I just finished watching Life After People on 4OD, Channel 4′s on-demand channel. It was recently aired here in the UK by Channel 4 but it had been long released in the USA. Apparently, there is even a DVD of it now. Anyhow, the documentary talks about how Earth would be if the entire human race is wiped out. It does not focus on why we have been erased from the face of the Earth so, please, no talk of “…if we don’t do this, that will happen…” or any other “or else” arguments. It just explored the “what if” scenario of a world without mankind.
(image source: screenshots from the Life After People video downloaded on 4OD)
What saddened me in watching this is that humanity will never be traceable after we are long gone. One could argue that if our ancestors have done so in the past by writing on walls and stones, how come we, the modern people, won’t be able to preserve what we have now and our knowledge of it? Well, it is all down to how and what we use to record these materials. Over time, they will disintegrate and decay. Even those ancient writings from the early civilisations will vanish without us maintaining it. It makes a good argument against archaeologists and discoverers that if you find something, just leave them be. Without modern man’s intervention, these artifacts would probably have a longer chance of survival than us trying to preserve them. But that would only prolong their existence. Inevitably, they will deteriorate and be gone. So, if mankind is to disappear, there will be no traces left behind.
(image source: screenshot from the Life After People video downloaded on 4OD)
This begs the question of are we really meant to be here? If we have no means or capacity to leave any evidence of our existence (as that documentary had shown), then should we be here in the first place?
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