The Short Human History
Today, at Daily KOS I came across a very thought provoking article on how to think about the scale of human history. The article discusses human history in increments of a single human lifespan. It illustrates just how short human history is:
“Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., one the United States' great historians, is less than two lifetimes removed from a world where the
Not impressed? It's only two more life spans to William Shakespeare. Two more beyond that, and the only Europeans to see
Sixty life times ago, a man named Abram left
In your lifetime alone you will add one more percent to the length of the human experience, a whole 25% to American history and more than double the length of the computer age. This really makes one lifetime seem a lot more important on the face of human history (as long as you don’t consider the vast number of people in one age category).
Labels: society
2 Comments:
That is remarkably cool. In terms of depth, we're not nearly so insignificant!
But yeah, looking at breadth....and then the cosmos...
But yeah, looking at breadth....and then the cosmos...
Who was the bastard that came up with relativity?! Besides Einstein.
This really makes one lifetime seem a lot more important on the face of human history
Yeah, it does, except I'm not so sure that this article takes into account the really short lifespans of previous generations.
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