SETI again

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Lucio de Souza Coelho"
wrote:
>
> The point is that they would not have to bother, information would
> simply be there, in computer records or even books. And likely being
> taught in schools, supposing that their classes would have at least
> some vague resemblance to ours.
>
that is assuming that the computer records or book survived. how long
do you think a CD would survive if there was a biological plague like
Steven King wrote of. (forgot the name of the books or miniseries of
movies.) in those 99 percent or more of the human race was wiped out.
those in America had the use of the hoover dam, but for how many
years. most of the people would descend into preindustrial age within
a few generations. long ago i read a book about the same thing, save
that that book dealt with the survivors over a full generation. the
hero was a young man, but by the time that he died, the civilization
had fallen to the level that the native Americans had before
Columbus. they had little interest in what the American civilization
was. there was one scene that was important to this discussion. the
hero was going to have a class. he started it out be saying he was an
American, but before he could tell all the children that they were
too, he realized that they did not believe that. they did not live in
the American civilization, and had not interest in being called that.
they were more interested in learning to make bows and arrows and
learning to hunt and do things they needed to survive when they
became adults.

if a race colonized a new world and then lost their civilization's
edge, which could happen for thousands of reason, they could easily
revert to an native American or even a "savage" type tribal society,
which would take thousands of years to return to even the modern day
lvl of civilization.

the thing is that there are so many reason that this could happen
that i don't believe the majority would survive with their original
civilizations intact.
>
> When Australia was discovered, people in the Americas had already
> technology to build ships and go there, if they wanted. But probably
> they were not so motivated because England had already laid a claim.
>

why would they want to go there when they had so much space in
America that had not been explored yet. so much of it to fill up. why
bother going halfway around the world to something that was reported
to be rather hostile, when they can simply move a hundred miles in a
wagon and have open territory. its a lot easier to afford to buy a
wagon (if they did not have one) and horses and things to travel for
a few weeks then to buy all of that and the cost of a boat trip that
will take months.

>
> Wouldn't be reasonable to assume that there would be no hiatus
without
> equipment? As stuff brought in the trip gets old, the stimulus for
> colonist to develop replacements Made in Colony would be quite
> persuasive.
>

actually i think it more likely that they would have little time to
build new ones, if they even remembered how to build it. granted if
you live in a space station you would need to keep up a certain lvl
of technology, but not as much as you think. there have been many
stories of people in large station and in ships, losing their
technology, then later regaining it. by the time they did some of it
would have been lost and the data it had would not longer be good. In
addition another race could come across the station and see that it
had reverted to savagery, and decide to make themselves gods to
the "ungodly savage race". If there had been sufficient mutations in
the DNA, neither side would recognize the other as being from the
same parent race.

it depends on how good the equipment is. if it had to be replaced
every year or 5 or so, they would be force to keep it up, but then
they would be at a greater risk of a catastrophic breakdown of
multiple equipment. equipment that lasted longer or that had more
replacements/parts would increase the likelyhood of survival, but
also of them forgetting how to make the parts.