Tell that all to the guy who said "because we have oil, there was no such civilisation" (which, as both you and I point out, is fundamentally flawed; even if we point out different reasons), or general "lack of space artifacts" (supposedly thinking also about the Moon...)
Well obviously we are not at the point of no return - but one other recent member of genus homo (one that I mentioned...) certainly did reach it. Without reaching much in terms of technological advance (despite being around much longer than us, and apparently of very comparable intelligence)
And sure, we can go even into region of swarm intelligence if we really want to. But it's not very productive, brings you more and more into the area of science fantasy without much grounding in available facts. What we can say is that there doesn't appear to be even singular trace of any lineage (many species!) much older than but generally in the style of hominidae during the last 15 million years - with increasing brain sizes, high metabolism, high brain-body mass ratio, etc.. More - all the evidence points at quite gradual development of brain. Why ignore it?
Just look at us. We have high level of technological capability only for a fraction of the existence of our civilisation. We were quite static for millennia.
As were the neanderthals and their civilisation.
With fossils it's not quite as straightforward as you put it. It's not merely about not discovering any fossils of "them", those creatures of intelligence close to ours; also none possibly leading to them and their high intelligence.
The point isn't about how we would miss all of them, but how some go too far when assuming any "suitable" artifacts would be even created in the first place.
A variant of Fermi paradox, essentially. From what we can guess now, life is probably quite common in the Universe. Complex multicellular life - most likely much less common (of which even our planet is a nice example: basically only bacteria for few billion years). Technological civilisations?...well, even ours is like that only for a fraction of its existence.
There are good reasons to assume no civilisations prior to ours. But yeah, lack of technological artifacts isn't one of them, and not only because most (not all) of them would rapidly decay ("vanished at a high level of technological capability on earth" goes too far - why would they even have high level of technological capability? We didn't have it for many millennia). Lack of fossil record (before our recent primate ancestors came along) suggesting trends toward intelligence comparable to ours - much better.
We leave such artifacts (lack of which you treat as conclusive evidence against existence of prior civilisations) only for around a century; just few lifespans. That's a very short time compared to the timescale of our civilisation (nvm how it assumes our current industrial level is somehow inevitable, while we still have hunter-gatherers among homo sapiens)
What TFS even tries to say? That our lineage turns out to be not contained strictly to Africa, since the emergence of first live on this planet? I don't think anybody claimed that...
(and I seem to recall there were already some arguments (phylogenetic?) that our "mammalian lineage" was primarily in Asia for a long time)
It's possible to take a standard 35mm print (standard photo album size) and extract enough useful information during developing to make prints that look actually pretty damn good at, say, 11x17 or 24"x36" or even larger poster formats as long as the film was good quality, because it's a relatively analog photo (only constrained by the grain of the film itself)
When they did get to releasing flash Walkman players, they basically as open as they can come (w8, you didn't thought I said there there was no getting in the way or product releases/etc.? Quite the contrary); similar with SE Walkman phones. Or how e-book division works quite unlike music and film divisions. How the latter isn't helped much by fabulously priced video editing tools.
Stop picking examples almost suiting how you want to view Sony; Hi8 or DAT are very theirs (oh, this one gave us lots of bootlegs). And again, see the fallacy of "once its adopted, it no longer counts as a product which Sony gave us"
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That wasn't my argument...
Tell that all to the guy who said "because we have oil, there was no such civilisation" (which, as both you and I point out, is fundamentally flawed; even if we point out different reasons), or general "lack of space artifacts" (supposedly thinking also about the Moon...)
The argument was about lack of "their" geostationary satellites and existence of oil reserves...
Well obviously we are not at the point of no return - but one other recent member of genus homo (one that I mentioned...) certainly did reach it. Without reaching much in terms of technological advance (despite being around much longer than us, and apparently of very comparable intelligence)
And sure, we can go even into region of swarm intelligence if we really want to. But it's not very productive, brings you more and more into the area of science fantasy without much grounding in available facts.
