"The rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a pale blue dot" "Our imagined self importance, the delusion that we have some sort of privileged position in the universe are challenged by this point of pale light" -Carl Sagen We humans always thought of ourselves as special little privileged snowflakes who own the right to conquer the world. Willing to wipe out ancient species, cultures, races to become the momentary master of a fraction of a speck of dust. In a lot of ways, we as a species are special. We as a human species came into existence about 20,000 years ago there were at least six other species around. Cousins of comparable intelligence and physique, which must have been scary. Kind of like living with Aliens. Some of them were very successful. Homo Erectus for example survived for 2 million years. Ten times longer than modern humans have existed. The last of the other humans disappeared about 10, 000 years ago. Humans had the ability to make tools, but did not make a lot of progress for 2 million years, until they learned to control fire. Fire meant cooking, making meals more nutritious which contributed to the development of our brains. It also provided light and warmth which made nights shorter and winters less gruesome. On top of all that, it scared off our predators. At some point around 50, 000 years ago, there was an explosion in innovation. Tools and weapons became more sophisticated and cultures more complex. Because at this point, humans had a multi purpose brain and a more advanced language that could communicate with each other more efficiently and effectively and down to the last detail. This allowed much closer cooperation which made us different from any other creature on earth. Not our weak bodies or inferior senses, but the ability to cooperate flexibly unlike for example, Beehives or close but tiny wolf packs. As our brain evolved, we became able to do something that life had been unable to do until this point. One is expand knowledge quickly. Two, preserve that knowledge through the generations. Three, build on past knowledge to gain a deeper insight. This seems absurd but until then, information was passed down generation to generation mostly through genetics which was not efficient. For the next 40,000 years, human life remained more or less the same. There was very little to build upon. Our ancestors. Building a skyscraper without any knowledge of a house is well... hard. While it is easy to have an arrogant attitude on our ancestors, it would be pretty stupid. Humans 50,000 years ago were survival specialist. They had a detailed mental map of their territory. Their senses were fine tuned to their environment, and knew and memorised a huge amount of information about plants, animals, and survival tactics. They could carve intricate designs that would take years of training and very fine motor skills.Their bodies are comparable to our athletes today because of their normal lifestyle. Survival required so many skills, that he average human volume of an early modern humans might of even been bigger than it is today. As a group we know more today, but individually our ancestors were more superior. Suddenly about 12,000 years ago, everything changed very quickly. Before, survival as a hunter and forager required superb mental and physical abilities in all fields. In the rise of the agricultural age, individuals could increasingly rely on the skills of other for survival. This meant some of them could specialise. As farming grew more and more efficient, civilisation as we know, saw the light of day. Agriculture gave us a reliable and predictable food source. Which humans were able to hoard large amounts of food for the first time. Food-stocks required protection, which leaded to communities living closer to each other. The first early defence structures were built and the need for organisation grew. The more organised we got, the faster things became more efficient. Villages became cities, cities became kingdoms and kingdoms became empires. Connections between humans exploded which led to opportunities to exchange knowledge. Progress became exponential. About 500 years ago, the scientific revolution began. Math, Physics, Astronomy, and Chemistry transformed everything we thought we knew. The industrial revolution followed further which laid the foundations to the modern world. As our efficiency grew, more and more people could spend their lifetimes to contribute to the progress of humanity. Revolutions just became more frequent. The invention of a computer, a medium we use everyday in our pockets on a daily basis and the rise of the internet shaped the world. Its been about 250,000 generations since the emergence of the first human species. About 7,500 generations from the first physiologically modern human saw the light of day. 500 generations ago, what we called civilisation began, 20 generations ago we learned how to use science. And the internet became available to most people only a generation ago. Today we live in the most prosperous age humanity has ever experienced. We have to transformed this planet from the composition of the atmosphere to large scale changes to our landscapes and also the other animals who inhabit our planet. We light up the skies with artificial stars, we put people in a metal box in the sky, we put robots in other planets, we looked deep into the past of our universe with our mechanical eyes. Our knowledge and our way of acquiring and storing more of it has exploded, the average high school student today, knew more about the universe than a scholar a centuries ago. From here on out, there is no say in what the future holds for us. The next time you missed your train, your burger wasn't hot enough or if you fought with a Lego brick, remember how special our made-up human world is. Maybe its not worth being so upset about all those small things.
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