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200,000 years ago we did not exist as a species. 2500 years ago stabbing each other with iron weapons was literally cutting edge technology. In the past 200 y

200,000 years ago we did not exist as a species. 2500 years ago stabbing each other with iron weapons was literally cutting edge technology. In the past 200 years we have invented: production automobile, airplanes, space flight, launched probes into interstellar space, computers, the internet, ... We have discovered relativity, quantum mechanics, galaxies, ... Assuming we are able to survive, imagine where we'll be in 200k years. Actually you can't. It's just impossible to even begin to try to imagine that. On that scale we'll likely have even begun to experience evolutionary speciation as we settle different regions of space and end up with extended periods of relative isolation. And now consider that this entire timeline is but 400k years. That's not even a blink in the eye of the cosmos.

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jacobush 8y ago
It took billions of years before complexity started. We don't even know if that is a long time or a short time. We may be among the first.
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  Absolutely. The point I was making there is that imagine there was another perfect clone of our solar system that was identical in every single way and its timeline was 99.995% identical to ours. Intuitively you'd think that they'd probably be at, more or less, the same point in their development. But that 0.005% is the difference between between glorified monkeys and widespread civilizations launching objects and people into space. And if we add another 0.005% to where we are now, everything we know leads us to believe that the change will be even more extreme since our current technological trajectory remains on a very sharp exponential curve upwards with no reason to expect it to end. As an aside these numbers are also based on the age of the Earth. Looking at the age of the universe would probably be more reasonable and would lead to even more extreme results.
  - jacobush 8y ago
    Hm, fair enough. We just don't know a great many things. :)

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jacobush 8y ago

It took billions of years before complexity started. We don't even know if that is a long time or a short time. We may be among the first.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago
Absolutely. The point I was making there is that imagine there was another perfect clone of our solar system that was identical in every single way and its timeline was 99.995% identical to ours. Intuitively you'd think that they'd probably be at, more or less, the same point in their development. But that 0.005% is the difference between between glorified monkeys and widespread civilizations launching objects and people into space. And if we add another 0.005% to where we are now, everything we know leads us to believe that the change will be even more extreme since our current technological trajectory remains on a very sharp exponential curve upwards with no reason to expect it to end. As an aside these numbers are also based on the age of the Earth. Looking at the age of the universe would probably be more reasonable and would lead to even more extreme results.
- jacobush 8y ago
  Hm, fair enough. We just don't know a great many things. :)