Chances are, there is better life out there.
From SusoSight
| Number: | 22 |
| Date created: | 2001-12-10 15:21:02 |
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Given the high potential for life off the earth, there is also a high possibility that there are better societies, more advanced societies and ones that won't give a damn about us.
If you've ever seen the famous documentary Cosmos hosted by Carl Sagan back in 1980, you may remember his "Cosmic Calendar" which related the entire 15 billion year history of the Universe down to a 12 month year scale. It was designed to show how small and insignificant our history was. This became clear when he showed how everything in our history was represented by the last second of the year. Everything that we've ever done as a global civilization was done within 23:59:59 of December 31st.
Figuring that there are 31,536,000 seconds in a year, that leaves a lot of room for variance. Maybe other civilizations in other parts of the universe rose and fell in 23:59:58 or are 10,000 years ahead of us already. That leaves a lot of room for interpretation.
I think that if our civilization ever expects to compete or even compare on a universal scale, we're seriously going to have to think about our priorities.