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GeneralRe: Life not from Earth? Intelligent? Pin
trønderen9hrs 44mins ago
trønderen9hrs 44mins ago 
GeneralRe: Life not from Earth? Intelligent? Pin
jeron111hrs 21mins ago
jeron111hrs 21mins ago 
GeneralRe: Life not from Earth? Intelligent? Pin
Steve Raw10hrs 21mins ago
professionalSteve Raw10hrs 21mins ago 
GeneralRe: Life not from Earth? Intelligent? Pin
jeron19hrs 59mins ago
jeron19hrs 59mins ago 
GeneralRe: Life not from Earth? Intelligent? Pin
Steve Raw9hrs 14mins ago
professionalSteve Raw9hrs 14mins ago 
GeneralRe: Life not from Earth? Intelligent? Pin
jeron18hrs 30mins ago
jeron18hrs 30mins ago 
GeneralRe: Life not from Earth? Intelligent? Pin
Dr.Walt Fair, PE9hrs 25mins ago
professionalDr.Walt Fair, PE9hrs 25mins ago 
GeneralRe: Life not from Earth? Intelligent? Pin
trønderen8hrs 42mins ago
trønderen8hrs 42mins ago 
Steve Raw wrote:
How long will our civilization last?
Imagine that the entire Western world experiences a pandemic with similar effects as the Black Death in the mid 1300s: Half the population dead, society in limbo for more than a generation. For 20-30 years, people was fighting to survive, with little excess resources to promote culture, technology, society.

If we had experienced something similar two generations ago, when society recovered, a major part of our knowledge would still be available without the need for any high technology: Even if some libraries were destroyed by floods or fires, lots of books and reports would be found in other libraries.

Today, most advanced knowledge is not available that way. If power plants, magnetic and flash disks, cooling fans for the CPU cabinets, communication fibers ... have been sitting dead for 50 years, putting them back into operation is likely to be unsuccessful. The information to get them running is only available if you already have them running! You cannot look up on the internet how to reestablish the internet. You cannot read the electronic version of an interface, or a communication protocol, or a repair manual for a failing disk, without having access to that electronic version.

And even if you come across a printout of the required information: If noone has practiced the art for 50 years, you will not find people with sufficient professional background to understand those documents. Our technological society depends on so many different advanced professions, that it isn't sufficient to find one expert who can read the specs: You need a large crowd of people who can the the power plant working, drill oil wells and run refineries to give you fuel to those excavators for digging down (or up) fiber lined, people who know what LEDs used to be, experts on fibers, experts on semiconductor technology ... And you need that before you can access useful information from an electronic library.

Of course we will never experience anything like the Black Death again. Today we are able to stop epidemics, we have got vaccines and can control the spreading of virus and bacteria. We proved that with the Covid epidemics.

Didn't we?
Religious freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make five.

GeneralBoston - More than a feeling - best song ever? check out analysis Pin
jmaida24-Sep-24 18:26
jmaida24-Sep-24 18:26 
GeneralRe: Boston - More than a feeling - best song ever? check out analysis Pin
jeron125-Sep-24 6:29
jeron125-Sep-24 6:29 
GeneralRe: Boston - More than a feeling - best song ever? check out analysis Pin
jmaida22hrs 16mins ago
jmaida22hrs 16mins ago 
GeneralWordle 1,194 Pin
Shane010324-Sep-24 17:48
Shane010324-Sep-24 17:48 
GeneralRe: Wordle 1,194 Pin
GKP199224-Sep-24 18:25
professionalGKP199224-Sep-24 18:25 
GeneralWordle 1,194 - 4/6 Pin
ChandraRam24-Sep-24 19:46
ChandraRam24-Sep-24 19:46 
GeneralRe: Wordle 1,194 Pin
OriginalGriff24-Sep-24 19:48
mveOriginalGriff24-Sep-24 19:48 
GeneralRe: Wordle 1,194 - 4 4 me Pin
pkfox24-Sep-24 21:04
professionalpkfox24-Sep-24 21:04 
GeneralRe: Wordle 1,194 Pin
Sander Rossel25-Sep-24 1:21
professionalSander Rossel25-Sep-24 1:21 
GeneralRe: Wordle 1,194 Pin
StarNamer@work25-Sep-24 2:57
professionalStarNamer@work25-Sep-24 2:57 
GeneralRe: Wordle 1,194 Pin
Cp-Coder25-Sep-24 3:23
Cp-Coder25-Sep-24 3:23 
GeneralRe: Wordle 1,194 3/6 Pin
jmaida25-Sep-24 11:01
jmaida25-Sep-24 11:01 
GeneralRe: Wordle 1,194 Pin
PJ Arends20hrs 9mins ago
professionalPJ Arends20hrs 9mins ago 
RantHey, Microsoft! Pin
PIEBALDconsult24-Sep-24 14:30
mvePIEBALDconsult24-Sep-24 14:30 
GeneralRe: Hey, Microsoft! Pin
Jeremy Falcon24-Sep-24 15:08
professionalJeremy Falcon24-Sep-24 15:08 
GeneralRe: Hey, Microsoft! Pin
PIEBALDconsult24-Sep-24 15:44
mvePIEBALDconsult24-Sep-24 15:44 
GeneralRe: Hey, Microsoft! Pin
Jeremy Falcon24-Sep-24 15:55
professionalJeremy Falcon24-Sep-24 15:55 

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