Current Events > It's pretty crazy how our lives, and human history is just a speck in time

(+) Yeah! (+)

Our time here is a tiny, tiny fraction of the Earth's timespan. Hundred years ago we started industrializing. Before that, we were all running on steam and fire. Civilization only started 7000 years ago. Homo sapiens came into existence around 300,000 years ago. A couple of million years earlier, we had monkeymen/homohabilis. Then 60 million years ago, we had dinosaurs. Another 165 million, we still had dinosaurs. Then a billion years ago we had things that were kind of like animals. 3.7 billion years ago is when life started and microbes appeared.

It's fucking wild to think our time here is a speck in reality. So many things lived and died over billions of years. When you put things into perspective, it's all so grand and wild.

And we don't even have jetpacks.

DrizztLink posted...

And we don't even have jetpacks.

Give it another hundred years...or two.

Yep.
But most people don't want to humble themselves too much so they never give it much thought...
....except perhaps for those moments where they are about to screw over another person ; then it becomes incredible convienant justification. ...

I always think, should I feel lucky that I was born in the right time to experience digital entertainment, to be able to get around the world in cars and planes.

I could have been a caveman or I could have been a person living in the cobbled stone London, living with rats and disease in every street.

But then, if I'm born like another 500 years later, would life be even more fascinating with androids like detroit decome human or replicants from blade runner? Could medical technology be advanced to like the cyberpunk sci-fis?
Will there be generation interstallar ships?

Like tears in rain

you might find this interesting https://longnow.org/clock/

it's a project to design and construct a massive clock intended to keep time for the next 10000 years. which means approximately as far into the future as we currently are from the beginning of civilization. thinking about time at this scale is a pretty weird feeling since basically nothing humanity has ever built is designed to last anywhere near that long

we're in such an AMAZING speck of time too. this is peak humanity. we'll be dying right as the world starts its inevitable SHARP decline (we're already in a decline - but not a sharp one)

Actually, when I put it into perspective....we still have a long ways to go. There's still so much left for humans. Dinosaurs existed for millions of years. Imagine if we don't go extinct, and exist for a couple of million years. How much will we advance? We've discovered and created so much in such a small amount of time. Imagine what we can do in a million years.

God created it all.

Your mortal life on Earth is entirely temporary.

Your soul is eternal.

Youll be with God in heaven forever.

RashodBateman posted...

God created it all.

Your mortal life on Earth is entirely temporary.

Your soul is eternal.

Youll be with God in heaven forever.

Ehh. The only thing that God did...might be the big bang...and maybe quantum fluctuations. After that, everything that has existed has done so because of their own will and desire to live and change. Also, I really don't think heaven exists. The universe might just exist infinitely. It's already been here for 13 billion years. That's a damn long time. A heaven wouldn't be necessary. Also, reincarnation might exist.

Or everything is just a lie. Time of the earth, the universe, space.

Maybe we are all prisoners living in a prison we can't see, smell, touch.

Yeah. But the future still seems nonexistent.

MedeaLysistrata posted...

Yeah. But the future still seems nonexistent.

How so? I think we've done well to survive. Covid. World War 2. The black plague. The great Homo-sapien/Neanderthal war. I think we'll last for at least another 100,000 years with how far we've come and the things that we have created.

But really, if we go extinct in 50 years, that means our grand civilization only lasted 7000 years. That means homo-sapiens only lasted 307,000 years. Kind of sad when compared to the Dinosaurs.

Crescente posted...

Kind of sad when compared to the Dinosaurs.

"dinosaurs" are not just a single monolithic entity

do you actually know how long any given species of dinosaur lived for? I'm sort of curious, I tried to look it up but couldn't find anything

History began when Queen Elizabeth was born.

It ended a week ago.

kirbymuncher posted...

"dinosaurs" are not just a single monolithic entity

do you actually know how long any given species of dinosaur lived for? I'm sort of curious, I tried to look it up but couldn't find anything

I think several million years for each species. The T.Rex was on Earth for 2.4 million years.