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cesium133:
I finally got around to reading 20020. One thing that I didn't find addressed in it: obviously, college football is still a thing, but what happens to the colleges themselves? With no new generations coming up, there would be no new students. There may be a few that come back to get more degrees, but with tens of thousands of years, you could take every major and still have tons of time left over. And there are probably very, very few who would actually want to do that. So, presumably by 20020, there are no (or very few) students left. 17776 emphasized the lack of technological development, which likely means there is little research activity at these universities. Athough, who knows, maybe with all the time in the world and little inclination for scientific development, there could be a renaissance of the humanities -- though it seems unlikely, given the lack of intellectual interest in general. So, most likely, in 20020, all that's left of the universities is sports. Which, honestly, doesn't sound that surprising to me.  :psyduck:

FreshScrod:

--- Quote from: cesium133 on 29 Nov 2020, 11:09 ---I finally got around to reading 20020. One thing that I didn't find addressed in it: obviously, college football is still a thing, but what happens to the colleges themselves? With no new generations coming up, there would be no new students. There may be a few that come back to get more degrees, but with tens of thousands of years, you could take every major and still have tons of time left over. And there are probably very, very few who would actually want to do that.

--- End quote ---
I think higher-education will always be around. Even if they only do research, there are some subjects that I think we'll never run out of fascinating questions. The "pure intellect" subjects like math or philosophy, or esthetics, definitely, but even experimental subjects like physics or chemistry - if we run out of physics to study, there's more chemistry, and if we run out of chemistry, there's more biology, etc. - there's always a more complex experimental subject.

--- Quote from: cesium133 on 29 Nov 2020, 11:09 ---17776 emphasized the lack of technological development, which likely means there is little research activity at these universities. Athough, who knows, maybe with all the time in the world and little inclination for scientific development, there could be a renaissance of the humanities -- though it seems unlikely, given the lack of intellectual interest in general. So, most likely, in 20020, all that's left of the universities is sports. Which, honestly, doesn't sound that surprising to me.

--- End quote ---
I didn't think of that. If there's no intellectual interest, then maybe "college" becomes all the tertiary college activities, but it could be more than just sports. It's kinda like how public libraries are becoming more like community centers, that happen to also have these whachamajigs they give out to some strange people - only joking, I love reading. Maybe some gradual changes that, at each moment, seem to preserve the identity of what it means to be a college, to something we might not recognize.
You know? I think the idea that football will survive so long, is a bit of a stretch. How many ancient games do we still play today? Especially if there's an unintellecual culture, I think the sports would be transformed so much, and the names of the sports, too. With so much time the same old things will get boring after a while.

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