WILLIAM SHATNER:
Abandoned cities, ancient cultures
nearly erased by time, and colossal empires
that simply vanished without a trace. How does a civilization
become lost? Is it decimated by wars, or does it die off as the result of some deadly plague
or cataclysm? What could cause a once-thriving
group of people-- like the Mayans, for example-- to just abandon
their great cities, never to return? Well, that is what we'll try
and find out. ♪ SHATNER:
Explorers John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood mount
an expedition to investigate reports of mysterious ruins located in this remote,
largely uncharted region. After scouting and mapping miles
of dark, impenetrable jungle, they find some unusual features
in the dense brush. Oddly-shaped stones, peculiar carvings and strange artifacts
that could only be manmade. It isn't long before they realize they've made
an incredible discovery: the remains of the mysterious
ancient Maya civilization, deep in the rainforest. CARL WENDT:
And what was so remarkable to Stephens and Catherwood is,
eventually, they found temples and platforms
and pyramids. There was monumental
architecture and conical mounds and other building platforms
in the rainforest. And to look at these cities
in the jungle, kind of coming out
of the jungle was... was just absolutely remarkable,
and it got people's attention. SHATNER:
On their return
to the United States, Stephens and Catherwood publish
an illustrated book of their findings, detailing 44 individual ruins. Readers are astounded by the
book's meticulous illustrations, which portray
a sophisticated ancient society. And news of the astonishing find quickly spreads
around the world. WENDT:
The Maya become more mysterious as we collect more information. They have
a sophisticated writing system. They obviously have a
sophisticated religious system, a calendar system. And so, the calendar which would
have been a very useful tool for the Maya elite and priests
to be able to understand, say, for example, when there was
gonna be a solar eclipse. They were ancient astronomers
and architects. They have social structure that we're just beginning
to understand, and their cities are remarkable. SHATNER:
At its peak, the Maya civilization stretched
from Guatemala and Belize to western Honduras
and El Salvador. Their total population was
estimated to be in the millions, and concentrated
in large city centers like Copán, Tikal and Calakmul. And then, suddenly,
during the ninth century A.D., this advanced society
just collapsed. Vast cities, ornate palaces,
towering pyramids-- all of it completely abandoned, left to be reclaimed
by the jungle. But why? ED BARNHART:
The mystery of why Maya civilization
collapsed is one that archeology has been
debating forever. 830 is right about when all
of the cities in the Maya area and all over Mesoamerica
are falling apart. They drop their tools,
and they walk away. They're abandoning those cities,
and it's a mystery. Where did the people go?
Why did they leave? If you have such
a sophisticated civilization, how do these things collapse? What went wrong? SHATNER:
For decades, archaeologists have speculated as to what might have caused
the sudden demise of the Maya. Dozens of theories--
blaming everything from drought, to disease, to devastating earthquakes--
have been proposed. Yet, the simple truth is no one
knows what really happened. But a recent study-- using state-of-the-art
technology-- might have provided
a significant clue. An airplane operated
by the University of Houston's National Center
for Airborne Laser Mapping flies 2,000 feet
above the thick jungle canopy. As the plane reaches
its target area, an advanced scanning technology
called "lidar" is used to fire laser pulses through
the trees at the ground below. When the resulting data
is later compiled into a three-dimensional
rendering of the area, the scientists are stunned
by what they see. Once lidar got involved, we saw roads leading
out into other city centers. We saw thousands
upon thousands of houses. Collectively, all the areas
that they covered were over 60,000 new buildings
that we didn't see before. Previously, they thought that the Maya reached probably
a maximum level of population
of around five million. But the estimates now take us up to at least 15 to 20 million. SHATNER:
Ever since the rediscovery of Maya ruins by Europeans
in the 19th century, nearly every piece of data
uncovered about the Maya raised more and more questions. But now, after scientists
began using lidar, they finally started
to find answers, such as the possible cause of the Maya civilization's
collapse: war. WENDT:
Once we started going out and recording
and mapping these sites, we see defense
warfare structures. (indistinct chatter
and shouting) This is a remarkable thing
that we never knew that these defensive works
were out there, leading archeologists
to scratch their heads and basically say, "Oh, my gosh. The Maya were warlike,
and warfare was very important." (grunts) DAVID WHITEHEAD:
We know there was warfare going on. They were building all kinds
of defensive structures. Could that have something to do with the vanishing
of the Mayans? BARNHART:
