A Brief History of the End of the World

There is a scene near the end of Mel Gibson’s 2006 movie Apocalypto where a Mayan villager – who by this time is also an escaped Inca prisoner – is being chased by his captors bent on killing him.  He runs out on to the beach where he stops and gazes out to the ocean.  His pursuers likewise stop and gaze.

What they beheld – for the first time ever – were men in longboats rapidly approaching the shore from Spanish Galleons moored in the distance.

Just as the Mayans probably felt it was the end of the world when blood-thirsty Incans enslaved and killed them, so too did the Incans marvel as they succumbed to the onslaught and diseases of the Europeans.   The speed of change – with new technology and alien beings – make the world instantly frightening and wondrous.

To those of us born in the 20th century, the onslaught is felt as ever-increasing rate of change.  Our own aliens – computers – are ones we created, yet are unable to STOP creating them.  The very physicality of all this technology bombards our senses daily, and keeps us tuned to its every need through sheer force of wonder.

And its not just computers.  Humans as a species are multiplying and evolving at such a rapid pace we are, in just a few short years, outstripping ALL predictions about how to deal with our neighbors and ourselves.

What’s the answer? Look inside.  Find the source of thought and wonder.  Realize that there is an intelligence that guides us – that which R. Buckminster Fuller called universe – that will always be with us and a part of us.  It will also eventually consume us.

Remember the Year 2013. That’s the year a Supercomputer will be built that EXCEEDS the computational power of the human brain.  By 2049, that power will be available to almost everyone on the planet.

Scary?  You bet.  Or awesome.  You decide.