guess in the future we are going to have to become a lot more comfortable with little bits of stray fecal matter. (say what you will, cloth diapers just don’t absorb as well, and they’re pretty sick to wash, and even making a few of them would require some substantial effort)

“There is no reason that I know of why “advanced” technology has to be metals and electricity. Personally, I’m holding out for the crystal-powered bio-ships.”

That’s basically what I was getting at in the other discussion (prelude to my argument against thesis 29, which I haven’t even seen yet).

Comment by limukala — 18 January 2006 @ 4:26 AM
Some technologies can be made from other things than metal and electricity. You’re not going to be able to make a weapon or a plow out of crystal, though, and there’s the problem. There are lots of parts of a “bio-ship” that require a sufficiently strong material–and the only ones on earth are all metals.

But, elaborating quipu strings into a full-blown computer … there’s potential there.

Comment by Jason Godesky — 18 January 2006 @ 10:47 AM
“that require a sufficiently strong material–and the only ones on earth are all metals”

That you know of. Spiderweb is stronger than steel, as are plenty of other organic materials (bamboo has higher tensile strength). Maybe we’ll develop a symbiotic relationship with supercolonies of domestic spiders that spin us cables and beams of strength that blows any modern steel or titanium alloy away.

My point is that you can’t be so sure how the future will unfold. Yes all cultures developed remarkably similar technologies, but for one, there is a lot of evidence of cross-cultural communication even in the neolithic and maybe earlier. Also, the prisoner’s dilemna would suggest that cultures developed the quickest and easiest technologies to give them a relative advantage, but being quickest and easiest doen’t mean “only.”

Comment by limukala — 18 January 2006 @ 1:20 PM
That you know of

That is true … I am assuming that everything that’s economically viable on earth has pretty much been tried out at least once. I think that’s a safe assumption. Spiderweb and bamboo may be very strong, but how do you produce enough of it? Symbiotic relationships require us to give something back, and spiders are not exactly domesticable. To develop symbiotic relationships will take millions of years, during which time we’ll evolve into a different species altogether–that’s a timeline I can live with.

My point is that you can’t be so sure how the future will unfold.

That’s correct, up to a point. You can’t predict the details of the future, but the general trends are fairly easy to see.

…but for one, there is a lot of evidence of cross-cultural communication even in the neolithic and maybe earlier.

Not between Eurasia and the Americas–yet they came to use the same materials.

Also, the prisoner’s dilemna would suggest that cultures developed the quickest and easiest technologies to give them a relative advantage, but being quickest and easiest doen’t mean “only.”

Not true. If bamboo were useful and available as a competitive material, someone would use it–namely, whoever lived close to a bamboo forest, but far away from the nearest mine. But that never happened, despite generations of geniuses with a deep-seated need–which suggests that it isn’t feasible.

Comment by Jason Godesky — 18 January 2006 @ 2:24 PM
Not between Eurasia and the Americas–yet they came to use the same materials.

Actually, it seems you are still ascribing to the “traditional” establishment view. There is plenty of evidence that most scholars choose to ignore that suggests there was interaction between the Americas and the rest of the world (sites in S America carbon dated to 150,000 years old, celtic tablets in N. America, linguistic similarities, and many more). Speaking of carbon dating, it seems funny that scientist hold it up as unimpeachable evidence, except when it discredits their theories, then it’s amazing how creative they can be in explaining why it didn’t work. Even many scientist are coming to believe that the ancient world was much more fluid and mobile than was traditionally believed.

I am assuming that everything that’s economically viable on earth has pretty much been tried out at least once. I think that’s a safe assumption.

Not at all. I’m assuming that certain technologies (especially if it came to developing relationships with other animals) would require a profound development in consciousness, which would be possible and actually facilitated by a healthier lifestyle. Just because we are advanced on a certain level doesn’t mean we know or have tried everything. In fact our culture is profoundly ignorant on many levels (which is partially the result of the limitations of science).

I bet if you asked the average hunter-gatherer 30,000 years ago he’d say much the same thing…”Well, we’ve been around for 2 million years, so I think it’s a safe assumption that we’ve tried pretty much everthing that’s economically viable.”

