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There's nothing but anthropocentrism to imply we're it. Another technological species may emerge at any time, especially if we nuke ourselves or are overtaken
by bro-stick 11y ago
There's nothing but anthropocentrism to imply we're it. Another technological species may emerge at any time, especially if we nuke ourselves or are overtaken by antibiotic-immune pandemic/s. It would likely happen gradually as a species diverges from one of the social apex predators. There would probably be several overlapping species competing and interbreeding.
- adrianN 11y agoI'm pretty sure that currently being the only species that has any hope of stopping an Earth-killing asteroid makes us the dominant species. As long as humans are around I think it's unlikely that another species will develop technology unless we engineer it to do so.
- bro-stick 11y agoAbsolutely wrong. No species engineered us, that was natural selection. If it can happen once, it can happen again.
- andrewchambers 11y agoCan it happen under our noses? Will humans interfere and destroy the process, or will we help it happen.
- eru 11y agoI share your scepticism about anthropocentrism. > [...] or are overtaken by antibiotic-immune pandemic/s [...] Unlikely. Even without any antibiotics, pandemics might kill in the order of 50% of the population (see black death in Europe for example), but as long as a few thousand immune people survive they can rebuild.
- bro-stick 11y agoThat makes a big assumption that all pandemics are not 100%. A total extinction event could be something else: long-lived radiation beam or large impact. Furthermore, some event need not kill all humans but only enough to allow another species room to master its environment and begin to develop technologies.