More and more, as the classic period went on, monuments became full
of war imagery and people taking captives
and people being beheaded. So we know war was a factor. If it was just war, the victors
would have claimed the land, and the losers
would have beat it. But that's not the fact. Everybody left. Why? SHATNER:
According to the<i> Popol Vuh,</i> the written history of the Maya, they believed that time
was cyclical in nature. Each cycle lasted
for a fixed number of years, at which time, a great cataclysm
would wipe the slate clean so a new world could be born
from the old one's ashes. So was this the real reason? Did the Maya abandon their great
cities and disband their culture simply because
an ancient prophecy told them when exactly to do it? BARNHART
The timing is very interesting. In 830, a great cycle is ending. There was certainly evidence
for them to believe
that things were going bad. There were climate problems. There were resource problems. There were people fighting. Were they timing
the leaving of their cities to the calendar
that they created? That's a... a big possibility. SHATNER:
Right or wrong,
the Maya believed that the end of
their civilization was at hand. And while that may seem like
a farfetched notion, there actually exists
one group of people that hold similar beliefs: the descendants of the Maya. When you talk
to modern Maya people in the Guatemalan Highlands, people called day keepers,
Ajq'ij-- they are priests
who still follow the calendar, and they teach people
that things begin and they come to an end, and that to be in harmony
with the world, you need to know these cycles and change
before the world changes you. It's very possible
that back then, when all the signs that
the world was going a serious wrong direction,
that the Maya civilization as a whole said,
"These are the signs. "The time is now. Let's collectively
change ourselves." SHATNER:
Was the collapse of the Maya civilization simply the result
of a self-fulfilling prophecy? There are many
who aren't so sure. As far as they're concerned, something more
sinister happened. And they believe
the evidence can be found by studying the fate of another
ancient civilization, one found much closer to home: the Anasazi. (wind howling) SHATNER:
Set into the high cliffs of Mesa Verde National Park
in southwestern Colorado is what many consider to be
America's biggest mystery. (bird caws) A mystery carved in solid rock. (bird caws) Cliff Palace,
as it has come to be known, contains more than 150 chambers connected by extensive ramps
and stairways. According to most archaeologists
and historians, it was constructed
almost a thousand years ago by a tribe
of Ancestral Puebloans known as the Anasazi. BARNHART: The Ancestral Pueblo
are a people that grew up in the Four Corners
area of the United States. They're actually in an area
called the San Juan Basin, where they spent most
of their culture's history, all the way
into Paleo-Indian times, which is about 12,000 years ago. They're a culture
we call Basket Maker, and they did most
of their cooking and gathering in pit houses
and weaved baskets. I think one of the things
that's the most admirable about the Ancestral Pueblo
is their ability to live in such
a resource-poor environment. It was highland desert. There were not
many natural plants to eat. It was very difficult
to grow corn. There were not a whole lot
of animals to hunt, and yet they found a way
to live in that niche and survive. SHATNER:
Starting in the ninth century, the Anasazi expanded
their civilization by building massive structures
throughout the Southwest, first in New Mexico's
Chaco Canyon and later in the cliffs
of Mesa Verde. There was a big explosion in the kind of architecture
they were making and its scale
and its sophistication. There were already tens of
thousands of little communities, but now they started building
these gigantic buildings. We call them "great houses," and they were
apartment complexes but on a scale
that the Pueblo had never made. Hundreds of individual rooms would make up
these great houses, and they could be upwards
of five stories tall. SHATNER:
For years, people studying the Anasazi
have wondered how a simple group of people developed into an advanced
civilization so quickly. But perhaps an even more
intriguing question is: Why would those same people go to such great lengths
to build incredible structures, only to abandon them? TOK THOMPSON:
And then, during the 1200s, very mysteriously,
suddenly, it disappeared. When archaeologists looked
at these remains at the time of
the civilization disappearance, it was very sudden, as if people
just grabbed what they could and took off. People just up and left. They left behind
all of their belongings. And there is evidence that this
activity occurred very quickly. It was almost as if
they left behind ghost towns. So, what really happened
to the Anasazi? We know that drought
must have been a factor, because there were periods when there was
virtually no rain. BARNHART:
We can say they left
for drought reasons, but if these
perfectly good places were good again
after the drought, why didn't they come back? It had to be more than
just a practical "Well, we can't plant here
