how would we advance if the earth really was flat?

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Akytalusia

Akytalusia

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not flat as in a disc in space, but flat as in a hypothetical situation in which the terranean surface was flat and infinite to all degrees, and subterranean and superterranean space were infinite in both directions.

superterranean space would still be a bit out of our current league of rational exploration, but we'd suddenly have tangible and infinite surface and subterranean spaces to explore, with which our current technology is practical and rational respectively.

how would we advance as a civilization then? would we unite and expand? would we remain divided and fight for land? would we huddle together? would we explore together? would we explore independently? out? down? up?

would we remain connected? would we discover distances that were no longer practical to remain connected? would we establish local governments? colonies? communities? families? homes? territory? war? alliances? peace? loyalty? freedom?

 
Thaluikhain

Thaluikhain

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Infinite in all directions wouldn't mean much for most people for most of history. If you were living in what is now Greece during the Greek Dark Ages, it'd not really matter if the world to the east ended at China or Korea or Japan or the Americas, you aren't going to get there. Asia Minor is about as far east as the world is as far as you know or care.
 
sanquin

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For one, we'd be a black hole. Or maybe even what scientists speculate was the start of the big bang. As the gravity from having infinite "subterranean space" would mean infinite gravity below our feet.
 
Xprimentyl

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Akytalusia said:
not flat as in a disc in space, but flat as in a hypothetical situation in which the terranean surface was flat and infinite to all degrees, and subterranean and superterranean space were infinite in both directions.

superterranean space would still be a bit out of our current league of rational exploration, but we'd suddenly have tangible and infinite surface and subterranean spaces to explore, with which our current technology is practical and rational respectively.

how would we advance as a civilization then? would we unite and expand? would we remain divided and fight for land? would we huddle together? would we explore together? would we explore independently? out? down? up?

would we remain connected? would we discover distances that were no longer practical to remain connected? would we establish local governments? colonies? communities? families? homes? territory? war? alliances? peace? loyalty? freedom?

Click to expand...
Check this video out. He sort of proposes what I think you might be suggesting but in a different way. Instead of a ?flat and infinite in every direction? Earth, he posits how humans might attain interstellar expansion without ever exceeding the speed of light and goes into theories of what our evolution might look like. It?s an interesting watch; you can listen to his science-y talk for the first 7 minutes or skip right to the hypothetical model which is where it gets good, imho.

 
wizzy555

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I don't think we would unite and expand. It would probably be similar to sci-fi situations where there's tons of habitable planets and travel is easy. I.E. people leave and form colonies and you have explorers who travel between them.

Empire building would be interesting.
 
gigastar

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If we basically are in a Dwarf Fortress universe then i struggle to believe we havent already struck adamantine and let the circus come out to play..
 
Drathnoxis

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Good lord that gif is horrifying! How can there even be so many spiders?!

I think if we lived in Minecraft, we'd eventually spread out enough that it wouldn't be practical to keep in contact with far reaching civilizations, but that wouldn't happen with our current tech level until we had expanded to many times the surface area of the Earth.
 
Grouchy Imp_v1legacy

Grouchy Imp_v1legacy

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Well if there was an infinite amount of ground beneath our feet this would entail an infinite mass, resulting in an infinite gravitational pull, which would not only give the laws of physics a serious headache but also severely fuck things up for every bugger else.
 
A

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Assuming there was no fuckery with gravity and there was an infinite landscape it would depend on how that surface was formed.

If it was just land with rivers and spottings of lakes we would likely still be behind on the technological level as sea travel allowed multiple ideas and schools of thought to interact with one another. It also allowed trade of various endemic plant and animal life opening up paths in chemistry in an easier manner.

If the surface was similar to ours with continents separated by larger bodies of water then I would argue our rate of technological advancement would be even greater. Of course the mentality of the age of discovery might have never ended, there would always be an ever expanding frontier that was as far away as our legs were willing to carry us.

Given that it would be infinite we would also likely encounter an infinite number of possible competitors with humanity. Does humanity start in a single "earth sized" clump or are there human tribes scattered to infinity as well?

The answer to your question is "need more data".
 
Akytalusia

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Abomination said:
Assuming there was no fuckery with gravity and there was an infinite landscape it would depend on how that surface was formed.

If it was just land with rivers and spottings of lakes we would likely still be behind on the technological level as sea travel allowed multiple ideas and schools of thought to interact with one another. It also allowed trade of various endemic plant and animal life opening up paths in chemistry in an easier manner.

If the surface was similar to ours with continents separated by larger bodies of water then I would argue our rate of technological advancement would be even greater. Of course the mentality of the age of discovery might have never ended, there would always be an ever expanding frontier that was as far away as our legs were willing to carry us.

Given that it would be infinite we would also likely encounter an infinite number of possible competitors with humanity. Does humanity start in a single "earth sized" clump or are there human tribes scattered to infinity as well?

The answer to your question is "need more data".
Click to expand...
earth, now, split, flattened, extrapolated.

my original proposal was based on the condition that the sphere of the present day earth would be split into strips and flattened into a kind of star shape, and the infinite mass would be procedurally extrapolated from there, but i didn't find the detail prudent. i just thought it would be interesting to suddenly have 2 new infinite spaces to explore with a rational difficulty curve between them, then wondered how humans might react as a whole. i concluded spiders, then wondered what non-insane people might conclude.
 
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