Technology is Reshaping Human History
Digital technologies are helping us reshape human history. This will have important impacts on our future. It is an amazing time to be alive.
A group of philanthropist’s and a University of Kentucky computer science professor are offering a $250,000 prize to anyone or group that can unlock and enable the reading of the Roman era Herculean scroll. These scrolls are all clumped together and must be read virtually.
AI has already been used to decode 5,000 years old cuneiform tablets, giving us entirely new insights into ancient human civilizations.
Advances in genetic engineering have revealed some time ago that many of us have neanderthal DNA, some of Denisovan. That the genetic code for red hair exists across pretty much all of humanity. That our beloved human tree that we’ve all come to think is true, is in fact, not. That it’s more like the Nile river delta going off madly in all directions.
A group of Spanish researchers have found genetic links to homosexuality. Not just in us humans but in over 250 species of mammals (humans are mammals.) This is male to male, not female to female; it is not known if such research has been done. The research suggests there may well be a significant biological benefit for this in human societies.
Digital technologies are helping us discover our past in new and novel ways. This is giving a lot of anthropologists, archeologists, sociologists and many other scientists a lot of headaches. We’re going to be rewriting an awful lot of text books.
We may well be in a time when much of our current understanding of how humanity evolved, how cultures and societies worked, gets tossed int a giant shredding machine and used for recycled paper.
This all due to the rise of such digital technologies such as genetic engineering, genetic analysis tools, Artificial Intelligence (AI), satellites and LIDAR, vast improvements in data analysis tools and technologies like drones that help us access places we couldn’t really get to before. From subterranean caverns, some that may be underwater, to lakes and deeper ocean depths and mountainous areas.
The use of LIDAR scanning technology is revealing much vaster metropolises of the Mayan and Incan empires in Latin America. The technology is revealing ancient civilisations in Israel and Egypt and even parts of Asia.
We’ve even recently found a wooden structure in Zambia that was built over 400,000 years ago. Which mean non-humans, still hominids, but not us Homo Sapiens, built it. There is evidence of Neanderthals using tools as well. We do like to think we’re a rather special species and should get the gold star for being smarter. Maybe not so much anymore.
We already know that things like skin colour, shapes of eyes, noses and lips are entirely down to the environments from which we evolved in over hundreds and thousands of years. That we spread out around the world in ways different from what we thought. That we arrived in North America earlier than thought. That we are all, at the end of the day, humans.
We know we had a lot of romantic trysts with Neanderthals and perhaps other hominids. We were it seems, a rather horny species. We may have actually borrowed, begged or stolen some technologies as well, such as fire, axes and other stone tools. We still don’t know exactly why us Homo Sapiens ended up on top over Neanderthals and other hominids.
As we move further into the Cognitive Age via the Digital Age, digital technologies will continue to unravel our past in interesting ways. We will be uncomfortable with some of what we discover. It is hard for us to let things go at times because they become part of of our cultures, which help shape our realities and perception of the world.
We know that the beloved image of the progress of ape to man is actually wrong. Yet it continues to be used across all forms of pop culture.
If you’re wondering what this has to do with our current state of human affairs such as the cultural elements of political and economic systems, militaries, social governance, architecture and such, well, a lot.
It turns out that we built towns and cities much earlier than we originally thought. That our assumptions of how hunter-gatherer societies were primitive and largely daft twits is wrong. That they were far more organised and sophisticated and made interesting tools and art.
This can help us understand that changes in economic and political systems, how we govern ourselves, have patterns. Ones that may give us clues as to how to shape them in the future.
We can now, for instance, look at cities in new ways and realize that though we may think that smart cities and mega cities are inevitable, they may not be at all. There will be mega metropolis’s, yes, but there may be fewer than we assumed.
It is likely that we will see massive changes in agricultural systems, from mega farms to smaller ones and less global movement of produce and meats. In some parts of the world, we are already turning back to the ancient wisdom of indigenous first peoples in colonized nations to better manage the lands from agriculture to forestry. Turns out, that ancient wisdom was rather clever.
It is not digital technologies themselves that are changing us. It is how we are using them. It is the way that AI can augment us and help us to understand better so we can make improved decisions. It is genetic engineering that could lead to us eradicating certain inherited diseases, increasing lifespans and improving health outcomes.
We are in an age of profound change. Perhaps more profound than our species has ever faced. This presents new complexities and requires us to evolve new realities. Especially since communications technologies enable us, unlike ever before, to do what we do best, talk to one another and organise ourselves socially.
Quite simply, this is an incredible, amazing time to be alive.