An Ancient cup of coffee for the future

In our current modern lifestyle, there is no place for our past history other than schools or quiz shows. Every day we get up, perform our daily routines, and eventually return back to the slumber that re-energizes us for another day. During our routines we have planned out actions and whether we realize it or not, our daily routines are based purely off of our ability to manipulate our environment we live in. We make a cup of coffee, the coffee maker is a finely crafted machine that serves a purpose, it was crafted by another human and the invention of the product itself came from a single idea or need. The earliest evidence of coffee drinking appeared back in the middle of the 15th century. The entire act of brewing coffee is a invented process as well. So much goes into making a cup of coffee, but we don’t recognize these processes or inventions, we push the button, prepare our cup and continue on our next routine.

Coffee isn’t the topic, its an example of a reason why we need to pay more attention to our past. If for any reason the majority of the population was wiped out, electricity no more and we have to go back to the basics, would you know how to brew a cup of coffee? Would you eventually learn how to make a coffee maker? Perhaps you would but a good majority of the world wouldn’t, its knowledge that at the current time doesn’t seem to be of any use. That is our problem, knowledge of our past no longer seems of any use because of the idea ology “ if I cant make it, someone will”. We grow up in an industrial world and we grow up where commercialism tells you “its okay to forget about our past, because we’ll always be able to meet your needs as an industry”. It’s a false security that corporations try to instill into our unconscious and conscious minds. It’s a security that we now no longer consider a luxury but are now considering as a necessity.

If a huge name brand department store chain closed down and stop serving that security through convenience. The buyers would than find another store to serve their convenience, and move on. What happens when the entire world of corporations closes down, I say “when” because it is proven through human history that civilizations always collapse. What happens when there are no grocery stores? Will those small ma and pa business open up shop to fill that need, surely you will not find a ma and pa department chain, so either way your level of luxury and convenience will change. You may have to adapt to finding your own food, standing in line for hours for a baked loaf of bread because there’s only a few shops in town that have the ingredients for bread.

This is why it is so important to pay attention to our past, if we need to restart civilization we will need to know where we’ve been in order to know where we need to go.

Ancient civilizations date back thousands of years, and their ways of providing for a community differ greatly to the modern life we live. But if we lose all the knowledge or ability to produce the convenience we have right now, we will need to look back on older civilizations for guidance, and instructions.

The problem with being able to look back at ancient civilizations for instruction and guidance is that we don’t even know a quarter of the civilizations that have lived no our planet, for all we know, we could have already been as technologically advanced as we are right now but gone through a cataclysm that destroyed all physical proof of there being a civilization.

There is a show on tv called “life after people”, it details how life would be if people just suddenly disappeared. the documentary states that in roughly 10,000 years there would be barely ANY trace record of our existence. We base our life of a degrading material world. The few structures that would remain would be massive stone structures. Metal would rust, plastic decomposes in thousands of years so there would be barely any evidence of a previous technologically advance civilization as advanced as ours.

However, previous to modern day, ancient civilizations did something that we stopped doing, recording our history in stone. If you consider a hypothetical situation of a massive cataclysm, such as a great flood, fast forward 25,000 years, the only record of civilization would be the records we currently have of previous ancient civilizations, wall carvings, hieroglyphics and such. The last knowledge we would have of any civilization could very well be the Egyptian hieroglyphics.

I believe very strongly that we should invest a little bit more into carving our history into stone. That way when our current modern civilization is lost, the knowledge that we have right now, can easily be found on a brick wall and some future human can enjoy a nice cup of coffee.

reply to post by srbouska


nice thoughts.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about THIS very subject..

nothing more desperate then a hungry human..
i feel there will be,, soon, plenty of us....

Boil coffee grounds and water on fire till simmering. Place a rag over a cup, to act as a filter. Pour coffee into cup. =] Add 10 sugars and 4 creams for maximum pleasure.

But yes, I see what you mean. The premise of becoming self-sufficient is an ideology that most people should consider. For with the Finite resources of this planet, I doubt Mr. Coffee will be around for much longer.

Your post reminds me of the book "World War Z" by Max Brooks.

If you have yet to read it, I highly suggest you do. Basically, it is the story of survivors from different parts of the world giving their stories about living through a zombie apocalypse.

In the book, to survive the people of the US have to 'retrain' themselves and become more varied and less specialized in their skills. Web page creators and patent lawyers take a backseat to gunsmiths and plumbers, for example.

I think, for the future of our race, if we are to have one, that we should all strongly consider branching out a bit in our 'professions', lest we lose the knowledge of our ancestors.

reply to post by GuiltyByDesign


Thanks for the book suggestion, i'll definately read it.
I think we should start a world wide project of engraving history... instead of just putting a couple of presidents faces on a mountain lets carve our existence!