3 ms·
> It's crazy humans have evolved in less than 0.1% (300k years) of that lower range. What you mean and what you are suggesting are two different things. Homo s
by Maursault 4y ago
> It's crazy humans have evolved in less than 0.1% (300k years) of that lower range.
What you mean and what you are suggesting are two different things. Homo sapiens evolved from a similar species less than 300K years ago, not in less than 300K years! It took 62.5M years for humans to evolve from the small mammals that survived the impact that killed the dinosaurs. It was a mere 2.3M years ago when the first humans walked the earth, a species we now call Homo habilis.
- barbazoo 4y agoYou're right, what I meant was that our species, homo sapiens branched off not that long ago, about 300k years. From what we were then to what we are now in an astronomical blink of an eye. And given the exponential growth of development and innovation in the last couple thousand years. And to think we still 400k years to go on earth is just mind boggling.
- _Algernon_ 4y agoVery little happened in those 300k years which is why we survived so long. There are a lot more human created existential threats now than 500years ago such as climate change and nuclear weapons. If shit goes wrong enough just once the next 400M years we have a nuclear war on our hands. Even extremely low probabilities are likely to occur over such long time ranges. Add to that that bootstrapping a new complex society like we have now is going to be a lot harder without easily accessible fossil fuels and it seems highly unlikely that we will survive in such a way that we could save life on earth from some future crisis.