Is This The Best Time Ever To Be Alive?
There is a question that has been on my mind for almost as long as I can remember. I recall being a small child of about 10 or so, and suddenly being struck by just how goddamned lucky I was to be alive.
My feelings of good fortune were not just restricted to being alive in general, but more to the fact that I had been born in the mid-to-late twentieth century.
Later in my teens I would come back to the question of; have I just been accidentally born into the best moment of human history?
The problem with answering such a question, is it takes the ability to be able to jump from an anthropocentric point of view, to an objective one. Not just on an individual level, but on a societal level as well, something I'm not sure is possible, however let's attempt to ponder our position in human history.
The Medical Argument
The medical argument is probably the strongest one, in Victorian times in the UK one of the most common causes of death happened via toothache. Simple infections not only could, but did often lead to death.
The fact remains that over 85% of the medicines in use today were synthesised between 1970 and 1992. This has to be good news for me and everyone whom has access to said medicines.
Discovery
The English polymath, Thomas Young, who died in 1829, was considered to be the last man on earth to know everything.
This was in part because he was extremely clever, however also due largely to the fact that, there wasn't nearly as much to know as there is now.
By that I mean that the entire gathered scribbling of human knowledge, could be held in a single person's head. Now of course it would be impossible to learn everything humans have ever learned.
Egalitarian
Had I been born but a few hundred years earlier, I would have lived under feudal protection. Unless I was born of noble birth I, and everyone around me would be eeking out a pretty miserable existence.
OK, things aren't perfect now, but it's hard to argue that they are not better than before in respect to opportunity for betterment.
Mortality
Upon watching the first nuclear explosion on earth, Robert J. Oppenheimer uttered the now immortal words; "...and now I am become like death, destroyer of worlds"
However maybe it is death we shall overcome, not only are our medical advances meaning that we're living about 30 years longer than we were 150 years ago. Digitising our consciousnesses, is something that could be probable in the not too distant future.
By the time I reach 80, the life expectancy in the UK could well be 120-150.
By the time I reach 150, we may just be uploading our minds to the cloud.
And So To The Blockchain
Clearly one of the best things to be happening right now is the blockchain revolution. To be alive at a time when the whole economic structure of the human race is going through such revolution, is nothing short of breathtakingly lucky.
Our great-grandchildren will look upon this moment with hushed awe, and yet here we are!
Antrhopocentricity
Hmm, technically not a word, but hey, it brings us back quite nicely to the main point. Is this really the most amazing time ever; or does everyone think that?
Did the ancient Egyptians think that as they put up the pyramids? Or perhaps if I were a Roman soldier two and a half millennia ago I'd feel as if I was living in the most modern, most amazing times.
Or maybe if I hadn't been born yet, and were to come to this world shortly after the advent of quantum computing. Would I look back to now wishing that I had been born fifty odd years earlier?
Hmmm, somehow I doubt that last one; perhaps this is the point. Just like our children, each generation improves upon the last one, perhaps the grass is always greener, and each generation throws up it's own wonders for its denizens to marvel at.
WHAT DO YOU THINK STEEMIANS; ARE WE LIVING IN THE BEST TIMES OR DOES EVERYONE THINK THAT NO MATTER WHEN THEY'RE BORN? AS EVER, LET ME KNOW BELOW!
This is the first time I am getting myself involved in this kind of topic.
If you look from the point that everything is real, then this is the best possible moment to live, born at the perfect time. But from the standpoint of new theories and breakthroughs of possibly living in a matrix like simulation, then it's questionable.
Why?
The most important thing for mankind is to survive with as little use of resources as possible (whether material or mental),and to reproduce.
So, our brain will create everything that we need at the moment to survive. But nothing more. Evolution is very simplistic. Brain reduces in size due to a more friendly environment, and in some point, there will no need to have one once 3 conditions are fulfilled - food availability, life protection and reproduction. Anthropologically, brain reduces in size by 10% in last 20k years. For the main reason, you needed to be a lot more smarter then in order to survive compared to now.
So, maybe we are living in the best possible time on Earth, or maybe we are just thinking that we are living in the best time possible.
Now, I've had the time of my life. :D
Any way, if you are interesting, maybe you will love to see the Theory of Simulation (2017). Something that my husband point at me, and I watch it last night, so if you have little time of the best time of your life, you could take a look. It's a pure science, no 'conspiracy theory' and similar, but enough scientific material to put you into a full trip.
Very interesting topic and a fantastic list of benefits of living in our time!
I think that what you wrote last is true. Human civilization is progressing more and more each century; there haven't been any real setbacks so far as I know. Thus, I believe that we are living in the best time of the current history, but the same was probably true for each of the centuries/millenniums behind us. It's probably only important to skip living in the overly destructive periods, such as world wars and horrible pandemics.
I would also like to add that the availability of the benefits of today's time depend on where were you born. If you are born in a poor family in one of the underdeveloped countries, you have very little to gain from many of the listed benefits. Hopefully, the wealth distribution will be much fairer in the future.
One note on mortality: if we would overcome death that would be horrible. The world is already overcrowded, and if we would make more children without dying, that would inevitably lead to wars or unfair life/death selections. I like to believe that everything on the Earth is interconnected, that we are all a bit of everyone and we keep going through a uniform cycle of life - evolution, thus our individual death is not really the death of life.
P.S. The picture you used for this article goes superbly well with your avatar.
Cheers! : )
As I was writing this I started to branch off and address that very thing, however it is a huge subject in itself so I decided to avoid it for this one. However you're right, and I'm acutely aware of this horrific imbalance, I have had a family member die in Nigeria for something that is completely treatable here in the UK.