Comment by Anonymous — 18 January 2006 @ 2:56 PM
How do you stop the block quotes?

I tried putting them in after I finished writing my response, and the first one didn’t work, and the second one made everything after it blockquoted.

(I guess I sound stupid, but I’m still new to blogging)

Comment by Anonymous — 18 January 2006 @ 2:58 PM
Actually, it seems you are still ascribing to the “traditional” establishment view. There is plenty of evidence that most scholars choose to ignore that suggests there was interaction between the Americas and the rest of the world (sites in S America carbon dated to 150,000 years old, celtic tablets in N. America, linguistic similarities, and many more).

I’ve investigated such claims, but I find the “‘traditional’ establishment view” to be the stronger one. Evidence of contact between the Old and New Worlds in the past 10,000 years ranges from extremely unconvincing to the outright crackpot variety.

Speaking of carbon dating, it seems funny that scientist hold it up as unimpeachable evidence, except when it discredits their theories, then it’s amazing how creative they can be in explaining why it didn’t work.

I’ve dealt with quite a few carbon-dating controversies in my time, but I can’t think of a single case to corroborate your statement. No one holds carbon dating as “unimpeachable” except for a few hundred year range, and any researcher as dodgy as that would quickly be crucified by all the young, up-and-coming researchers in the field looking to make a name for themselves by overturning the theories of their teachers.

Though, I do know of quite a few instances that were completely misrepresented, such that to the layman they appeared to be the kind of thing you’re describing–but those were all matters of popular reporting not taking the time to understand the issues involved.

Just because we are advanced on a certain level doesn’t mean we know or have tried everything. In fact our culture is profoundly ignorant on many levels (which is partially the result of the limitations of science).

I agree entirely. But a lever is a lever is a lever is a lever, and the basic physics thereof probably won’t change regardless of how ingenious our other innovations may become.

I bet if you asked the average hunter-gatherer 30,000 years ago he’d say much the same thing…”Well, we’ve been around for 2 million years, so I think it’s a safe assumption that we’ve tried pretty much everthing that’s economically viable.”

That wouldn’t have made any sense to say back then. Had they flown? Had they tunneled beneath the earth? Most forager cultures today admit that they’re surrounded by mysteries. If there are undiscovered metals, then they can’t exist in very large quantities, or we would have found them. If there is some fuel source on par with petroleum and equally abundant, we would have found it and tried it. The key to that statement is not simply how long we’ve been around, but also how many of us there have been, the energy at our disposal, and the cut-throat competition pushing everyone to find any edge they can.

How do you stop the block quotes?

If you’re using the buttons, just press it again, otherwise, just end it with a </blockquote>

Comment by Jason Godesky — 18 January 2006 @ 4:22 PM
That wouldn’t have made any sense to say back then. Had they flown? Had they tunneled beneath the earth?

Have humans yet discovered crystolic rayphreation? Ratro-Tember djarantisation? Kasdroniforming? Fresnel wave alteriorating?

- Chuck

Comment by Chuck — 18 January 2006 @ 4:52 PM
Doesn’t matter. All of those things have to deal with the universe, and no matter what, they have to mesh with what we already know. Einsteinian physics didn’t negate Newtonian physics–it just bracketed t, revealed it to be an illusion of scale. But on that scale, Newton is still correct. There is earth below us, sky above us, we’ve been through both now. We know its basic chemical composition. Whatever new advances come along, it will have to jive with that which we already know. And what we know is that nothing on earth gives you a more economical fuel than fossil fuels, and to get the edge and pressure you need for a weapon or a plow, you need certain kinds of metal.

Comment by Jason Godesky — 18 January 2006 @ 5:01 PM
For all I love this site (and I really do, the 30 theses kick ass) you are starting to seem narrow minded in some ways.

