Human Progress Over Time, and the World Ahead of Us: Part 1

Over the past few centuries, humans have changed (in mostly bad ways) the world. There is no denying that. But the rate of change over the course of human existence is different at different times. Let's take a look at it.

In the first 100,000 years, humans made tools, strayed out of their natural environment, and hunted and gathered. The progress was slow, but faster than most all animals.

Then, the agricultural revolution began. In the agricultural revolution, we made more progress in 1000 years than we had made in ten thousand before.  Cities popped up, and with it writing. Laws were made and empires formed, and humans now had reached 6 continents, but the cities had yet to change the world. The population of the entire planet was between 1 and 15 million in 10,000 BCE.

Not much happened until the industrial revolution. Then progress picked up. Because we know what happened after that, let's get a time traveler and bring Abraham Lincon back right before he was shot. He's used to trains and letters as the fastest way to travel.

Ok, now let's have Abraham Lincon ride on an airplane, then a submarine, then a Tesla Model S and have him play with that touchscreen. Then we'll give him a desktop and have him search on the internet his name, make him play video games and virtual reality, then have him get beaten in board games by a computer. Then we'll have him communicate with Elon Musk and all his projects(like this), and have him become president for 8 more years. In his presidency, we'll have him travel in helicopters and when SpaceX finally is able to travel to Mars, he'll go. By then, it will be the end of his presidency but we'll make him the leader on Mars. Then we'll make him go back in time and he'll get shot. (no one will know that happened!)

If Abraham Lincon wanted to do the same, he could bring back John Smith, as they are a little more than 200 years. Sadly, he wouldn't be very interested. He'd see that the United States growing and some new technology like steam and railroads and would be shocked at the speed of these railroads, but he wouldn't be mind-blown like Abraham Lincon would. This represents the exponential growth, and we are heading towards an unknown future. Perhaps in just 100 or 50 years, the world will become unrecognizable. (It already is to people who grew up with televisions and no way to communicate with their fingers). We'll just have to see if it turns out we'll all die by A.I. terrorism, or get eaten by cats.