The World Without Us - Alan Weisman

[EricL]

You've probably heard of it.  This book has gotton lots of press - on Oprah, on NPR.  It was #1 on a bunch of best seller lists for awhile.  As of this writing, its still #37 on Amazon.

Basically, it's a climate change book wrapped in a thought experiement.  What would happen to the world - to everything from buildings to species to ecosystems to nuclear power plants - if all humans simply vanished, quietly, instantly, without nuclear bombs or leaving behind dead bodies?

It's well written, well researched and quite informative in places.  It's quite interesting to learn how long concrete lasts, that it would be only hours or days before New York's subways flooded, that the copper Statue of Liberty will be intact long after all the modern buildings made of steel and concrete have corroded away.  

It's a good read, highly recommended.  Its also totally, completely, utterly, thouroughly depressing - not because all the humans are gone, but because in order to understand what the world might revert to without us, Weisman must first take us through what the world was like before us, or at least before we gained sufficiently in population to wreak environmental havoc and in so doing, he makes it incredibly clear what has already been lost to human activity, how few poeple realize what has been lost and how those losses will continue even if we vanished tomorrow due to the environmental changes we have already set in motion.  Depressing, so very very depressing.

It's depressing to learn how Clovis Man devastated the North American mega fauna.  It's depressing to learn how dire the situation is today with the majority of coral reefs dead or dying and that nothing can really be done to stop it.  Its depressing to learn how elephants evolved to migrate and cover great distances and how those few left today in the wild are confined behind fences in areas a fraction the size of their former territory.  

There are bright spots.  Wildlife has returned with a vengence to the area around Chernobel now that (most) humans have vacated the area, even though mutations are rampant.  Generation times have dropped, selection is in operation.   Ecosystems can recover - in a hurry it seems if the necessary organisms arn't already extinct - but only if human activity stops or is greatly diminshed.  One finds oneself wishing at the end of the book that humans could indeed be magically vaporized somehow.

The book concludes with a look at what things could possibly wipe us out while leaving the rest of the world in tact.  Experts conclude there is nothing that could do it today short of aliens spiriting us away, not even a homo-specific pandemic - nothing viralent enough exists - too many would survive, it would not spread sufficiently, etc..  (Nulcear war and asteroids aren't considerred as they would take out other things besides us.)   AIDS isn't even a blip on world population growth, which has a current run rate of 1 million people every 4 days.  That's net increase - 250k more people are born than die every day.  Surprisingly, nano tech gone amuck in the future appears to be the most possible means for a nice clinical human demise experts conclude.

There is a brief attempt by the author to put a shiny face on his conclusions, to look for possible answers to our head-long rush towards further overpopulation and the conversion of the Earth into a radioactive parking lot.  But it's half hearted.  That there is really nothing good to say is evident in how few paragraphs the author devotes to this.   It is difficult to postulate a good outcome from the case the author presents. Unlike Gore's 'Incoveinant Truth', there are no calls to recycle, buy hybrids or stop using plastics.   The author appears to have already concluded that such measures are fruitless luxeries only developed nations can even consider and unlikely to make any real difference in any event.  About the only possible thing that could reverse the trends he concludes would be a world-wide ban, strongly enforced, on women having more than a single child.  Unlikely to happen to put it mildly.

One is left with a feeling of despair, that the world is on track to be bleaker and less diverse, generation after generation, for many generations to come and that we stupid humans, mired in our pathetic little self-centered worlds have no clue (or don't care) what has already been lost and have no hope to act collectivly to stop the inevitable decline, even if it could be stopped.

Highly recommended, but be prepared to be depressed.

[Numsgil]

Well sure it's depressing if you look at it that way.  I prefer to think of it as Man's triumph at the game of chicken.  Most of nature spends a lot of energy looking like they're dangerous, whereas man does something about it.  I mean, how many other animals even come close to the destruction even a small group of humans can do?  Those other animals know not to mess with us.  See what we did to those dinosaurs?  You're next Mr. Sabertooth Tiger!  

On a more serious note, I heard about the book and it made me think about possible previous civilizations.  So little of what man does will survive even a single million years, it makes you wonder if intelligence could be a recurring event on Earth.  There really wouldn't be any fossil evidence left if some veloceraptor species gained intelligence and formed civilizations.

