Everything about us is young in the context of the wider universe. Human society, the human species, the planet earth, our solar system, our sun. We live near the dawn of creation, even though our universe feels unimaginably old compared to our brief lives. As the skies darken and all the stars burn out, that will take course over a time period longer than our individual solar system will last. When the last light goes out, time doesn’t stop, no the universe goes on and there’s an even longer period of endless empty inky blackness, the deep void. In the end, the universe may spend significantly more time as an endless dead void than it ever did as a universe with hope of life and at least one planet with confirmed organic life. There is no escaping it, and there is probably no way for our species to even survive and adapt to that era as it is.
We could be the great scourge of this part of the universe. Expanding recklessly through galaxies in the local group, leaving only the dead husks of stars that have been stripped of all usable energy. The exponential nature of scientific discovery means that not only do we have a head start, our head start compounds as time progresses. We become a horrific but very efficient war machine for the sole purpose of controlling and exploiting all available forms of energy for profit. We seem like we’re on that path.
Trigger Warning: Existential Crisis
spoiler
Everything about us is young in the context of the wider universe. Human society, the human species, the planet earth, our solar system, our sun. We live near the dawn of creation, even though our universe feels unimaginably old compared to our brief lives. As the skies darken and all the stars burn out, that will take course over a time period longer than our individual solar system will last. When the last light goes out, time doesn’t stop, no the universe goes on and there’s an even longer period of endless empty inky blackness, the deep void. In the end, the universe may spend significantly more time as an endless dead void than it ever did as a universe with hope of life and at least one planet with confirmed organic life. There is no escaping it, and there is probably no way for our species to even survive and adapt to that era as it is.
One of the possible answers to the Fermi Paradox is simply we’re the first.
We could be the great scourge of this part of the universe. Expanding recklessly through galaxies in the local group, leaving only the dead husks of stars that have been stripped of all usable energy. The exponential nature of scientific discovery means that not only do we have a head start, our head start compounds as time progresses. We become a horrific but very efficient war machine for the sole purpose of controlling and exploiting all available forms of energy for profit. We seem like we’re on that path.
/c/humansarespaceorcs