And what we know is that nothing on earth gives you a more economical fuel than fossil fuels, and to get the edge and pressure you need for a weapon or a plow, you need certain kinds of metal

Do you really understand energy physics? You sound a lot like physicists in the early 20th century speaking of the complete impossibility of creating a faster than sound vehicle. The fact is, we may already have discovered such energy sources, they just might not be general knowledge yet.

http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2006/01/space-cadets.html#comments

Of course, if we do have free energy, that just makes the situation worse, and doesn’t change anything about the inevitability of collapse, it just seems that you claim a lot of absolute knowledge that Stephen Hawking wouldn’t try to claim.
As far as weapons, I believe the mind could be made a far more powerful weapon than any kind of metal (there are many examples, such as the Kahuna of Molokai chanting the invading tahitian army to death without a single blow, or the kahuna of Kaua’i defeating the army of Kamehameha 3 times without coming within a hundred miles, or even all the crazy russian and american psi experiences. My friend has a book that he got from his dad, an ex-navy seal. It is stamped property of the United States Navy. The whole thing is mostly pictures, and one is entitled “healing with the mind,” but someone crossed out healing and wrote killing, the only change in the whole book)

Had they flown? Had they tunneled beneath the earth?

Of course they had. I thought you said you were into shamanism. You should research it a little more.

Most forager cultures today admit that they’re surrounded by mysteries.

Which is why their knowledge is so much more valid. (sort of like the zen teacher who kept pouring tea into the scholars overflowing cup)

No one holds carbon dating as “unimpeachable” except for a few hundred year range,

I was speaking of 10s of thousands of years. Also, you ignored the most convincing evidence, which is celtic tablets discovered in many places on the eastern seaboard. Scientists love to find complicated explanations of “hoaxes” and amazing similarities and coincidences, but then incite occam’s razor when it suits their purposes. There are also plenty of oral accounts of the natives of the americas and africa/Eurasia-St Brendan, Quetzalcoatl, Lono (to move a little farther west). Also, as long as we’re talking about obvious evidence the scientific community would like to ignore, how in the hell did south american sweet potatoes get everywhere in the Pacific hundreds of years before the first Europeans. Occam’s razor my friend, the simplest explanation is that people traveled a lot more than you think. Why wouldn’t they have traveled. There have been many sea-going cultures (especially in the pacific, but also elsewhere) that have demonstrated amazing navigational skills without the use of any kind of measuring devices. If you don’t believe me, they are still doing it today. Look up the Hokulea on the internet and a man named Nainoa Thompson.

I could find you plenty of instances in which the current prevailing scientific explanation totally ignores compelling evidence, such as the unique architecture and distinct water erosion on the Sphinx.
This is the problem with the peer review system. On one level it prevents quackery, but is also does a lot to prevent innovation and genuine scientific inquiry, since most scientist don’t like the idea of a new way of thinking that undermines the basis of their life’s work.

Whatever new advances come along, it will have to jive with that which we already know.

Yes and no. It is most likely that we will discover that all the “laws” and theories of science to this date are limited and only true within narrow parameters. A lever is a lever in this physical plane, but I’ve seen enough to know that there is a whole lot more to life than what your mind is telling you you see right now.
Seriously, get a little deeper into shamanism and other doorways to non-ordinary reality. You are using your intellect to much, and that can get in the way of honest perception.
You talk about people only being able to conceive what they already think is possible, but isn’t that exactly what you’re doing?
I’m not trying to be an ass, I really respect your writing and this site, I just can’t seem to understand why you can’t admit to possibilities that you haven’t seen for yourself.
For instance, you say that nobody likes hierarchy, period. I think you said something like, on some level they instincively know it’s wrong. Maybe at some deep, metaphysical level, but on a conscious level, and subconscious level, and at least some degree of unconscious level, there are definitely people who love it. You may not have met any, but I find it more likely that you have met them, but have imposed your own hatred of hierarchy on them (in their unconscious). We see what we want to see.

Say what you will about sociological and geographical reasons that led to the rise of hierarchy, it wouldn’t of happened if somebody somewhere didn’t think life would be better if everyone just did what they told them to. There are still people who crave and love power, in fact most people. That is the inevitable result of isolation from nature and our own true self. We feel weak and powerless and so try to regain that power and security, only instead of gaining self-mastery, most people would rather control other people.
I’m not saying any of the reasons you have given for the rise of hierarchy are wrong, or that people like it. I’m saying that humans are usually very ambivalent creatures, and it is entirely possible to both crave something and despise it.

Comment by limukala — 18 January 2006 @ 6:28 PM
I don’t get what is going on with the block quotes. I’m just using quotation marks from now on. My computer kept sending the cursor to the top of the post when I pressed the button, and other weird things.