anymore." SHATNER:
If it wasn't drought that forced the Anasazi
to leave their cliff dwellings, then what was it? According to
some anthropologists, the answer may lie
in their own mythology and a tale about
a shadowy supernatural figure known as the Gambler. ROB WEINER:
The story of the Gambler tells
of a very powerful figure. He challenges all the people
of the Four Corners region to these gambling matches,
and he always wins. And in these stories, the people give away
their goods. Eventually, they're giving away
even their homes and their food and eventually themselves
as slaves to this powerful gambler figure. And in their mythology, they say the Gambler
is the one who taught them how to build these great houses and asked them to do it,
basically, in terms of slavery. They were then his to command. WEINER:
Eventually, in the story, the gods decide that the Gambler
has overstepped. He has become full of hubris. He's behaving in a way
he shouldn't. So he's eventually defeated
and banished from Chaco Canyon. So, when the Gambler
was finally defeated, it's said that he laid
some kind of curse on the land. He said,
"I will kill you with lightning, "and I will send war
and disease among you. "May the cold freeze you. "May the fire burn you. May the waters drown you." Some groups say he opened up
some kind of vortex. And because there was so much
badness and so much suffering, everyone made the decision
to leave and never go there again. SHATNER:
Many cultures have tales
of a wily trickster, someone who cheats people
out of hearth and home before laying a curse
on their village and vanishing
in a puff of smoke. But could the Anasazi legend
of the Gambler have actually been based
on a real-life event? I went into museum collections, and I found hundreds
of gambling pieces excavated from Pueblo Bonito and the other
buildings in the canyon, things like dice or pieces used
in different guessing games. There's a lot
of archaeological evidence for gambling at Chaco Canyon. And I do think
the stories are literal in the sense that it was
a major aspect of the society. It has to do with actual people,
historical events. SHATNER: Does archaeological
evidence of gambling mean the Anasazi legend
of the Gambler is simply a parable about
the dangers of unchecked vice? Or were the Anasazi forced
to flee from their homes after being tormented
by some sort of dark, supernatural force? Very often, abandoned villages
or abandoned sites are held to be haunted
by the ghosts. This is probably
a very widespread notion that, when a civilization collapses, very often,
something went wrong. And it's not purely physical.
It's something spiritual. Today, Pueblo people
will go to Chaco, and they will honor
their ancestors there. But some groups of them say that there was a very bad thing
that happened there and that their ancestors,
for a long period of time, didn't go there and they wanted
nothing to do with it. Could a deadly curse
really have caused the Anasazi to abandon
their elaborate cliff dwellings? There are those who believe that
dark forces were responsible and that similar forces
were also behind the mysterious disappearance
of what might have been the world's first civilization, the one located
at a place now known as Gobekli Tepe. SHATNER:
While plowing his field, shepherd Safak Yildiz spots
a strangely shaped stone emerging from the parched earth. When he brushes away the dirt, he realizes the stone may be
part of a much larger object. After reporting his find, he is visited
by archaeologist Klaus Schmidt and a team from the German
Archaeological Institute. Further excavation reveals the stone is actually part
of a massive, elaborately carved stone pillar, one in what turns out
to be dozens that form an ancient
underground complex. Gobekli Tepe is
arguably the most important archaeological discovery
in recent years. We're talking about
a whole series of stone circles built on the top of a mountain. If you can imagine
Stonehenge in England but multiply it by 20 times and have these stones in circles facing towards two massive,
great monoliths as much as
18 and a half feet tall, weighing between 15 and 20 tons, this is what we see
at Gobekli Tepe. Gobekli Tepe could very well be
the first lost civilization. We've only uncovered
a small percentage of it, like ten or 15%. We have no idea, really,
how much bigger this is and what else
we're gonna find there. COLLINS:
We have to ask ourselves: Could Gobekli Tepe been a place of commerce and trade? And I think the answer
is an undoubted yes, because its construction
would have necessitated the presence
of not just hundreds but many thousands of people
coming from across the region who, at the beginning,
were hunter-gatherers. SHATNER:
While there are many theories, the true purpose of Gobekli Tepe
remains shrouded in mystery. But no less mysterious
than the stones themselves is the lost civilization
that fashioned them. Because when sediment layers
of the site were carbon-dated, it was shockingly revealed
that Gobekli Tepe is more than 12,000 years old. PAUL BAHN: Gobekli Tepe
really did send shock waves through the whole world
of early prehistory, because we'd never before
