Progress 2

Hunting Mastodons

 I've written about progress before. But that was from the 1970s to now.

But think about the past 100 years, progress since 1920. Or from 1820. My grandmother's grandfather (my great-great grandfather) was born in 1835 and died in 1905. His name was Martin Luther Parks. 

It's likely he never saw a car nor had electricity. He probably never heard the word "computer" and if you said "smart phone" to him, he'd likely give you a blank look (the phone was invented in 1876). In fact, he had more in common with Julius Cesar than he does with me. And Cesar died about 1,900 years before Martin was born.

Humans (homo sapiens) came around about 100,000 years ago. For half that time (around 50,000 years) they were hunter/gathers who lived in caves or rudimentary shelters. Then they invented agriculture and that allowed there to be excess food which allowed cities to form and people to not spend their entire existence search for food. Writing was invented. Math was invented. Government was, unfortunately, invented.

But for half of human existence we were fighting for survival with animals. Humans in 90,000 BC were just as smart as today, but they didn't know anything.

Still, after civilization arose 50,000 years ago, it took until, really, the industrial revolution in the late 1700s before people's lives improved much more.

At the rate of scientific progress today, in 100 years humans may be unrecognizable. We might live as computer programs or in robot bodies. I don't know. But as a science fiction writer, I should have some ideas. And I do.

Where do you think humans will be in 100 years? What's your vision of the future? Let me know in the comments below.