Cg
Interesting insight. Indeed, circumstances such as where you were born, severely limit some of the benefits mentioned by @cryptogee. That's a major point the world could improve on.
Beautiful sentiment about Earth being interconnected too. It gives a more hopeful and compassionate perspective towards everything in life.
I believe that I doesn't matter when you were born. You could argue that in the 1800s there was no real medicine and that most people died from what is now a silly disease that is treatable with just a pill, but back then Global Warming wasn't an issue and people enjoyed a cleaner environment and greener grass. In the future, humans might be able to live for hundreds or even thousands of years, possibly merging with machines and having virtually no disabilities, discovering space and colonizing knew planets, but we would still have something better than them let it be more humanity, better morals, or who knows what they will look back at and see us better in than them. As an Egyptian, I like to believe that our ancestors built the pyramids as a memorial of their hard work in life and the blessings they achieved and I think that is what truly matters, that we leave something for the generations to come to remember us with otherwise we'll just be forgotten. But what do I know, i'm just another random guy on the internet :)
A random guy with some great opinions :-)
Cg
Thanks :) I love seeing people talking about philosophical subjects here on steemit.
I definitely think we are living in the best and most exciting times ever. But I'm an optimist and a futurist. It's thrilling to me to be on the leading edge of things and to imagine how current developments in technology, philosophy, and our understanding of the cosmos might spiral out into future possibilities. Not everyone is an optimist or a futurist. Many people are luddites and cynics, and I've often heard people opine about the "good old days" of simpler life in an agrarian society. So I guess it's subjective. And I think that people in times past would have been similarly split in their views.
Yeah it's interesting, as I read your comment and others on this post, I think what it is that the further back you go, the more well of you would have to be to say; 'we are living in the best time', for instance a well off Victorian industrialist may well have said that, not so for the 8 year old's working in his factories.
Still today there is inequality, however the number of people whom might say we're living in the best times has grown exponentially, maybe this is at the heart of progress . . .
Great to hear from you again by the way! :-)
Cg
Good to be back!
Time is only considered within. Innovations in the field of health extend the human lifespan. We are in the early stage for this. I wish we were back in nature as a natural life. We would continue to share this world with different living species. I agree with all your ideas. Each period is magnificent in itself. I have to be ahead of my father, my son must be ahead of me. Science, life, life will all be better in the future. As long as we can transfer this world to future generations in the same way.
I think a lot of your reasoning is sound. Medical for sure. Having just experienced a medical scare I can fully attest to the wonders of modern medicine. I think if I had to choose though I would pick a little earlier time. I want that time when you could travel anywhere without the fear of getting kidnapped or killed or whatever. I want that time when kids played outside and again didn't face the bad stuff they face now. It's hard, no matter how far back you go when you consider a lifetime you always have to worry about wars. You always have to worry about some form of discrimination for certain groups of people. It's funny, I had a great idea in my head of what I wanted to write, but as I started typing it up myself started saying to me "You like the 60's and 70's but what about Viet Nam, you like the 80's but what about the cold war? You like the 40's and 50's, but what about segregation..."
Very nice musing. This has definitely made me think...
I know so many people who are always 'doom and gloom' and praise the 50's for it's simplicity (not my words!) or believe that our generation is destroying the earth etc. Throughout my life and still, I am an eternal optimist, so quite naturally I believe these are wonderful times! Also, in university as an english/history and sociology student, I quickly realised the positives in this era as compared to many many horrors of the past. But most significantly, as a teenager I remember my grandparents coming over to visit simply to see our new microwave. My father throughout the evening kept putting cheese on bread inside the microwave so my grandma and grandpa could watch the cheese melt. They sat in awe, for hours, watching our 'microwave tv' :) That was my first 'ah-ha'moment...realising just how lucky I was! Cheers!
I've had this thought for a while that what if you're the last person dying off of natural death before achieving immortality either due biological breakthroughs or uploading our minds to clouds. Knowing on your death bed that the technology is almost there but not early enough before your body gives up. Terrifying!
dies pointing middle fingers to his relatives,
RIP, mortal grandpa
Haha! A very endearing image! :-)
Cg
You make very solid points, and I myself have had those thoughts as well.
It even supports the argument that we maybe in a simulated reality, simply because we are born (and had become conscious ) at the right time. We can say that lots of people have had very hard life 200 to 20,000 years ago, but who's to say they are real? The only one thing you know is that you are real and that you are conscious. Are you for certain that you were born lucky or were you born exactly at the right time because it was meant to be and that because this is a simulated world and you are a player who is conscious and everybody that lived before us or even me is just a simulation that you were meant to interact with. I know for sure I am conscious and I'm damn lucky to have lived in this moment of time or am I really just lucky? I'll leave it at that., but this was definitely a great read.
I have pondered the simulated environment question, and I came up with a little formula, if P ≠ NP, then we are not living in a sim, because a hyper advanced computer wouldn't be able to come up with problems it couldn't solve itself.
If you're interested to find out more, check out https://steemit.com/simulateduniverse/@cryptogee/can-we-prove-we-are-living-in-a-sim-yes-we-can
Cg
Well I am the kind of person that views the future as good so I would have probably preferred to live 1 million years in the future assuming everything was good. If we are talking about comparing this time to the past then I assume this is the best time to live. We are the most technologically advanced we have ever been so that helps. Some people think that we have missed out tho. Since technology is starting to dictate peoples lives.