known or imagined, even, that simple hunter-gatherers could produce such spectacular
monumental structures as-as are found at Gobekli Tepe. Now, many of these pillars also have remarkable carvings
on them, wonderful carvings and bas-reliefs of animals,
birds, insects, all kinds of things. So to fashion those
and carve them and set them up
in these structures was just absolutely amazing. SHATNER:
More than one-third
of Gobekli Tepe's stone pillars contain elaborate
bas-relief carvings of various animals. But what has many archaeologists
and historians puzzled is that many
of the species depicted, like geese and armadillos
and wild boar, are not indigenous to the area. That location just happens
to be near where Noah and the animals in the ark
ended the long journey through the flood. And these giant pillars
in Gobekli Tepe have carvings of animals,
many different kinds of animals. Are these the animals
from the ark? Did the stories
about those animals end up being depicted in stone? SHATNER:
Could there really
be a connection between Gobekli Tepe
and the Great Flood? Perhaps. But according to
another audacious theory, the animal carvings
at Gobekli Tepe may have been inspired
by another, even older biblical story. COLLINS:
Gobekli Tepe is
located in the very area that the Bible tells us
the Garden of Eden was located. It is said that Eden was where
the four rivers of paradise took their rise. Two of those rivers were
the Euphrates and the Tigris that flowed through Mesopotamia. And these both rose
in the same area as Gobekli Tepe. Professor Klaus Schmidt,
the German archaeologist, even suggested himself that this could be
the area of Eden and the point of foundation
of civilization. SHATNER:
The Garden of Eden? It's a fascinating theory but one that is not
without its problems. Because archaeological evidence
shows that Gobekli Tepe was not only later abandoned, but also backfilled
and deliberately buried. Why... would anyone want to leave--
and bury-- paradise? COLLINS:
Around 8000 B.C., the people of Gobekli Tepe
just vanish. They just disappear. So we have to ask ourself:
Where did they go? Did they just vanish
into oblivion? What we know is that recently
archaeologists discovered a number of human skulls
that had been modified. And what this means is
that they had been sculpted, or that they had been pierced, uh, so that they
could be hung up perhaps on some kind
of frame or platform. WHITEHEAD:
They found skulls
that are smashed in. They found remains that look
as if there's been some kind of mass ritual or murder
or sacrifice going on. There may have actually been
a skull cult there. Do we know
what these people were doing? Of course not,
because they were doing this thousands of years
before writing took place. We can try and guess. We-we know important rituals
took place there. <i> (distorted screaming)</i> Klaus Schmidt
would talk about this as Eden. I think what he meant was
this is an Edenic society. Because if you look at the story of the Garden of Eden
in the Bible, that's
a hunter-gatherer society. That's before we discover
agriculture. And so the fact that here's
this place, Gobekli Tepe, it's really challenging
our understandings of our own origins,
our own religious origins. And you start thinking about
what else we're gonna find. BAHN:
It remains to be seen
what will be found in the rest of the site. But, certainly,
I'm sure Gobekli Tepe has plenty more surprises
for us. Every new enclosure excavated, every new piece of evidence puts
another piece in the jigsaw but also, at the same time, raises new questions that we
find very difficult to answer. SHATNER:
Whether Gobekli Tepe has a connection
to biblical stories or not, one thing is certain: its builders chose to bury
their great creation, and we may never know why
or where they went, not unlike
another ancient civilization that also buried
their most important artifacts, giant stone heads that suggest they might have possessed
the ability to harness one of the most powerful forces
in the universe. SHATNER:
Archaeologist Matthew Stirling is excavating an ancient site once occupied
by the Olmec people, a lost Mesoamerican civilization dating as far back as 1200 B.C. As Stirling's team unearths
and catalogs numerous artifacts, they notice a number
of unusually large, rounded boulders buried nearby. What emerges from the ground
are, quite literally, some of the largest
archaeological finds of the 20th century. Over the next several decades, 17 colossal heads
carved from solid basalt were ultimately discovered
in the area, the largest measuring
a staggering 11 feet tall and weighing 50 tons. When you walk up
to these imposing, you know, stone monuments, you see these things
are-are huge, with these just amazing
lifelike features. It would have taken
thousands of people to drag these stones
through the rainforest, through mud and swamps,
onto the tops of their sites. SHATNER:
But perhaps what's most striking
about these giant heads is not their size or how they were brought
to the middle of the jungle but rather who they seem
to be depicting. COLLINS:
The colossal heads have an African appearance. But, also, equally, they've been seen to have
a Polynesian appearance as well. Is it possible