[Peter]

Nope, haven't heard of it, am I missing something

Sure, the human's have counquered the planet *proud*  . And jeah the diversity is going down, so what.

Unlike Gore's 'Incoveinant Truth', there are no calls to recycle,buy hybrids or stop using plastics. The author appears to have already concluded that such measures are fruitless luxeries only developed nations can even consider and unlikely to make any real difference in any event.

If hybrids are efficient, it could make a difference in the future when petrol-prices are higher.(think of it I live in the Netherlands the petrol prices are alot higher then in amerika alot higher).

Stop using plastics, look around you, you can look anywhere without looking at a plastic. Plastic is everywhere. What to use then instead of plastic. Ofcource some plastic uses are not necesarily.

But Gore, global warming. Sure global warming  , anybody looked at the sun. Most climate chances are coming from it. I don't even really believe climate is chancing, but in the couple jears there was even an increase of temperature at mars and venus. Should it be the sun or maybe it is global warming, let's see.

One is left with a feeling of despair, that the world is on track to be bleaker and less diverse, generation after generation, for many generations to come and that we stupid humans, mired in our pathetic little self-centered worlds have no clue (or don't care) what has already been lost and have no hope to act collectivly to stop the inevitable decline, even if it could be stopped.

What (important) has been lost?

And If you can't do anything about it why care?

Are you doing anything for it,then if you care?


It could be becouse I am part of the dominant specie  , I don't care. Why should the specie care.

On a more serious note, I heard about the book and it made me think about possible previous civilizations. So little of what man does will survive even a single million years, it makes you wonder if intelligence could be a recurring event on Earth. There really wouldn't be any fossil evidence left if some veloceraptor species gained intelligence and formed civilizations.

Hmm, I don't really think there are previous species that form civilizations, there should be something left, like a skeleton with more brain-capacity. Or buildings that are left(milion jears I am not sure),something.
Still, can you really conclude there wasn't any intelient life. That's pretty hard, I don't really see mankind going down, a huge meteorite would be the most destructive, but a huge meteorite could now be seen from earth, and then we can defend. Rocket or so.

I see a civilisation of our level not that fast going down, but a civilisation or a lesser level and probably smaller.
Maybe we will see evidence someday there was inteligent life before us, but that feels kinda strange.

[Numsgil]

Hmm, I don't really think there are previous species that form civilizations, there should be something left, like a skeleton with more brain-capacity.

How many individuals do you think we have for some fossil species?  Some species are represented by just a few individuals, or just a few partial skeletons.  And most of those species were around for many millions of years.  Modern humans?  A scant few thousand.  Our archealogical strata layer would barely be a blip.  And I don't think many human burials are amenable to fossilization.  I imagine we'd be lucky to have even a single skeleton found by future archealogists.

And brain cavity size isn't necessarily a direct representation of intelligence.  You could take the collective intelligence of ants, for instance.  And many animals have comparitve brain size vs. body weight as humans, with similar sizes, yet aren't intelligent.

Or buildings that are left(milion jears I am not sure),something.

Which buildings would those be?  The ones made out of wood?  Steel?  Concrete?  The more modern structures require constant maintenance to keep from falling apart.  Steel corrodes, and concrete crumbles. Buildings aren't going to survive even a few hundred thousands years.  Not unless a civilization is building their cities out of brass or copper.

You probably could construct a window of time with respect to technology level to say that such civilizations don't exist.  A society with only wood buildings and tools probably wouldn't leave a trace as soon as a few thousand years.  Metallurgy increases that window to probably a few million years for some artifacts.  Interestingly, it's man's more primitive technology that will probably last the longest, so a future archealogist might have a hard time determining if Man ever got out of the stone or early metal ages.

Still, can you really conclude there wasn't any intelient life. That's pretty hard, I don't really see mankind going down, a huge meteorite would be the most destructive, but a huge meteorite could now be seen from earth, and then we can defend. Rocket or so.

