Just Mere Fact....!

There was a time when human race nearly went extinct.

Now, we already knew some species of hominids died out and were quickly replaced by Homo sapiens communities. Basically, we are here because we have bigger brains, we adapt better and because our ancestors — unlike the Neanderthals, for example — started massive migration movements. (Yes, migrations were a thing long before the XXI century and were a central factor to our success as a species; that’s why building walls is not only pointless, but also dangerous)

This on its own should make everybody realize we are no different from any other form of life, but the thought of extinction rarely cross our minds when we think about humanity: we watch lots of endangered species of plants and animals disappear every year and not once we think «oh, we could be next»

Just the idea seems bizarre and far-fetched, right?

Yeah, I used to think that too

But there has been a time, in fact, when the number of humans dropped down to 5000–10000 individuals on all the Earth. We were about to be wiped out of existence, just a couple of thousands of deaths away from being dinosaurs 2.0: if parasites and viruses had succeeded, a different carbon-based creature would be now looking at our ancestors’ bones and wondering about what kind of frightening monsters we were.

Biological engineering — and a sheer amount of luck — changed our destinies, silencing those genes that eased the spread of pathologies into our tissues. It’s worth wondering if next time we will be so lucky and if Nature will once again find a way to fix the mess and the destruction we’re bringing upon ourselves.

So the harshest lesson from history is that what we call history is, in fact, just our point of view on what happened on this planet during a tiny fraction of time; and this time, sooner or later, will end.

Just like the dinosaurs’.