Let's say the most significant turning point in all 300,000 years of Homo Sapien existence was the great flood of the Pleistocene ice age end, separating nearly 300K years of a mostly hunter-gather global "mass migration" age, from a 10K year agriculture/domestication "mass civilization" age.
We could also say the next similarly epic turning point in human development was the age of exploration, some 500 - 1000 years ago. Capacity to master ocean travel, begets massive influx to the Western Hemisphere, & a millennium long "Mass Transportation" age... ship, train, plane, automobile, ever the greater capacity to move more populously, rapidly, variably & distantly, effecting our species just as profoundly.
It'd seem the culmination of that epoch, was that our transportation growth finally took us off the planet altogether some 60 years ago, the intent of which was to travel us ever farther out. However, (& maybe a Star Trek fan board is the wrong crowd for this) that's most likely not directly happening in any similarly significant way. Due to vast space distances, the species' mass, potentially 10 billion by century's end, is going nowhere, as there's no as readily available "New World" to develop us, this time.
Or is there now? Leaving the planet, lead to adding orbital satellites, establishing the 1st globally instant "mass communication" age, & this world wide web I'm on right now IS our new & wholly different domain. It's potentially capable of driving the species just as profoundly as the other 2 turning points did.
We're maybe now at one of the 3 most significant turning points in all Homo Sapien existence, that's long term outcome may be equally as upheaving. In 1000+ years, Bill Gates & Steve Jobs may be viewed as we view Columbus & Magellan, world conquerors who, for good or ill, reshaped our way of life. Not just a new invention, or frontier, but the very fabric of human existence, as much altered from what we are now, as we are from what those age old predecessors were.
We could also say the next similarly epic turning point in human development was the age of exploration, some 500 - 1000 years ago. Capacity to master ocean travel, begets massive influx to the Western Hemisphere, & a millennium long "Mass Transportation" age... ship, train, plane, automobile, ever the greater capacity to move more populously, rapidly, variably & distantly, effecting our species just as profoundly.
It'd seem the culmination of that epoch, was that our transportation growth finally took us off the planet altogether some 60 years ago, the intent of which was to travel us ever farther out. However, (& maybe a Star Trek fan board is the wrong crowd for this) that's most likely not directly happening in any similarly significant way. Due to vast space distances, the species' mass, potentially 10 billion by century's end, is going nowhere, as there's no as readily available "New World" to develop us, this time.
Or is there now? Leaving the planet, lead to adding orbital satellites, establishing the 1st globally instant "mass communication" age, & this world wide web I'm on right now IS our new & wholly different domain. It's potentially capable of driving the species just as profoundly as the other 2 turning points did.
We're maybe now at one of the 3 most significant turning points in all Homo Sapien existence, that's long term outcome may be equally as upheaving. In 1000+ years, Bill Gates & Steve Jobs may be viewed as we view Columbus & Magellan, world conquerors who, for good or ill, reshaped our way of life. Not just a new invention, or frontier, but the very fabric of human existence, as much altered from what we are now, as we are from what those age old predecessors were.