that the Olmec were the result of transpacific
or even transatlantic migrations of peoples
from other continents? SHATNER:
Although mainstream historians
dismiss the notion that the Olmec originated
in Asia or Africa, the appearance
of the Olmec heads suggests that it is possible. But not only do we not know
where the Olmec came from, we also don't know
where they went. One of the real frustrations
to archaeologists who study the Olmec is that we don't have
a single Olmec skeleton that we can look at and analyze. For over a thousand years, the Olmec were the culture
in the middle of Mesoamerica. But then they faded away. And why exactly they stopped is something we're not sure of. SHATNER:
The Olmec disappeared
so completely, all that's left of them
are scattered remains, some sculptures and figurines. Which means,
if we're to answer the riddle of the Olmecs' disappearance,
there's only one place to look: those huge,
imposing stone heads, staring back at us through time with their odd,
sphinxlike gazes. One of the most remarkable
discoveries in connection with the art
of the Olmec is the presence of magnetism. In a number
of different statues, when a compass
is brought up to them, the needles move. Archaeologists in the late 1960s
and early 1970s used magnetometers to find many of the most remarkable
colossal heads. BRANDENBURG:
The Olmec heads probably gave off
magnetic signatures, because they're made of basalt, a dense volcanic rock
that becomes magnetic as it cools. So, by making the heads
of basalt that came
from the volcano itself, that same energy was inherited
by those colossal heads. What all of this suggests
is that the Olmec went out
and deliberately chose rocks that had this magnetic effect. SHATNER:
Magnetic stones. If the Olmec
were harnessing magnetism, what were they using it for? There are many theories
about how the Olmecs may have used magnetism. One interesting speculation
is whether they could have moved some of the large stones
using magnetic levitation. It's very simple to get magnets to either attract
or repel each other if their poles are opposing. It's difficult to imagine even
using modern moving technology to move very large stones. Yet they were moved. SHATNER:
Levitation? It's a fascinating theory, although one
that's hard to prove, not unlike another theory
that suggests that the Olmec may have been
using the magnetic properties in their giant stone heads
for healing purposes. Colossal head ten from San
Lorenzo has what appears to be these little
multiperforated beads all over all of the head
in his headdress. In a recent excavation, the lead
archeologists found thousands, 144,000 of
these little magnetic cubes. And they could have been then
strung together in mats and possibly,
in this case, the headdress. And leading
some archeologists to say, "What about
the magnetic qualities that might have been used
in possible healing?" We know the importance of magnets used
in certain therapies. And did the Olmec--
did they already discover the important health benefits
of-of magnetic therapy? SHATNER:
If the Olmec leaders were using the power
of magnetism for some type of healing, it may have had
the opposite affect. Magnetic fields can be
healing or harmful. In some cases,
people who have been exposed to very strong magnetic fields have lapsed into comas,
had seizures. Some people have even died
after being exposed to very strong magnetic fields. COLLINS:
So, could the presence of magnetism in the art objects that were fashioned
by the Olmecs have had something to do with why
they deliberately buried many of their statues and figurines? We do not have
any definitive answers. But what we do know is that the Olmec culture
dissolved. It disappeared
almost into oblivion. Did the Olmecs meddle
with magnetic powers that were simply
beyond their ability to control? Recent findings suggest such a fantastic notion
is entirely possible. Theirs is a cautionary tale of technology run amok,
and, just like our next example, the consequence
of trying to harness a power far too deadly to be contained. SHATNER: Located more than 2,000
miles west of South America, it is one of the most remote and
desolate islands in the world. It is also the home
of nearly 1,000 moai, a collection of giant
megalithic stone sentinels whose purpose remains
as mysterious as the lost civilization
that carved them. Located in what is now Cambodia, this enormous, 402-acre
temple complex was once part of the thriving city of Angkor,
the capital of the Khmer Empire. Although most historians agree that the Khmer people
were most likely vanquished by a series of devastating wars,
the real reason for their complete disappearance
is unknown. Located on an island in what is now Dare County,
North Carolina. This English colony was
originally conceived in 1585 as part of Sir Walter Raleigh's
plan to settle North America. When English explorers returned to check in on the colony
in 1590, they found that its estimated
121 inhabitants had vanished. The only clue they left behind
was the word "Croatoan," mysteriously carved into a tree. All of these, and more, are examples of civilizations