As Eric pointed out, Humanity is pretty entrenched.  There's no way to whack us all out cleanly at once, at least not with modern technology.  As far as a meteor, no.  There's no technology set up to deflect meteors or asteroids.  We might be able to cobble together something if we had sufficient warning, but most orbit tracking is (forgive the pun) hit or miss.  There's still a bit of fuzziness as to the exact path an intrasollar body will take.  To add insult to injury, not only don't we even know all the bodies that exist in the solar plane, no one's looking for bodies around the poles.  And asteroid or meteor comming at us from above the solar plane would probably remain undetected until way, way too late.

Seriously, humanity is a sitting duck for meteor impacts.  Don't kid yourself.

I see a civilisation of our level not that fast going down, but a civilisation or a lesser level and probably smaller.  Maybe we will see evidence someday there was inteligent life before us, but that feels kinda strange.

On the contrary, I think the more advanced the civilization level, the more susceptible it is to disaster.  Setting aside the fact that as technology increases, a whole slew of new disasters become available (you've unlocked "nuclear armaggedon"!), modern man relies so heavily on public utilities that I'm not sure many could survive without them.  How many of us could make fire without matches or lighters?  Or hunt animals?  Set traps?  Being an electrical engineer is worthless if there's no electricity.  Technology distances us from the needs of survival, so much so that I think the vast majority of people would die without electricity, supermarkets, and matches.  And once the mass of humanity is dead, much of the technology is lost or impractical and fragmented.  I'm a computer programmer.  Does me no good if there's no computers.

Compare that with something like a medieval society.  Or even further, to something like a tribal society.  The closer you are to base survival (finding food primarily), the more likely you are to survive some hiccup that disrupts society as a whole.

[Peter]

About the meteorites, I am not sure I thought the most big meteorites are being seen, I don't mean the ones that could impact and destroy something big, but the ones that inpact and for the coming  jears there is no sunlight coming too the earth becouse of the dust there is coming from, and that's really huge. But I don't have numbers of dangerous asteroids that are being seen(or not), so I can't really tell something from it. Always there is a possibility we can't see it coming, but how big is it really.

No, trace of us after milions of jears, I find this hard to believe. Will big stone castles decay and not even be traced. Won't there be anything left to find, Conclusion: the T-rex has been earlier on the moon then us. I still find it hard to believe.

And brain cavity size isn't necessarily a direct representation of intelligence. You could take the collective intelligence of ants, for instance. And many animals have comparitve brain size vs. body weight as humans, with similar sizes, yet aren't intelligent.

Are there examples, brain size vs. body weight as humans, with similar sizes.

On the contrary, I think the more advanced the civilization level, the more susceptible it is to disaster.  Setting aside the fact that as technology increases, a whole slew of new disasters become available (you've unlocked "nuclear armaggedon"!), modern man relies so heavily on public utilities that I'm not sure many could survive without them.  How many of us could make fire without matches or lighters?  Or hunt animals?  Set traps?  Being an electrical engineer is worthless if there's no electricity.  Technology distances us from the needs of survival, so much so that I think the vast majority of people would die without electricity, supermarkets, and matches.  And once the mass of humanity is dead, much of the technology is lost or impractical and fragmented.  I'm a computer programmer.  Does me no good if there's no computers.

Compare that with something like a medieval society.  Or even further, to something like a tribal society.  The closer you are to base survival (finding food primarily), the more likely you are to survive some hiccup that disrupts society as a whole.

I the first, I was speaking about the civilisation going down as in becoming extinct(tech away, a civilisation stays and will bould again, in time). Ofcource when you are higher on the ladder, you can fall down harder, but you still keep standing. That technology increase is in fact a reason why countrys wouldn't start a "nuclear armaggedon" if you are as coutry far enought to create atomic bombs, you're a pretty rich country as it is more presticious then really destructive. For destruction you can use other bombs that are cheaper and even working better. The idiot that throw's a atomic bomb at a country it want's to conquer has jet to be born.
Modern man relies on public utilities, that's for sure. The specie Human would survive if they would have to live without it, I am not sure what kind of disaster will let this happen on world-scale. So can I even imagine well enough. What kind of disaster are you speaking of.
And you are exagerating, the mass of humanity, africa, asia ,south and middle america, middle east even a part of eastern europe. There are living people without electricity, where there is electricity(for the rich). They can't fall that much on technology.

