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The opposite of a paradox

The paradox is that, because of that the longer a civilization survives, the less visible it would be in the geological record.

That's not a paradox though. More of an archaeological inconvenience.

It's a paradox because a plausible first thought is that the longer a civilization exists, the more artefacts it leaves for future archeologists to find.

The really long term truth might be the opposite, hence there's a paradox (in one sense of the word).

Not a paradox, just an indication that these authors (and you) are not good at thinking like archaeologists. As an archaeologist myself, this whole paper reads like complete nonsense.

I don't think we can imply that 'sustainable' means 'less geological evidence'.

Biologically-produced oxygen resulted in one of the worst mass extinction, with ample geological evidence, but turned out to be quite sustainable.

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