Post by auntym on Oct 12, 2014 11:50:19 GMT -6
www.davidreneke.com/how-advanced-are-we-earthlings/
How Advanced Are We earthlings?
by Dave Reneke
Oct 3rd, 2014
We humans like to think ourselves pretty advanced and capable of almost anything– and with no other technology-bearing beings to compare ourselves to, our back-patting doesn’t have to take context into account.
After all, we harnessed fire, invented stone tools and the wheel, developed agriculture and writing, built cities, and learned to use metals.
Then, a mere few moments ago from the perspective of cosmic time, we advanced even more rapidly, developing telescopes and steam power; discovering gravity and electromagnetism and the forces that hold the nuclei of atoms together.
Meanwhile, the age of electricity was transforming human civilization. You could light up a building at night, speak with somebody in another city, or ride in a vehicle that needed no horse to pull it, and humans were very proud of themselves for achieving all of this. In fact, by the year 1899, purportedly, these developments prompted U.S. patent office commissioner Charles H. Duell to remark, “Everything that can be invented has been invented.”
We really have come a long way from the cave, but how far can we still go? Is there a limit to our technological progress? Put another way, if Duell was dead wrong in the year 1899, might his words be prophetic for the year 2099, or 2199? And what does that mean for humanity’s distant future?
Teenage Years
The answer to that question, in part, hinges on our longevity as a species. To advance far ahead in science, technology, and the wisdom to use them, we need time.
The history of life on Earth is a history of extinction, and despite the advances we’ve made to date, we’re still quite vulnerable, both to nature and to ourselves. Thus, the measure of how advanced we are, and how advanced we might someday become, is linked to our ability to avoid extinction.
With that in mind, Carl Sagan used to say humans are in a period of “technological adolescence.” We’re developing great physical powers, and depending on how wisely we use them we could mature into a species with a reasonable chance of reaching old age. Or, we’ll destroy ourselves because our technology has advanced more rapidly than our wisdom, or succumb to a natural disaster because our technology has not advanced quickly enough.
CONTINUE READING: www.davidreneke.com/how-advanced-are-we-earthlings/
How Advanced Are We earthlings?
by Dave Reneke
Oct 3rd, 2014
We humans like to think ourselves pretty advanced and capable of almost anything– and with no other technology-bearing beings to compare ourselves to, our back-patting doesn’t have to take context into account.
After all, we harnessed fire, invented stone tools and the wheel, developed agriculture and writing, built cities, and learned to use metals.
Then, a mere few moments ago from the perspective of cosmic time, we advanced even more rapidly, developing telescopes and steam power; discovering gravity and electromagnetism and the forces that hold the nuclei of atoms together.
Meanwhile, the age of electricity was transforming human civilization. You could light up a building at night, speak with somebody in another city, or ride in a vehicle that needed no horse to pull it, and humans were very proud of themselves for achieving all of this. In fact, by the year 1899, purportedly, these developments prompted U.S. patent office commissioner Charles H. Duell to remark, “Everything that can be invented has been invented.”
We really have come a long way from the cave, but how far can we still go? Is there a limit to our technological progress? Put another way, if Duell was dead wrong in the year 1899, might his words be prophetic for the year 2099, or 2199? And what does that mean for humanity’s distant future?
Teenage Years
The answer to that question, in part, hinges on our longevity as a species. To advance far ahead in science, technology, and the wisdom to use them, we need time.
The history of life on Earth is a history of extinction, and despite the advances we’ve made to date, we’re still quite vulnerable, both to nature and to ourselves. Thus, the measure of how advanced we are, and how advanced we might someday become, is linked to our ability to avoid extinction.
With that in mind, Carl Sagan used to say humans are in a period of “technological adolescence.” We’re developing great physical powers, and depending on how wisely we use them we could mature into a species with a reasonable chance of reaching old age. Or, we’ll destroy ourselves because our technology has advanced more rapidly than our wisdom, or succumb to a natural disaster because our technology has not advanced quickly enough.
CONTINUE READING: www.davidreneke.com/how-advanced-are-we-earthlings/