“If humanity survives to even a fraction of its potential life span then, strange as it may seem, we are the ancients: we live at the very beginning of history, in the most distant past. What we do now will affect untold numbers of future people.”
- from What we Owe the Future, by William McAskill.
That we might be the ancient ones is fascinating and also instantly makes me want to behave more interestingly so that our distant descendants have more to talk about. :-)
But seriously, this is an interesting and potentially perspective-changing insight I think.
I feel both disappointed and also greatly relieved that I won’t get to see what future people do with the world, but whatever they do and however they evolve, it will be based on a foundation built by us.
Even though our species has technically been around for at least a few hundred thousand years, modern civilization really only began three-to-four thousand years ago, when agriculture and trade allowed to us to develop a network of ‘urban’ settlements. What we think of as truly modern society was built only in the last few hundred years as science and philosophy rose to prominence in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Today, what we call ‘ancient civilizations’ - Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt etc - are a mere 120-160 generations ago.
So while we like to think of ourselves as highly developed, incredibly sophisticated beings who know how to do things like operate a microwave and use escalators, we are actually, evolutionarily-speaking, a stone’s throw from organizing the weekly buffalo hunt and scratching pictures of it onto our loft-inspired cave walls.
In some ways, this makes me feel better about our stumbling attempts to design and sustain democratic societies and heat our homes without poisoning each other, but in other ways, it sort of ups the ante.
Just a few hundred years ago our ancestors were discovering the Earth is round and that it rotates around the Sun. And here we are, today, manufacturing batteries and panels that can harness and store the energy from the Sun without belching smoke into our neighbor’s yard, and guiding space telescopes so that we can see past our own Sun and deep into the beginnings of the universe.
This seems amazing to me, and is a reflection of our core identity as curious, innovative, and creative people who are always intent on ‘improving’ - ourselves and our circumstances.
And sometimes it feels as though we’ve lost our way a bit regarding that identity.
In our ultra-modern (but really still ancient) moment, it seems like there are increasingly-influential forces that only want to stifle curiosity and limit ‘improvement’ especially if it means even the slightest suggestion of breaking with tradition, or choosing to support previously-marginalized parts of humanity.
But of course, it was always this way.
In our teeny, tiny brief history, there were always people who wanted all the wealth and the power and who sought to quash the science or the rebels and keep the serfs and the peasants in their place.
Our human endeavor and persistence has always prevailed though, and I have every reason to believe it always (at least as far as I can imagine into the future) will.
So, what systems, technologies, knowledge, or approaches are we now creating that will positively influence the course of our descendants’ lives? I wonder what decisions we are making that will either cause our future generations to say - ‘Those ancients sure were slow on the uptake’, or ‘Wow - those ancients really kicked it into gear!’
Perhaps…. we could predict what some of those decisions would be, based on what we already know is sustainable and beneficial - for everyone, including future everyones.
I think to think that 22 years into the 21st Century, we are turning a potentially mediocre performance into a solid story of ancient wisdom…..
From one ‘Ancient’ to another: Have a great Monday y’all.