And a computer-programmer, yes you're screwed  . Atleast I life on a farm, fallout of electricity could be a big problem, milking cows by hand is costing some time, and planting wheat could become a problem too. But in terms, I don't have a problem, like not being able to get food.

[Numsgil]

About the meteorites, I am not sure I thought the most big meteorites are being seen, I don't mean the ones that could impact and destroy something big, but the ones that inpact and for the coming  jears there is no sunlight coming too the earth becouse of the dust there is coming from, and that's really huge. But I don't have numbers of dangerous asteroids that are being seen(or not), so I can't really tell something from it. Always there is a possibility we can't see it coming, but how big is it really.

I wish I could find a link, but I'm almost certain that I watched a NOVA or similar program talking about impact events and their likliness.  The conclusion was: we'd be lucky to see one long (say, a month or two) before it hit, and there's nothing we could do about it.  There are some big initiatives to try and catalogue all the major bodies in our solar system for this reason.

No, trace of us after milions of jears, I find this hard to believe. Will big stone castles decay and not even be traced. Won't there be anything left to find, Conclusion: the T-rex has been earlier on the moon then us. I still find it hard to believe.

It's what the book's about.  Most things will crumble to dust way before you probably think they should.  Bronze statues are one of the few things that will last a long time.  Nothing else, really.  (Well, maybe some stone artifacts from the Paleolithic too, I haven't read the book either :/) Remember that on the scale of millions of years you have fires, earthquakes, etc. Think how good our infastructure is at withstanding even a single once-in-a-hundred-year quake or flood.

And brain cavity size isn't necessarily a direct representation of intelligence. You could take the collective intelligence of ants, for instance. And many animals have comparitve brain size vs. body weight as humans, with similar sizes, yet aren't intelligent.

Are there examples, brain size vs. body weight as humans, with similar sizes.

This is a good read about it.

On the contrary, I think the more advanced the civilization level, the more susceptible it is to disaster.  Setting aside the fact that as technology increases, a whole slew of new disasters become available (you've unlocked "nuclear armaggedon"!), modern man relies so heavily on public utilities that I'm not sure many could survive without them.  How many of us could make fire without matches or lighters?  Or hunt animals?  Set traps?  Being an electrical engineer is worthless if there's no electricity.  Technology distances us from the needs of survival, so much so that I think the vast majority of people would die without electricity, supermarkets, and matches.  And once the mass of humanity is dead, much of the technology is lost or impractical and fragmented.  I'm a computer programmer.  Does me no good if there's no computers.

Compare that with something like a medieval society.  Or even further, to something like a tribal society.  The closer you are to base survival (finding food primarily), the more likely you are to survive some hiccup that disrupts society as a whole.

I the first, I was speaking about the civilisation going down as in becoming extinct(tech away, a civilisation stays and will bould again, in time). Ofcource when you are higher on the ladder, you can fall down harder, but you still keep standing. That technology increase is in fact a reason why countrys wouldn't start a "nuclear armaggedon" if you are as coutry far enought to create atomic bombs, you're a pretty rich country as it is more presticious then really destructive. For destruction you can use other bombs that are cheaper and even working better. The idiot that throw's a atomic bomb at a country it want's to conquer has jet to be born.

It's surprising how little is needed to push a civilization to the brink.  And once a civilization collapses, that's it.  A new one might rise, but it does so on its own merits.  No piggybacking on the accomplishments of the older civilization (other than maybe cultural artifacts and a few written records).  You see, you need people to have civilization.  Lots of them.  And civ collapses cause a huge decrease in population usually.  So rebuilding just isn't practical.  You have to start over, slowly.

Mezo America is a good example.  They still haven't recovered to the pop levels they had during the Mayan heydey.  And many agricultural techniques were lost and remain undiscovered and sought after.

Modern man relies on public utilities, that's for sure. The specie Human would survive if they would have to live without it, I am not sure what kind of disaster will let this happen on world-scale. So can I even imagine well enough. What kind of disaster are you speaking of.

