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0 pointsbee_rider1y ago0 comments

Most of the clocks we’re racing against are ones we invented in the last 200 or so years. So the other 9,800 years weren’t really squandered, the clock really wasn’t ticking so much back then.

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melling1y ago

That sort of makes absolutely no sense. Just killing time here? No one said anything about racing the clock.

bee_riderOP1y ago

Squandered implies it was somehow a meaningful loss, at least that’s how I interpreted it.

It was meaningless time. If we’d gotten to our current development level ~5000 years ago, we’d just be writing these same comments next to calendars that had their zero sent to ~7000 years ago.

melling1y ago

We still wouldn’t be alive 5000 years ago. That part doesn’t change. I think you’re confusing yourself.

Half of Europeans that died during the great plague would’ve benefited, for example. Most people who were born in the past 150 years would still be alive.

let your imagination have a go at it.

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melling1y ago

That sort of makes absolutely no sense. Just killing time here? No one said anything about racing the clock.

bee_riderOP1y ago

Squandered implies it was somehow a meaningful loss, at least that’s how I interpreted it.

It was meaningless time. If we’d gotten to our current development level ~5000 years ago, we’d just be writing these same comments next to calendars that had their zero sent to ~7000 years ago.

melling1y ago

We still wouldn’t be alive 5000 years ago. That part doesn’t change. I think you’re confusing yourself.

Half of Europeans that died during the great plague would’ve benefited, for example. Most people who were born in the past 150 years would still be alive.

let your imagination have a go at it.

3 more replies

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse