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Actually, even now most of the world's surface is "mostly empty".

Even cultivated farmlands occupy only a small fraction of the empty areas on that map.

Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.

by linca (antonin POINT lucas AROBASE gmail.com) on Mon Jun 30th, 2008 at 12:58:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I think that's a little misleading. Tanguska was barely noticed and nobody died (although some hunters got a bit of a shock). Your map suggests something could impact most of continental USA without mishap. I venture to suggest that might not be realistic.

Yet back then there were still a few places where that might happen: Now, despite your map, there are vanishly few places on land where an explosion of that magnitude could happen and not have a considerable impact on a human population.

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Mon Jun 30th, 2008 at 01:05:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Actually, a similar event happening over Nevada would have good chances of hitting nobody. And you'll note that even the lightest areas of the USA on the  map are darker than Siberia, Sahara, Canada, the Amazon, and that the Oceans. I'd wager such an impact would have above 80 % chances of hurting nobody. That's not vanishingly few places...

Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
by linca (antonin POINT lucas AROBASE gmail.com) on Mon Jun 30th, 2008 at 04:47:37 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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