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Timeline of the Human Condition

southampton.ac.uk

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Re: Timeline of the Human Condition

#61

Post by wolverine876 »

csomar wrote: post #57
wolverine876 wrote: post #33

Recently I researched a dozen or two of the events on the table, and there is a lot of uncertainty of fact, issues of definition, and interpretation involved. That doesn't mean the author is wrong, but take each date as one interpretation of many. For example, Ancient Greek, developed in ~8th or 10th century BCE (facts aren't 100% clear), is typically credited as the first phonetic alphabet, where characters represen…

> as the first phonetic alphabet I thought the Phoenician are credited for the alphabet. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenician_language > The Phoenician alphabet was spread to Greece during this period, where it became the source of all modern European scripts.

That was the precursor without vowels, IIRC. In my very limited experience, more experts seem to say the Greek alphabet was the first that qualified as such. But really, 'who was first' is a matter of definition, of course.

Re: Timeline of the Human Condition

#62

Post by lindseymysse »

wolverine876 wrote: post #34

These tables and charts are filled with events, but remember that for almost all of history, nothing happened. Billions of years and effectively nada. Even if you lived during the Cambrian Explosion, I doubt you would notice anything happening. .... If you want an up-to-date, authoritative, useful guide to geological history, you want the International Chronostratigraphic Chart. I'm impressed that this is kept update…

"but remember that for almost all of history, nothing happened"

This seems like a anthropocentric view of the world. Planets moved immense distances, there were generation after generation of bacteria, mountains rose up and crumbled, seas were made and disappeared again.

A lot happened before we showed up. A lot will happen after we're gone, also.

Re: Timeline of the Human Condition

#64

Post by DrStormyDaniels »

lindseymysse wrote: post #62
wolverine876 wrote: post #34

These tables and charts are filled with events, but remember that for almost all of history, nothing happened. Billions of years and effectively nada. Even if you lived during the Cambrian Explosion, I doubt you would notice anything happening. .... If you want an up-to-date, authoritative, useful guide to geological history, you want the International Chronostratigraphic Chart. I'm impressed that this is kept update…

"but remember that for almost all of history, nothing happened" This seems like a anthropocentric view of the world. Planets moved immense distances, there were generation after generation of bacteria, mountains rose up and crumbled, seas were made and disappeared again. A lot happened before we showed up. A lot will happen after we're gone, also.

"This seems like an anthropocentric view of the world." - What else would you suggest? The world itself, taken on its own terms, has no history, no memory of itself, no experience of time, or change, it simply is, and in that sense, simply is not. It only has a history to us.

Re: Timeline of the Human Condition

#65

Post by akomtu »

Such large timespans are better measured in galactic years [1] and Earth axial precession periods [2] which is 26,000 years or 1/10,000 of a galactic year.

With these measures, the Milky Way was "born" about 49 galactic years ago and will "die" in 49 galactic years, so we are almost precisely in the middle. It's an interesting coincidence, that on this scale, eukaryotes appeared 6.666 galactic years ago (from [1]).

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_year

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_precession

Re: Timeline of the Human Condition

#66

Post by [deleted] »

wolverine876 wrote: post #61
csomar wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as the first phonetic alphabet I thought the Phoenician are credited for the alphabet. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenician_language > The Phoenician alphabet was spread to Greece during this period, where it became the source of all modern European scripts.

That was the precursor without vowels, IIRC. In my very limited experience, more experts seem to say the Greek alphabet was the first that qualified as such. But really, 'who was first' is a matter of definition, of course.

[deleted]

Re: Timeline of the Human Condition

#68

Post by dredmorbius »

If you'd like a slightly more detailed, but still-manageable version of this, I strongly recommend David Christian's Big History. It's the story of history, from the Big Bang to the present.

Wikipedia overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_History

Book (one of many): https://www.worldcat.org/title/origin-story-a-big-history-of...

There was at one time a lecture series running about 30--40 episodes on YouTube, though I don't find that presently. There are still numerous matching hits on YouTube for "Big History" "David Christian", though I've not explored them for matches. Shorter overviews by Christian exist, including his TED Talk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqc9zX04DXs

Several people have mentioned Vaclav Smil. His 1995 Energy in World History and 2017 Energy and Civilization cover the past 100,000 or 10,000 years of the history shown in TFA, largely looking at history through the lens of energy. It's a fascinating story.

https://www.worldcat.org/title/energy-in-world-history/oclc/...

https://www.worldcat.org/title/energy-and-civilization-a-his...

Re: Timeline of the Human Condition

#69

Post by randomdrake »

thangalin wrote: post #50

I wrote a shorter version and enlisted scientific illustrators to draw some pictures: https://impacts.to/downloads/lowres/impacts.pdf Here are the sources used to craft the book: https://impacts.to/bibliography.pdf

This is neat. Dig the illustrations. Would love to see a kid’s version of this.
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