12.03, Saturday 29 Jun 2002

In terms of the Long Now, welcome to the Holocene, the most recent (and current) interglacial period. Let's see, and we also call this period the Anthropogene, the era in which mankind's activities became a "new telluric force which in power and universality may be compared to the greater forces of earth". (Homo sapiens sapiens's diaspora had occurred millennia before the beginning of the Holocene, 13,000 years ago, but without much impact. The story of how mankind hit tipping points to begin the geometric progression is fascinating: I rate Guns, Germs and Steel (by Jared Diamond) very highly indeed; the history of humanity, hows and whys from first principles.)

The endpoint of this: the noösphere: Perpectives of Humanity, a complete joining of humanity and the ecology, where the moral imperitive to protect the planetary community grows to take personal significance. In other words, the future.

An aside: I love the way enormous surrounding constructs have such modest names. The Holocene, "Recent Whole". The Local Group (more pictures), our Milky Way and a few dozen galaxy neighbours, a volume of space 60 billion, billion miles across (about 10 million light years). And I've just discovered that this cluster is also referred to as a condensation, as in "a small local cluster of galaxies that condensed out of the general expansion of the Universe". Out of the scattered, cooling ylem I guess. Just perfect.