As Eric pointed out, there isn't really a way to do it aside from a huge mass extinction event like a meteor.  World-wide disasters to collapse global civilization are much easier.  Super volcanos, meteor impacts of course, a huge Solar storm, if it hit without warning, could easily destroy utilities planetwide for months.  A disaster would just need to overwhelm our limited reserves long enough to kill off a large percentage of humanity.

Interestingly, a large scale disaster can have the opposite effect in the long term.  Read about the consequences of the Black death.  It's probably one of the main factors behind the Renessaince (sp?).  So things aren't quite black and white in this regard.  It really depends on where you are and where you're going.  But the point is that these massive events aren't something you can just start over from.  You usually end up totally reinventing yourself after a period of struggle and readjustment.  Europe had it easier witht he Black Death since it was largely an agrarian society anyway.  Something like that today would probably lead to a dark age instead of a rebirth.

And you are exagerating, the mass of humanity, africa, asia ,south and middle america, middle east even a part of eastern europe. There are living people without electricity, where there is electricity(for the rich). They can't fall that much on technology.

Right, but they can't really be counted on to rebuild our society either.

[Peter]

And brain cavity size isn't necessarily a direct representation of intelligence. You could take the collective intelligence of ants, for instance. And many animals have comparitve brain size vs. body weight as humans, with similar sizes, yet aren't intelligent.

Are there examples, brain size vs. body weight as humans, with similar sizes.

This is a good read about it.

Forgive me if I am wrong but this shows the exponial comparison between weight and brain size, the average brain sizes of small animals are lineair spoken bigger then big animals, but there is an exponial comparison.
Lineair, the brain sizes of hippopotamus or elephant are smaller then of small birds or cat's or human's.

It's surprising how little is needed to push a civilization to the brink.  And once a civilization collapses, that's it.  A new one might rise, but it does so on its own merits.  No piggybacking on the accomplishments of the older civilization (other than maybe cultural artifacts and a few written records).  You see, you need people to have civilization.  Lots of them.  And civ collapses cause a huge decrease in population usually.  So rebuilding just isn't practical.  You have to start over, slowly.

Mezo America is a good example.  They still haven't recovered to the pop levels they had during the Mayan heydey.  And many agricultural techniques were lost and remain undiscovered and sought after.

I know there where many wars between tha maya city's splitting the whole maya in little states, and then being conquered by the spanish. But any agricultural techniques that where lost, haven't heard about it, and it seems a little strange. What kind of agricultural techniques could ever be lost. Where they so
complicated?  

And you are exagerating, the mass of humanity, africa, asia ,south and middle america, middle east even a part of eastern europe. There are living people without electricity, where there is electricity(for the rich). They can't fall that much on technology.

Right, but they can't really be counted on to rebuild our society either

The possibility for a new society is higher people who know propely well how to live and people that know how to work with 'devices and tools' becouse of different places on the world, the chance for real damage on a technology ladder is somewhat smaller. The chance we're not going further back then 100 jears seems to me normal. And what's 100 jears on a civilisation.

[Numsgil]

Forgive me if I am wrong but this shows the exponial comparison between weight and brain size, the average brain sizes of small animals are lineair spoken bigger then big animals, but there is an exponial comparison.
Lineair, the brain sizes of hippopotamus or elephant are smaller then of small birds or cat's or human's.

Go to the very bottom where it starts to talk about the Encephalization constant.  That's probably the best way of comparing relative intelligences.

I know there where many wars between tha maya city's splitting the whole maya in little states, and then being conquered by the spanish. But any agricultural techniques that where lost, haven't heard about it, and it seems a little strange. What kind of agricultural techniques could ever be lost. Where they so
complicated?

Not quite.  Mayan civilization collapsed before the Spanish arrived.  Probably through some combination of drought, civil unrest, and war.  (Apparently they had something of a cold war going on.  It ended much worse for them than our own cold war did).  The Incan and Aztec civilizations are the ones that were around during the Spanish.  They occurred to the north and south of where the main Mayan civilization's city states were.  While the Maya as a civilization declined, the people and language are still around.  I had a friend in college that was descended partly from Mayan ancestors.