that simply vanished. But why? And how? Perhaps the answer can be found by examining
a more recent cataclysm, one that forced an entire city
to be abandoned. (rumbling) A magnitude
nine point earthquake triggers a devastating tsunami along the country's
eastern shore. Giant waves up to 50 feet tall are sent crashing
into the coast, killing almost 16,000 people and destroying hundreds
of buildings, including the Fukushima Daiichi
Nuclear Power Plant. As seawater pours
into the plant, it triggers a chain reaction that leads to
three nuclear meltdowns, multiple hydrogen explosions, and a massive flood
of radioactive contamination into the surrounding area. 200,000 people
are immediately evacuated. In less than 48 hours,
this once-thriving city becomes a ghost town. BRANDENBURG:
An entire city was abandoned in the middle
of the Fukushima crisis. Something like from a post-apocalyptic
science fiction movie. Food still
on the shelf in stores. People literally did not go down into the house
to grab their coats. They just got theirselves and their family into the car
and drove because of the danger
of radiation leakage. PAUL SPRINGER:
The Japanese didn't prepare adequately for tsunamis because this was just
an unforeseen consequence of a catastrophically large
earthquake. The earthquake that caused
the tsunami was one of the-the nastiest earthquakes
ever recorded. Nobody had envisioned this level of catastrophe happening
all at once. WHITEHEAD:
We know that no one will ever
go and live there again. This place is gonna have to be
vacant for years because it's radioactive. SHATNER:
We tend to think that just
because we live in a world with advanced technology,
modern medicine, and the ability to fly around
the world in a single day, that our civilization is safe
from extinction. But disasters, like the one at Fukushima,
prove that is not the case. I look at an event like
Fukushima and see a pattern: that we are not that different than the people
that lived in the past. We have, as civilizations, again
and again created technologies, and forgotten the power
of nature. COLLINS:
Civilizations disappear rapidly. So we have to ask ourselves
whether, in past ages, natural catastrophes
can have combined with the presence
of human civilizations to create cataclysms
that completely obliterated entire civilizations. SHATNER:
Whether by natural catastrophe or by war, famine or disease, all civilizations, even our own, are destined
not to last forever. But is there any way to stop
the inevitable from happening, or are we really doomed to repeat the mistakes
of the past? SHATNER:
Oxford University, July, 2008. A panel of experts from
the Future of Humanity Institute publish the results
of a survey regarding the global catastrophic risks that humanity will face
in the 21st century. The results of the questionnaire
are both surprising and concerning, because the experts agree that
there is a one-in-five chance of human extinction
before the year 2100. SPRINGER:
At the 2008 Oxford conference, participants considered
nanotechnology, artificial intelligence and war
to be the three categories that were most likely to
bring about such an event. Personally, the one
that keeps me awake at night is the unbridled development
of artificial intelligence. It's partially because of
the weaponization of artificial intelligence, and what I like to refer to as
the dark triad of offensive, lethal, autonomous machines. The possibility
of programming errors or of users deliberately
inflicting these upon enemy populations is the type of thing
that makes me nervous. The development
of artificial intelligence is supposed to make lives
a lot easier, but in practice might represent the biggest existential threat
of all. When we see a civilization
that effectively disappears without a record of
precisely why they left, the answer is often rooted
in the development of advanced technology, because advanced technology
enables a larger population to live in a smaller area. But if something happens
to the resources themselves, then you don't have the capacity to support
the population anymore. BARNHART: When I look at
an episode like Rome making an incredible
drainage system out of lead pipes,
and then everyone goes nuts-- Is it all that different
than human society building up technology
to the point where we forget that we're really
just part of an ecosystem that's much more powerful than
us no matter what we build? SPRINGER:
We have a tendency to assume
that we can always innovate our way out of
the crisis of the moment. There's also no guarantee
that technology will save a civilization when it's faced
with an existential threat. Will we live to see the day when our own civilization
comes to an end? Given how advanced we've become,
it seems unlikely that all of
our current technology-- our cities, architecture,
culture-- could ever be reduced to
a giant pile of rocks and a few carvings,
but then again, maybe it's our naive belief
that it can't happen to us that makes our demise
inevitable. So is there any way
we can prevent it? Perhaps the answer will be
one more that for now remains unexplained. CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY
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