Humanity: How far a/b…head are we?

Sean Carrol in his introduction to the podcast he hosted back in August of 2020 with Nick Bostrom, says how it could be considered surprising to have found ourselves so early on in the history of human civilization as he performs his segue into the main topic of his podcast.

His exact words were:

Human civilization is only a few thousand years old (depending on how we count). So if civilization will ultimately last for millions of years, it could be considered surprising that we’ve found ourselves so early in history.

Well, I think it would be surprising only if we are unable to envision a future for humanity millions of years from now. And let’s be honest, it isn’t an easy feat. We’re pretty bent out of shape fixating on the near future and focusing on our present, which I guess according to any psychotherapist would be a good thing in fact. But that isn’t how I mean it.

We have so far spent the last few centuries at least, thinking about how the future would look like; technological advancements, scientific breakthroughs, innovations that boggles our minds just to imagine. And we have seemingly performed miracles doing not just the “impossible” but things, not even the wildest, craziest ones could’ve fathomed, by going to the moon, making reusable rockets, capturing blackholes in pictures, and now we want to go live on Mars, not just visit it but make it habitable. Who could blame us for not having thought that far ahead? I mean millions of years? We’ve already started doing sci-fi things meant to be a reality — well basically — never!

On top of all that, there’s the constant threat of extinction, not just ours but that of life as we know it. We’ve spent the past few decades obsessed over it and yet hardly doing anything about it at the same time!

Anyway! While all of this is happening and we keep bathing in nostalgia, mooning over stuff like the anus mirabilis, there are people like David Mermin thinking of how today’s science and technology could practically be moot in only a century from today. And it’s true. History and experience suggest that to be the truth and it will be the truth.

Anyway, my point is, it shouldn’t be surprising that this is so early on in the history of human civilization. This is literally just the beginning. I mean come on! Even Dinosaurs lived for millions of years.

We’ve imagined at most a few thousand years from now.

We’ve barely done anything, being surprised would be not only ignorance but a sign of being oblivious to the immensity of our capabilities as humans. We’re just Now getting started and there’s so much to do, so much we can do and a really long way to go. We’re only now starting to scratch the surface and see what our minds are capable of doing. Even in the event of an unforeseen doomsday, we will emerge victorious. And that is not arrogance.

We haven’t all that much foresight.