What would an infinite world look like?

[Freefall11111]

First, I ask that you suspend your disbelief. What I'm about to ask is obviously impossible, but I find it interesting regardless and I'd like to hear your thoughts. If you're going to argue about how the physics of such a world would work, don't bother, that's not the point.

Assume that Earth were instead an infinite plain. No matter how far you travel, you will always discover new land, new oceans, new mountains, and biomes are seemingly random since there are no hemispheres. Additionally, you can dig forever and never reach an end, and you can travel into space forever and never reach the Moon, the Sun, or any other planets. Finally, assume evolution works and humans exist. What would such a world look like, from our perspective? How would civilisation evolve? Would nations exist as they do now? How would we expand into the infinite land around us? Would governments organise slow expansion? Would we invest much more in developing transportation technology, or would we eventually accept that other people are too far away to ever visit?

TL;DR Earth is now Minecraft, how does it work?

[Selfi]

People would build dirt penises and burn down each other's houses.

[Krasny-Volny]

Minecraft.

[The Two Jerseys]

What would it look like?

Dark. Very dark.

[Quokkastan]

If you took the population of earth and transplanted it evenly onto a Niven ringworld (which is not infinite, just very big) you would, on average, never come across another human being even if you spent your entire life looking.

So my first thought, when it comes to an infinite world, is "lonely."

[Galloism]

I'd conquer as much of it as I could until I had an empire spanning from horizon to horiz-

Wait, damn. An empire so broad the sun never se-

Wait, infinite, but still has day/night? How does that work?

[Quokkastan]

I'd conquer as much of it as I could until I had an empire spanning from horizon to horiz-

Wait, damn. An empire so broad the sun never se-

Wait, infinite, but still has day/night? How does that work?

Umm... mirrors.

[New confederate ramenia]

People would probably have a lot more freedom, ideas such as existentialism or Platonic idealism would have a lot more influence.

I'd conquer as much of it as I could until I had an empire spanning from horizon to horiz-

Wait, damn. An empire so broad the sun never se-

Wait, infinite, but still has day/night? How does that work?

Ask Mojang

[The Romulan Republic]

First, I ask that you suspend your disbelief. What I'm about to ask is obviously impossible, but I find it interesting regardless and I'd like to hear your thoughts. If you're going to argue about how the physics of such a world would work, don't bother, that's not the point.

Assume that Earth were instead an infinite plain. No matter how far you travel, you will always discover new land, new oceans, new mountains, and biomes are seemingly random since there are no hemispheres. Additionally, you can dig forever and never reach an end, and you can travel into space forever and never reach the Moon, the Sun, or any other planets. Finally, assume evolution works and humans exist. What would such a world look like, from our perspective? How would civilisation evolve? Would nations exist as they do now? How would we expand into the infinite land around us? Would governments organise slow expansion? Would we invest much more in developing transportation technology, or would we eventually accept that other people are too far away to ever visit?

TL;DR Earth is now Minecraft, how does it work?

Well, the age of exploration would never end, their'd always be new land to settle and new resources to take, maybe less warfare, at least on the periphery of settled territory.

Probably not much space travel (or nothing beyond satellites/orbital stations, and even that would be... different without an actual orbit). Nothing to get to that way.

Science would be... really, really different, if it even existed. I'm not sure how such a world could even work without magic, so science as we know it probably wouldn't even work.

Eventually humanity would spread out so much that their would be regions of humanity that had never contacted one another.

Hmm... if their are no other celestial bodies in reach, does that mean their are never asteroid/comet impacts?

[The United States of North Amerigo]

People would build dirt penises and burn down each other's houses.

[Adytus]

That same feeling you get playing Minecraft?

[Adytus]

Minecraft.

Haha everyone thought that.

[Hydraic Empire]

Minecraft infinite worlds are not infinite.
Just pretty damn big.

[San Lumen]

I tried to think about this but it made my head hurt.

[Napkiraly]

Unless humanity was transplanted together and placed in areas close to each other, then pretty damn lonely.

Though I could pretend to then be the world's greatest conqueror and explorer. Ultimate LARPing.

[Quokkastan]

It stands to reason that there would be some climate variation on account of topography, but I don't suppose you would have dramatic differences like from the equator to the polar regions. Of course, that depends largely on how this works.

How does any of this work?

[Devon Teyson]

It would be cool.

[New confederate ramenia]

It stands to reason that there would be some climate variation on account of topography, but I don't suppose you would have dramatic differences like from the equator to the polar regions. Of course, that depends largely on how this works.

How does any of this work?

theres no equator or poles

[Quokkastan]

It stands to reason that there would be some climate variation on account of topography, but I don't suppose you would have dramatic differences like from the equator to the polar regions. Of course, that depends largely on how this works.

How does any of this work?

theres no equator or poles

Obviously, but are there areas that receive greater or lesser sunlight exposure? I don't know why there would be, but then I don't know how you get a singular sun to traverse the sky of an infinite world either.

[New confederate ramenia]

theres no equator or poles

Obviously, but are there areas that receive greater or lesser sunlight exposure? I don't know why there would be, but then I don't know how you get a singular sun to traverse the sky of an infinite world either.

I'd guess so. In Minecraft, there are different climates so there would probably be different climates in this world.

[Quokkastan]

First, I ask that you suspend your disbelief. What I'm about to ask is obviously impossible, but I find it interesting regardless and I'd like to hear your thoughts. If you're going to argue about how the physics of such a world would work, don't bother, that's not the point.

Assume that Earth were instead an infinite plain. No matter how far you travel, you will always discover new land, new oceans, new mountains, and biomes are seemingly random since there are no hemispheres. Additionally, you can dig forever and never reach an end, and you can travel into space forever and never reach the Moon, the Sun, or any other planets. Finally, assume evolution works and humans exist. What would such a world look like, from our perspective? How would civilisation evolve? Would nations exist as they do now? How would we expand into the infinite land around us? Would governments organise slow expansion? Would we invest much more in developing transportation technology, or would we eventually accept that other people are too far away to ever visit?

TL;DR Earth is now Minecraft, how does it work?

At some point, this is going to cause fusion.

So one likely answer to your "What would an infinite world look like?" query is "bright."

Of course, sooner or latter it would also cause the whole thing to collapse into a singularity, so an even more likely answer would be "small and dark."

[The Blaatschapen]

Well, I will assume that humanity starts out at one place (the infWorld equal of Africa). Then it spreads out in migrating waves. Then some of those develop agriculture and starting empires. Thus far, nothing is different from the RL world. After all, back in those days (at least pre-agriculture), the RL world might well have been infinite for all intents and purposes.

Humanity would continue expanding infinitely. Lesser succesful 'tribes' would always move outwards with agricultural settlers behind them. Maybe the settled empires will go to war, though it will be different when there's infinite amount of land. After all, why die if you can move and start anew. On that note, I wonder if we'd even get empires, or just vast swaths of semi-autonomic villages with a few cities (in places with a surplus of resources, think river deltas).

And of course, constant expansion.

[Neo Bavaria]

It would probably take a while to walk across it

[Troperia]

An infinite world would look like NationStates if every single nation in the game exists physically.

[Hirota]

First, I ask that you suspend your disbelief. What I'm about to ask is obviously impossible, but I find it interesting regardless and I'd like to hear your thoughts. If you're going to argue about how the physics of such a world would work, don't bother, that's not the point.

Assume that Earth were instead an infinite plain.

The Long Earth series of books has a similar approach, but there are multiple parallel earths that are trivially easy to reach, and which are by and large completely unpopulated.