We are cavemen living in a sci-fi world
We live in the future.
Despite the fact that we are not all driving around in hover cars and wearing silver suits, there are times when it suddenly hits me that we are living in a sci-fi world.
On occasion, usually when driving on the motorway for some reason, I’ve been struck by the fact that we are still basically cavemen. Assuming that the Creationists aren’t right, then human beings have been in their current form for a little over 100,000 years. So if you were to go back in time and pluck a baby from, say 75 thousand years ago, and raise them in today’s environment, then they would be like every other child; you would not be able to tell the difference.
And yet here we are, physically and mentally the same as our stone-age ancestors, only we are often moving about in vehicles that are larger than a rhinoceros and faster than a cheetah.
Today I was at Carphone Warehouse, updating my mobile phone, when I was suddenly hit by the weirdness of the fact that I can be almost anywhere in the world, and through this little metal box in my hand, talk to someone else who could be almost anywhere else in the world. Even a hundred years ago, if I had wanted to talk to someone only 20 miles away, it would have taken me half a day on horseback to be able to. Barely two decades back we would both have needed to be standing by a box attached to the wall to communicate by voice. Yet now, I can be walking along the street, climbing up a hill, or driving at 70mph in my rhinoceros (using a hands free kit, of course) and be able to chat merrily away to someone else involved in an equally unlikely activity.
I am even able to write this post on a wee lap-top box that has access to the knowledge of the world within seconds, and by putting it up on my blog-site, can be accessed by anyone else who cares to look for it, within seconds.
Because this technology is all around us, being used every day, we fail to see the utter incredibleness of it all.
It is magic.
It is science fiction.
And we are still cavemen.
Despite the fact that we are not all driving around in hover cars and wearing silver suits, there are times when it suddenly hits me that we are living in a sci-fi world.
On occasion, usually when driving on the motorway for some reason, I’ve been struck by the fact that we are still basically cavemen. Assuming that the Creationists aren’t right, then human beings have been in their current form for a little over 100,000 years. So if you were to go back in time and pluck a baby from, say 75 thousand years ago, and raise them in today’s environment, then they would be like every other child; you would not be able to tell the difference.
And yet here we are, physically and mentally the same as our stone-age ancestors, only we are often moving about in vehicles that are larger than a rhinoceros and faster than a cheetah.
Today I was at Carphone Warehouse, updating my mobile phone, when I was suddenly hit by the weirdness of the fact that I can be almost anywhere in the world, and through this little metal box in my hand, talk to someone else who could be almost anywhere else in the world. Even a hundred years ago, if I had wanted to talk to someone only 20 miles away, it would have taken me half a day on horseback to be able to. Barely two decades back we would both have needed to be standing by a box attached to the wall to communicate by voice. Yet now, I can be walking along the street, climbing up a hill, or driving at 70mph in my rhinoceros (using a hands free kit, of course) and be able to chat merrily away to someone else involved in an equally unlikely activity.
I am even able to write this post on a wee lap-top box that has access to the knowledge of the world within seconds, and by putting it up on my blog-site, can be accessed by anyone else who cares to look for it, within seconds.
Because this technology is all around us, being used every day, we fail to see the utter incredibleness of it all.
It is magic.
It is science fiction.
And we are still cavemen.
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