The danger to civilisation now comes from us
Watched the Dinosaurs documentary on Netflix this weekend. Highly recommend, especially with kids.
Dinosaurs ruled this planet for 165 million years. Then an asteroid they never saw coming ended it all in a geological blink.
Put that in perspective.
Humans with abstract thinking, art, and complex language, what we’d call truly modern humans, have existed for maybe 50,000 to 100,000 years.
Civilisation as we know it? Writing, cities, organised society? Maybe 5,000 years.
The version with industrial-scale technology, global trade, and the ability to reshape the planet? Barely 200 years.
And the version with nuclear weapons, AI, and the ability to end all of it? Less than 100 years.
We solved the asteroid problem, by the way. NASA can now track and deflect them. The thing that wiped out 165 million years of dinosaurs, we’ve figured that one out.
And yet billions are being spent daily on war and destruction, making an already bad climate situation even worse.
The threats coming from the universe are becoming manageable. The ones we’re creating ourselves, not so much.
The dinosaurs had no choice. The asteroid just came.
We do. That’s what makes what’s happening right now so much harder to watch.