I think you can probably figure out who said what though.

“that’s why…I say…F*** it!”

Comment by limukala — 18 January 2006 @ 6:30 PM
Hey –

I think this is one of those issues where Jason has a bit of split-personality.

Too often, the ‘technology will fix everything’ refrain has been sung, so often when anyone talks about technological possibilities, this is the way he responds. Yet, at other times, he’s the first to talk of organic computers, world wide networks and other ‘out there’ possibilities.

But, hey, we each ‘need’ our achilles heel and I think this is a pretty minor one, neh?

On the topic of cross-contamination between the old world and new… I think it is entirely probable that some contact between old world and new happened on occasion, but probably not any EuroAsian-contact that we don’t know, (or at least suspect). However, the evidence is going to be thin, if it exists at all and there are WAY to many people out there with agendas and this tends to be one of them. I’m afraid that most of the specifics mentioned here have been pretty soundly debunked.

On scientists and carbon dating — yeah, all you have to do for evidence that they can be as hard-headed and self deceiving as anyone, is to look at the debate over The Americas original settlement. There have been sites showing up for decades that have dates earlier than the Bering Land Bridge theory allows. But it is only recently that the evidence has become so overwhelming that the ‘mainstream’ is starting to consider the possibilities. I am sure that some of those sites were victim to bad dating — but dates ALWAYS need to be corroborated by relative strata. The problem is when secondary info supports the carbon date and they STILL won’t accept it.

Janene

Comment by Janene — 18 January 2006 @ 6:55 PM
The fact is, we may already have discovered such energy sources, they just might not be general knowledge yet.

Everything I’ve seen, even in theory, suffers from some significant drawback, and it’s usually a problem of scale. But I’ve seen a lot of these theories come and go, and none of them ever manage to make their way to implementation–and you can watch that trend all the way back to perpetual motion machines, and alchemy. The possibilities are scintillating, yes, but there are not endless. That’s a very recent idea that we’ve gotten from the Industrial Revolution. Breaking the sound barrier was never impossible, at least not on a low enough scale. Making things bigger, or smaller, or faster, or in anyway more something is always the easy part. That’s where our inventions have laid for most of the second half of the twentieth century. What’s hard is coming up with something new entirely, or making something that works on a large scale. So, you’ll notice that super-sonic flight is still a fairly rare thing–reserved primarily for demonstrations that it’s possible, and, until recently, the super-rich. With the retirement of the Concorde, can even the super-rich fly faster than sound anymore? I don’t know if there are any other super-sonic passenger planes available.

When I talk about the limitations of invention, I’m often misrepresented, so if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to take a moment to elaborate on this. There are different kinds of inventions. Some inventions are simply matters of elegant design. I’d classify the quipu as one, or the iPod Nano. The innovation is in how ingeniously the various parts are put together. These will certainly continue indefinitely, and our future with these kinds of invention is very bright indeed–maybe even limitless. I would not be surprised by a sustainable kind of computer that foragers might invent one day, or even some kind of space flight, simply based on this.

Then there are the inventions that simply improve upon a previous one. As I said before, more of our innovation in the 20th century was of this variety. The atlatl was such an invention, improving upon the bare spear, or the Chatelparronian toolset as an improvement over the Mousterian. The Concorde was an improvement over the Wright brothers’ biplane, etc. This, too, is fairly simple and straightforward, and is often tied to the previous kind of invention–an improvement is made simply by taking a more elegant design.

The third kind of invention is the one that is, apparently, fairly limited, and that is entirely new things. The first plow, or the first bladed weapon–these were entirely new things. First, there are only so many of these that are possible. Second, there are practical limitations. Tainter explains how all the various facets of complexity–including technological innovation–are interrelated, and all of them are a function of the energy throughput of a society.

Consider the plow. In order to perform any kind of large-scale, exportable agriculture, you will need some kind of machine that will achieve the same purpose as the plow. Whatever else may be involved, there must be some point at which some part of this machine comes in contact with the dirt, and turns it up. This point will be subject to a certain amount of pressure. It must be able to withstand that pressure without breaking. Plows made of stone break frequently. This was the primary limitation to Neolithic cultivation. The only materials available on earth in economically viable quantities that could replace stone are metals. Ergo, without metals, the scale of exportable agriculture–regardless of innovation–must be limited by the amount of pressure stone can withstand before breaking.

