History. The Middle Part...
...We're in it.
The Earth is not at the end of its life. It's not at the beginning. It's probably right smack dab in the middle of its existence, and humanity is also at the midpoint, roughly, of our era as the dominant species on it.
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Our staff remember a neighbor of ours back in the early winter of 1999 who bought into the "end of times" talk by religious folk and others concerning the coming new millennium and the disasters that were sure to follow. She planned on moving up to the mountains when the rapture or whatever form of armageddon occurred on New Year's Day 2000. The poor woman. But she was and is not alone in her fear of the future.
These people are wrong not only in their stupidity but in their math. The Earth is very many hundreds of millions of years old and will be here for many, many hundreds of millions of years. Humans have been around for hundreds of thousands of years in some form or another, and human society is about ten thousand years old. Arbitrary numbering systems like our calender fool the dimwitted into thinking that there is something special about the year 100, 1000, 2000, etc. In a thousand years, in 2999, suckers will be told by whatever con artists are around that they need to send money to avoid the coming rapture of the year 3000. Our egos, our need to be so very important make folks want to believe that something terrible is going to happen tomorrow, next month, next year.
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There is no need to panic about the planet. It will be here for a mutherfucking long ass time.
The Earth is not at the end of its life. It's not at the beginning. It's probably right smack dab in the middle of its existence, and humanity is also at the midpoint, roughly, of our era as the dominant species on it.
-------------
Our staff remember a neighbor of ours back in the early winter of 1999 who bought into the "end of times" talk by religious folk and others concerning the coming new millennium and the disasters that were sure to follow. She planned on moving up to the mountains when the rapture or whatever form of armageddon occurred on New Year's Day 2000. The poor woman. But she was and is not alone in her fear of the future.
These people are wrong not only in their stupidity but in their math. The Earth is very many hundreds of millions of years old and will be here for many, many hundreds of millions of years. Humans have been around for hundreds of thousands of years in some form or another, and human society is about ten thousand years old. Arbitrary numbering systems like our calender fool the dimwitted into thinking that there is something special about the year 100, 1000, 2000, etc. In a thousand years, in 2999, suckers will be told by whatever con artists are around that they need to send money to avoid the coming rapture of the year 3000. Our egos, our need to be so very important make folks want to believe that something terrible is going to happen tomorrow, next month, next year.
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There is no need to panic about the planet. It will be here for a mutherfucking long ass time.
posted by joe sweeney at 12:29 PM
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