As for the soil, I've been looking for a link, but I can't find one.  Take this with a grain of salt, since it's from my memory.  Basically, through some unknown combinations of slash-and-burn and leaving land fallow (and maybe infusing the land with broken clay shards, if I remember right), the Mayans were able to create high quality soil to sustain its civilization.  This soil is still high quality, over a thousand years later, and patches of it are routinely found around ruins, making the farmer that owns it very wealthy.  It's actually collected and sold in some parts as a high quality top soil.

This is amazing if you think about it.  Tropical soil is about as poor as you can imagine.  And most tropical nations are rife with slash-and-burn lands only being fertile for a few years before the farmer has to move on.  If the methods the Mayans used could be found out and applied to modern agriculture, it would either cure or dramatically reduce hunger in tropical nations, not to mention alleviate the effects of man on the local ecosystems.

When it comes to tropical agriculture, the Mayans were more advanced than modern society.  Don't underestimate ancient technologies we take for granted.  There's way more to agriculture than putting seeds in the ground.

Right, but they can't really be counted on to rebuild our society either

The possibility for a new society is higher people who know propely well how to live and people that know how to work with 'devices and tools' becouse of different places on the world, the chance for real damage on a technology ladder is somewhat smaller. The chance we're not going further back then 100 jears seems to me normal. And what's 100 jears on a civilisation.

I'm not so sure.  The problem is that technology is built with a laddering system, and you don't always need to understand the bottom rungs to apply the knowledge from the top rungs.  The number of people who have the secrets of the bottom rungs shrinks as the frontier of technology grows and the labor required for older technology shrinks.  During a civ collapse, it's entirely possible for the few that know the "secrets" to die, rendering a whole branch of technology dead.

Sailing is a good example.  Most people don't know how to sail into a headwind, for instance (or even know that it's possible).  They're used to motorboats, where you basically just drive it like a car.  If gasoline were suddenly scarce in some sort of disaster for a long time (several years), a civilization would need to revert to older seagoing technologies, like sailing.  Most people know about sailing, but since most people don't really know how to sail, let alone build a sail boat, it's possible that we'd have to go all the way back to rowing (probably using the hulls of our motorboats and just sticking alot of people on them with oars).  This would drastically increase the overhead for seagoing trade, increasing the cost of living and forcing more and more people into a subsistant lifestyle, decreasing the number of people who work on science, engineering, politics, religion, and other non-subsistant jobs.

This creates a feed back loop.  With fewer scientists and free thinkers, there's no one spending the effort to recover and rediscover knowledge, and it gets lost in the sands of time.  With each generation, it becomes exponentially more difficult to recover the technology of the past.  Sailing becomes a myth (used a light breeze to push a boat weighing tons?  How is that possible?).

[Peter]

Not quite.  Mayan civilization collapsed before the Spanish arrived.  Probably through some combination of drought, civil unrest, and war.  (Apparently they had something of a cold war going on.  It ended much worse for them than our own cold war did).  The Incan and Aztec civilizations are the ones that were around during the Spanish.  They occurred to the north and south of where the main Mayan civilization's city states were.  While the Maya as a civilization declined, the people and language are still around.  I had a friend in college that was descended partly from Mayan ancestors.

Shortly after their first expeditions to the region, the Spanish initiated a number of attempts to subjugate the Maya and establish a colonial presence in the Maya territories of the Yucatán Peninsula and the Guatemalan highlands. This campaign, sometimes termed "The Spanish Conquest of Yucatán," would prove to be a lengthy and dangerous exercise for the conquistadores from the outset, and it would take some 170 years before the Spanish established substantive control over all Maya lands.

They splitted but the city states had fierce resistance against the spanish.
maya wikipedia

As for the soil, I've been looking for a link, but I can't find one.  Take this with a grain of salt, since it's from my memory.  Basically, through some unknown combinations of slash-and-burn and leaving land fallow (and maybe infusing the land with broken clay shards, if I remember right), the Mayans were able to create high quality soil to sustain its civilization.  This soil is still high quality, over a thousand years later, and patches of it are routinely found around ruins, making the farmer that owns it very wealthy.  It's actually collected and sold in some parts as a high quality top soil.