So, some kinds of invention rely solely on ingenuity, and those will continue to flourish. Other kinds of invention need materials that meet certain specifications. They are not always interchangeable. Some tasks simply require such-and-such a type of material. Many of those tasks are fundamental to the existence of civilization–like cultivation beyond the point of diminishing returns, or the mass-production of weapons to outfit an army. Without the necessary materials, these activities simply won’t happen anymore. We won’t be able to invent some kind of plow that never has to touch the soil–we just won’t have a plow.

As for shamanism, everyone knows that the spirit world is different from the physical world, and what you learn in the spirit world may–or may not–apply to the physical.

Comment by Jason Godesky — 18 January 2006 @ 8:01 PM
There is the whole arguement about viability. Things that are not viable in civilization because of various reasons can be viable tribally or rhizomically. Permaculture for instance. Great for a tribe (in theory). Useless to civilization.

Comment by Benjamin Shender — 19 January 2006 @ 2:39 AM
I will surely miss the ability to seat on my behind for weeks without ever needing to go anywhere beyond my fridge and pantry to get food.

And regular glasses will be hard to get. I am guessing all the miopic people this civilization contains will be bad hunters without their glasses.

Comment by _Gi — 19 January 2006 @ 5:45 PM
I’ll miss urbaniny, urban architecture… Squares, plazas, narrow streets, lively small parks, street cafes, colorful marketplaces, interesting building complexes, interior backyards, random encounters with friends, pick-ups.
Actually many of these things have been already lost almost everywhere to the car and modernism… But cities can create great possibilities.

Comment by Quizzie — 19 January 2006 @ 6:42 PM
And anyone with an astigmatism, and most people with hyperopia. Also anyone with glaucoma, cataracts, diabeties, etc. Alternatively, only the potential to develop these problems is inherited. I know two identical twins, with two very different glasses perscriptions. Diet and enviroment effect it as well. My personal prediction is that once civilization is shutdown eye problems will fall increasingly by the wayside. Presbiopia might be the one exception. When you get old things stop bending as well. In tribes this is less so than in civilization. But presbiopia will probably still hang around for a while longer. After all, even if the first generation has none of these problems, its probably too late for the survivors.

Comment by Benjamin Shender — 20 January 2006 @ 1:05 AM
I’ll miss urbaniny, urban architecture…

To think, that was near the top of my “won’t miss” list.

Comment by Jason Godesky — 20 January 2006 @ 11:34 AM
Guess it’s personal taste. There are some unique possible benefits for the crowding of people that cities create. Not many compared to the drawbacks, and yet… Some. Unfortunately, the truth is that most good things about urban life have already been lost.

Comment by Quizzie — 20 January 2006 @ 1:14 PM
Well, I’ve thought about it overnight, and I will definitely miss Pringles. Stupid they may be, but tasty they are.

Comment by speedbird — 1 March 2006 @ 4:58 AM
central heat
electric lights in the bathroom at night
telephone
…that’s about it I think

Comment by ChandraShakti — 3 April 2006 @ 12:39 AM
Testing:

Doesn’t matter. All of those things have to deal with the universe, and no matter what, they have to mesh with what we already know. Einsteinian physics didn’t negate Newtonian physics–it just bracketed t, revealed it to be an illusion of scale. But on that scale, Newton is still correct. There is earth below us, sky above us, we’ve been through both now. We know its basic chemical composition. Whatever new advances come along, it will have to jive with that which we already know. And what we know is that nothing on earth gives you a more economical fuel than fossil fuels, and to get the edge and pressure you need for a weapon or a plow, you need certain kinds of metal.

Yeah, that’s about the size of it, I’d say.

Comment by Thomas Rondy — 6 September 2006 @ 11:25 AM
i will miss a soft bed, soft pillows, sheets that smell like fresh laundry, and recorded music. holy crap, will i miss recorded music.

Comment by poiesis — 20 October 2007 @ 4:13 AM