National Geographic's "Origins: The Journey of Humankind," got me thinking.

[treeguy64]

With a few posts, in here, about the new Disney+ channel, I decided to sign up for it, since I get a free year, with Verizon.

It offers many National Geographic series, so I decided to watch a few installments of the "Origins: The Journey of Humankind," this morning.

I was struck by the fact that even though this series seems to cheer on how we've advanced, so greatly, from our humble beginnings, the reality, as I see it, is different.

I watched an episode about fire, and one about medicine. Throughout both, there's this rah-rah vibe that started to annoy me. The narrator goes on about how we're conquering disease, how our past was filled with violence, how we've overcome so many challenges to survive and prosper.

OK, so our past was violent, and now we live in peace and harmony? Uh, let's see...... If I wanted to move back to my old neighborhood, on Chicago's South Side, I would be living in an area where there have been hundreds of murders, to date, this year! I strongly doubt that our tribal, cave/hut dwelling ancestors experienced around one murder a day, everyday, in their immediate surroundings. I may have that wrong, but I doubt it. Let's not even get into how many major conflicts are going on in our world, today.

Pertaining to medicine, this series cheers on how we've gained so much medical knowledge and conquered so many diseases. Well, wait....... So many diseases that we've "conquered, " are coming back, stronger than before, thanks to our terrible misuse of antibiotics and our careless actions, in general. "New" diseases are also cropping up for which we have no cure.

I'll watch a few more chapters, but I think that the over the top optimism implied and expressed, for the future of our species, may make me tune it out, for good, eventually.

As I see it, the many dinosaur species were, collectively, around for, about, 140 million years. Our genus has been around for about 1.5-2.5 million years. Our species, its sole survivor, has been around for, about, 2-3 hundred thousand years. If we make it to even another thousand years, that would be a real shocker, as I see it.

In truth, that's the main thing that pisses me off about death: I'd really like to see how the evolutionary experiment, Homo sapiens, ends up.

 

[Grampa Don]

I agree about National Geographic programs. I detect a lot of BS in them.

I've thought about the end of our species too. Some day, inevitably, there will be a last human on earth. Eventually, the earth will become uninhabitable for one reason or another. It may be super volcanoes, asteroids, warming, freezing, war, who knows. It could be tomorrow or millions of years from now. But, some day we will either have to leave or become extinct. In my opinion, leaving is a real long shot.

So what will it be like for that last human? Will we evolve into something else? Evolution happens when stressful conditions weed out the weak and less adapted. That would be a bad time to be around. Will machines replace us? Given enough advances in technology, that's a real possibility.

But mainly, I wonder whether that last human will have things we haven't dreamed of yet or just stone tools.

I know someone will say that the biblical second coming will end things. I respect their belief and hope they respect mine.

Don