Will Manhattan be the Next Atlantis?
Do you ever think that? You know, that Manhattan, with all its skyscrapers and trash, might just sink into the Atlantic Ocean.
It just seems like it could happen one day. One day when there are flying cars and powdered meals.
Then hundreds of thousands of years after that, people would read Frank O’Hara and mythologize what New York City would’ve been like. What do you think? What would last? What would be misunderstood?
Would they think our gods were Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, that we were some advanced-for-our-time goddess-worshipping society? When really we treat them like ladymeat.
I guess what I’m wondering most is what would they think we were? Would they get us right? Could they get us right? Can you explain, or know, a society simply from what they’ve written down, or would there be gaps, missing pieces in the New York-puzzle?
What do you think?
Are we bound to sink into the ocean? Maybe it’ll be the exact opposite, and Manhattan will just keep growing (you know, miles have been added to the coast of the island from build up of trash and gunk) and cover the entire sea?
March 26, 2008 at 12:42 pm
At the current rate of global warming, Manhattan is set to be underwater up to Wall street in a few generations. Flying cars will speed this process. Subways will be new coral reefs.
I think New York will be looked back upon mostly as an experiment that imploded.
March 26, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Yes. We’re sinking. Paris and Britney will end up being our ‘goddesses’. I never even thought of that and I’m totally thinking that’s how it may end up now.
Every time I’m in the subway, I’m amazed the weight above doesn’t come crashing down on all our thrifty asses. Maybe taking a cab everywhere is a good idea, if mostly just an abuse of money.
March 26, 2008 at 6:20 pm
I think there was actually a movie/documentary made about that recently that showed the earth’s average temperature would only have to increase 6 degrees (which at this point would only take a matter of somewhere around a decade) in order for manhattan to be entirely under water.
March 26, 2008 at 9:27 pm
I found this kind of weird to think about since I remember the big thing back in elementary school saying that California would fall off because of the tectonic plates. To me, the thought of Manhattan being underwater is absolutely absurd, but then I think about all of the islands down by my house and around the Outer Banks that have been formed by hurricanes. If an island large enough for habitation can be formed from a few days of rough weather, then why can’t global warming sink New York?
http://www.thegully.com/essays/world/020606_global_warming_nyc.html
also, I haven’t seen An Inconvenient Truth because I’m all for stopping Global Warming but Al Gore seems like a sketch-ball-hypocrite to me, however I found this interesting …
http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?id=1539318&vid=88437
March 31, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Atlantis is reported recently on the History Channel to be the lost island of Minos. The story goes that the island of Minos was around for quite while but it disappeared. Well scientific evidence states that the inhabitants built their civilization on top of a active volcanic area. Sub-mariners have found intact pottery and other goodies that were radioactively tested for their dates.
I don’t want to sound pessimistic but the only way for stuff to become legends such as cities and such is for it to be non-existent. Look at Rome, its nowhere as legendary as it was then back in the past.
As for Global Warming, I believe the notion that the Earth is going through a hot stage now.
April 1, 2008 at 9:38 pm
I don’t think it will matter, It will be left in history, and will be noted (if people survive natures population control) but I hope it will go the way of futurama. Everyone being just as ignorant as they are now, just with cooler technology. And hopefully they will mess up all of our history too… i think it’d be funny if everything everybody worked so hard for was just suddenly lost.
Not so much haha funny, but um…. ouch, too bad funny. Or whatever… I don’t know how to put it
April 2, 2008 at 12:47 pm
oh man, this reminds me, has anyone else seen Happy Accidents?
It’s the movie with Marrissa Tomai and she lives in NYC and she falls in lov e with this guy who is actually a timetravleer from the future and in his time, he’s from Dubuque Iowa, which is, in his words “The Atlantic Coast” (because it It moved inland after the icecaps melted)
April 2, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Fortunately we all have digital cameras so the whole world will be overdocumented and there will be nothing to forget.
April 14, 2008 at 12:18 pm
I saw some disturbing program on global warming, and watched a computer-generated manhattan become a swimming pool. I looked out my window to make sure that it wasn’t happening.
What if the earth is slowly becoming the water planet? I mean, hell, it’s mostly water already. What if everything that’s happened with global warming and ice caps melting is just nature’s way of progressing? What if people evolved so as to destroy what was and make way for what will be? Maybe there’s a reason fish have survived since before dinosaurs…
trippy…
April 28, 2008 at 2:59 pm
new york doesnt seem to be like it was before anyways, so either way is going to be inexistent because nature wants it to or because all the rich people are buying and re-constructing it which pretty much takes away all the cool stuff about new york, or since the economy is going down so quick most likely by next year we will be in a depression and then supposedly there’s some big glacier that is about to melt down, and when it does, and this huge rock falls there’s gonna be a tsunami style wave that will cover Manhattan, and it can happen at any time, its pretty scary… who knows.