The human species is so young
The average lifespan for all species is ~5 million years.1
Our species, homo sapiens, is only 300,000 years old.2 This makes our species very young. By analogy to a human individual lifespan of 80 years, our species is only a 1.9 years old baby.
Because we can adapt to change much better than most species,3 our lifespan could be much more than the 5 million year average.4
This is exciting. We could live to at least 10 million years, perhaps 50 million years!
Assume we live for 50 million years. Then, by analogy to a human lifespan of 80 years, our species is just 0.19 years old. We would be a 9-weeks old newborn.
If so, imagine what the world would look like when our species is just 8 years old (i.e., in 5 million years).
- "If we assume that the average life span of a species is 5–10 million years" https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/life-span#:~:text=Second%20Edition)%2C%202013-,Species%20Life%20Spans,million%20years%20(Table%201).↩
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human#cite_ref-22↩
- We are aware of our world environment and can act on a global scale. For example, unlike the dinosaurs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_extinction_event↩
- Compared to other species, we also have the ability to kill our species much more easily.↩