What we can say is that there doesn't appear to be even singular trace of any lineage (many species!) much older than but generally in the style of hominidae during the last 15 million years - with increasing brain sizes, high metabolism, high brain-body mass ratio, etc.. More - all the evidence points at quite gradual development of brain. Why ignore it?
Just look at us. We have high level of technological capability only for a fraction of the existence of our civilisation. We were quite static for millennia.
As were the neanderthals and their civilisation.
With fossils it's not quite as straightforward as you put it. It's not merely about not discovering any fossils of "them", those creatures of intelligence close to ours; also none possibly leading to them and their high intelligence.
"Moderate" is the most meaningless term here, a lot of people are "moderate" in their own eyes.
But it's a bit like with the driving speed: those driving slower than you are morons, those driving faster - maniacs.
And 80-90% of drivers think they are in "top 50%"...
Fear the liberal cabal!
The point isn't about how we would miss all of them, but how some go too far when assuming any "suitable" artifacts would be even created in the first place.
A variant of Fermi paradox, essentially. From what we can guess now, life is probably quite common in the Universe. Complex multicellular life - most likely much less common (of which even our planet is a nice example: basically only bacteria for few billion years). Technological civilisations? ...well, even ours is like that only for a fraction of its existence.
(regarding timescales of survival for specific artifacts - there were few productions about it, this page seems to be a good starting point)
With what does the continuing use of fixed-width fonts correlate / is there hope for a cure to that?
At least it would keep those people busy?... (just look at all the riches of theological thought)
There are good reasons to assume no civilisations prior to ours. But yeah, lack of technological artifacts isn't one of them, and not only because most (not all) of them would rapidly decay ("vanished at a high level of technological capability on earth" goes too far - why would they even have high level of technological capability? We didn't have it for many millennia). Lack of fossil record (before our recent primate ancestors came along) suggesting trends toward intelligence comparable to ours - much better.
And why would that be a valid assumption here, especially in the case of some prior civilisations which demonstrably perished?
And yet, for some reason, in the place most proud of him - the photograph is virtually unknown; one "standard painting" is how people remember Chopin.
I wonder if back then it was also treated as vandalism...
Can we be certain those are not statues?
We leave such artifacts (lack of which you treat as conclusive evidence against existence of prior civilisations) only for around a century; just few lifespans. That's a very short time compared to the timescale of our civilisation (nvm how it assumes our current industrial level is somehow inevitable, while we still have hunter-gatherers among homo sapiens)
What TFS even tries to say? That our lineage turns out to be not contained strictly to Africa, since the emergence of first live on this planet? I don't think anybody claimed that...
(and I seem to recall there were already some arguments (phylogenetic?) that our "mammalian lineage" was primarily in Asia for a long time)
We are a civilisation only for 50 - 150 years?
It's possible to take a standard 35mm print (standard photo album size) and extract enough useful information during developing to make prints that look actually pretty damn good at, say, 11x17 or 24"x36" or even larger poster formats as long as the film was good quality, because it's a relatively analog photo (only constrained by the grain of the film itself)
People can't tell the difference between 13, 8 and 5 megapixels at 16"x24"
"Absurdly" might be not the bets choice of words, unless about people of every period thinking how special they are.
In related news: stereoscopy, the "3D" sister of photography, is also more than 150 years old. I'm sure it will get popular any day now...
Is it dead? :/
And for "Russian" - not what you'd think, not what you'd hope for.
Aren't there some multimedia displays on headstones? Essentially the same thing already...
When they did get to releasing flash Walkman players, they basically as open as they can come (w8, you didn't thought I said there there was no getting in the way or product releases/etc.? Quite the contrary); similar with SE Walkman phones. Or how e-book division works quite unlike music and film divisions. How the latter isn't helped much by fabulously priced video editing tools.
Stop picking examples almost suiting how you want to view Sony; Hi8 or DAT are very theirs (oh, this one gave us lots of bootlegs). And again, see the fallacy of "once its adopted, it no longer counts as a product which Sony gave us"
Not even "especially Apple"; anything that broadcasts "high" status of the owner / "high" price.
What, like some Namco arcade machines were essentially a copy of their console technology? (only beefed up)