Over a thousend years it is still high quality, that really sounds strange.

This is amazing if you think about it.  Tropical soil is about as poor as you can imagine.  And most tropical nations are rife with slash-and-burn lands only being fertile for a few years before the farmer has to move on.  If the methods the Mayans used could be found out and applied to modern agriculture, it would either cure or dramatically reduce hunger in tropical nations, not to mention alleviate the effects of man on the local ecosystems.

Earlier humans also burned a part of the forest just to have fertile ground. This was the easiest way to get fertile ground, becouse there was enough forest this kept on for jears, many jears. But due to the growth of humans and the lack of new forests, some discovered a way to stay at desame place and have fertile grounds. This reminds me of white farmers(where there from colonisation time) who farmed in africa, they took care the grounds where fertile and had good harvest. In the countrys there where was unrest about white people having much land and black people didn't. In the state of unrest much farms have been taken of white farmers, the black people did have only the good harvest of the former farmers, but couln't really farm themself, some of the black helpers(there putting alot of people on work is cheaper then machinery)where also abandoned having no right to claim anything(as white-lovers) others just couln't do anything well becouse of chaos, some where seen as white-lovers and put , and the jears after that, there wheren't any good harest's becouse of lack of knowledge. Completed with unrest in the countrys it isn't really clear from who the land and farm where, didn't want to do anything someone else could have a profit on. I gues that situation is really still continued in some african countrys. Atleast becouse of the situation there is hunger.
The naming black white. Could also be read like this. White as Formere citisans from a country in europe(mostly holland and germany). And black as former citisans of the country.
Black, white just typed faster.

When it comes to tropical agriculture, the Mayans were more advanced than modern society.  Don't underestimate ancient technologies we take for granted.  There's way more to agriculture than putting seeds in the ground.

I know there's more to agriculture then putting seeds in the groung, there are differce steps even before seeding, I don't know in what area you live, but I have some feeling I know more about it then you. I still looks strange that something like agriculture, where probably much people are involved, there are much people needed for the preperation of the ground, seeding, and harvesting. I gues there wasn't any machinery around in that time. So you have enermous much people who did the farming, and I can't believe that many of them has died.

Sailing is a good example.  Most people don't know how to sail into a headwind, for instance (or even know that it's possible).  They're used to motorboats, where you basically just drive it like a car.  If gasoline were suddenly scarce in some sort of disaster for a long time (several years), a civilization would need to revert to older seagoing technologies, like sailing.  Most people know about sailing, but since most people don't really know how to sail, let alone build a sail boat, it's possible that we'd have to go all the way back to rowing (probably using the hulls of our motorboats and just sticking alot of people on them with oars).  This would drastically increase the overhead for seagoing trade, increasing the cost of living and forcing more and more people into a subsistant lifestyle, decreasing the number of people who work on science, engineering, politics, religion, and other non-subsistant jobs.

This creates a feed back loop.  With fewer scientists and free thinkers, there's no one spending the effort to recover and rediscover knowledge, and it gets lost in the sands of time.  With each generation, it becomes exponentially more difficult to recover the technology of the past.  Sailing becomes a myth (used a light breeze to push a boat weighing tons?  How is that possible?).

Good example, I don't know how to sail , can you sail against wind, oh you mean going half left, half right in the wind but having a profit out of it, there was a name for it, or two. But I can't get the name for it in english.
In the so called knowledge-society I cannot really believe sailing isn't somewhere in a book or so, or
building a sailing boat in a book. Maybe I don't really believe sailing will be lost that fast, becouse my country(Holland) is a pretty seawairing nation. At some primary schools in holland there are kids learning sailing so maybe it wouln't go that far in holland.

  Ofcource those schools are only in friesland, may it really be called part of holland  
Don't try to understand it.

But something like a scarce at gasoline can really make things happen, much people without work, shortage of gasoline will take out atleast for a big part electricity, making you lose (I thought you said you where a computer-programmer as a job), your job, many others with it. Even more than you could imagine. Ofcource there are proportions being taken against a scarce at gasoline. Althrought this reminds me about some goverments having a miscalculationing at the wheat-reserves. Taking the price of wheat up, yes, the bread could rice in price coming jear. Having no clue what the exact oil reserves are, I am a little frightened.

[Peter]

hgfd

[Numsgil]

They splitted but the city states had fierce resistance against the spanish.
maya wikipedia

Right, but those were "post classic" Mayans.  They don't represent a continuation of what we commonly call the Mayan "civilization".  Same way that Italians aren't Romans (the civ, not the city) anymore.  Not since the fall of Rome.

Over a thousend years it is still high quality, that really sounds strange.

I'm probably butchering the facts on this.  However, there's no disputing that there were way more people during the Mayan heydey than are there now.  Check out this site.  The first few paragraphs talk about the population density.  Clearly they were feeding all those people somehow.  And doing it more successfully and sustainabley than we are today.

I don't know in what area you live, but I have some feeling I know more about it then you.

 Heh, probably.  Most of what I know is from reading books.  I'm a pretty urban guy.

I still looks strange that something like agriculture, where probably much people are involved, there are much people needed for the preperation of the ground, seeding, and harvesting. I gues there wasn't any machinery around in that time. So you have enermous much people who did the farming, and I can't believe that many of them has died.

In the case of the Mayans, their population die back was huge.  Like 80 or 90 %.  And they had a large autocracy that wasn't involved in agriculture directly.  In a top heavy society like that, it's the workers who know what they're doing that die first.

Good example, I don't know how to sail , can you sail against wind, oh you mean going half left, half right in the wind but having a profit out of it, there was a name for it, or two. But I can't get the name for it in english.

Right.  It's called close-hauled.  Check out the Wikipedia sailing page for all the jargon.

In the so called knowledge-society I cannot really believe sailing isn't somewhere in a book or so, or
building a sailing boat in a book. Maybe I don't really believe sailing will be lost that fast, becouse my country(Holland) is a pretty seawairing nation. At some primary schools in holland there are kids learning sailing so maybe it wouln't go that far in holland.

lol, yeah, Holland probably isn't going to lose sailing technology anytime soon.

And actually, I don't think there have been any civilizations that collapsed after adopting the printing press.  Political boundaries and such changed quite a bit with varying wars, but generally I can't think of an instance where a successful civilizations region was drastically depopulated after adopting the printing press.  It could be that literacy and the printing press together have prevented civilization collapses.  With the printing press, you can make thousands of copies of a book, making knowledge more difficult to really lose.  Can you think of any counter examples?

Of course, if something prevented a generation from learning to read, and a major disaster occurred...

But something like a scarce at gasoline can really make things happen, much people without work, shortage of gasoline will take out atleast for a big part electricity, making you lose (I thought you said you where a computer-programmer as a job), your job, many others with it. Even more than you could imagine. Ofcource there are proportions being taken against a scarce at gasoline. Althrought this reminds me about some goverments having a miscalculationing at the wheat-reserves. Taking the price of wheat up, yes, the bread could rice in price coming jear. Having no clue what the exact oil reserves are, I am a little frightened.

Generally I'm not worried about oil reserves running dry if they do it slowly.  Humanity is pretty good at adapting to slow change.  It's if all the gas and petrol were suddenly gone tomorrow that we'd have a problem.

[EricL]

I've done a lot of sailing.  Offshore, South Pacific, Carribean.  I sailed the west cost of the Americas with my family for a full year.  Sailing is easy.  All you have to do is push the button that controls the battery powerred hydralic furling system that unrolls the darcon sails from the aluminim mast then press another button which turns the electirc stainless steel whinchs that control the spectra sheets (lines).  Of course, I use my GPS-based navigation to plot my course on the electronic charts on my laptop first...    

[Numsgil]

I've done a lot of sailing.  Offshore, South Pacific, Carribean.  I sailed the west cost of the Americas with my family for a full year.  Sailing is easy.  All you have to do is push the button that controls the battery powerred hydralic furling system that unrolls the darcon sails from the aluminim mast then press another button which turns the electirc stainless steel whinchs that control the spectra sheets (lines).  Of course, I use my GPS-based navigation to plot my course on the electronic charts on my laptop first...    

Haha, you're all set for armaggedon then, aren't you