State of the Universe

There are endless possibilities for how the world could look. It’s a quirk of starting conditions and history that the world we see looks the way it does.

For example, we live in a universe that:

- has large galaxies made up of planets, stars, asteroids and other matter

- humans have evolved morals and now use intelligence to rule their world

- humans are the smartest creature alive but still make many errors when trying to achieve their goals.

- humans are social creatures

- Earth is covered 60% in saltwater, the atmosphere is 20% oxygen.

- Chlorophyll-using plants cover most land surface

- Theres lots of single and multicellular life.

- It’s 2025: We have developed industrialisation, computers. We haven’t solved ageing, we haven’t worked out how to command biological material, e.g. lab-grown kidneys and meat.

Here is a list of other possibilities we could have instead observed, for each of the above points:

- the galaxy is 50 billion years old and buzzing with other intelligent creatures who have colonised it; the universe is very sparse and other galaxies are much further away, andromeda galaxy is not heading for us

- Humans never evolved socially, we don’t feel moral obligations to eachother; we are only a cut smarter than other intelligent species

- Humans are better at achieving their goals; humans aren’t obsessed with sex; humans don’t get angry

- Humans evolved to live on their own and separate from their family when they reach a certain age; they are brutal and murderous, socialising doesn’t bring any joy. Babies grow up much faster and heads are smaller compared to body

- Earth is covered in fresh (not salty) water which makes up 95% of the surface, except for patches of ice; Earth is 5x larger and has two moons. Plants never evolved to dominate so the atmosphere has more CO2 and less oxygen.

- the world is full of dumb giants; the world only contains plant and vertebrate life (no insects, no jellyfish).

- Earths land is covered by algae, moss, lichen, small shrubs; Trees never evolved. Many animals evolved chlorophyll also, we have a sort of land-plankton thing that lots of birds and other small creatures eat. The sea is very acidic and devoid of life.

We can also comment on the strengths and weaknesses of our situation given these observations. For example:

It’s useful that to human society that everyone has (similar) morals. This allows us to establish happy, independent lives as part of a wider society. Governments rule, it is not anarchist, people can express views and not live in fear.

It’s convenient that we aren’t getting dominated by extraterrestrial life. No alien species has arrived at any point over our last 10,000 years of civilisation and exploited our resources or people. [We should still rapidly develop defensive technology useful in space, in case we do suddenly meet a new species (societies that weren’t ready for European colonisation were devastated)]

It’s useful that we have discovered electricity and magnetism, that we have found lots of uses for this. This makes modern life comfortable and easy.

Also, it was convenient for early humans that plants exist, that wood is a fantastic building material and burns easily. This rewarded our tool use early on and encouraged more innovations.

However, history also has relative strategic and moral disadvantages for us.

It’s inconvenient that we invented nuclear weapons and now risk killing ourselves.

It’s inconvenient that there are many other forms of life and they all seem to suffer. The universe would be a happier place if nature was less brutal, fewer animals had parasites, fewer diseases exist, wasps and spiders and cats don’t torture their prey.

It’s inconvenient that we find meat tasty and have developed factory farms to harvest this. This also leads to needless suffering, compared to a world where we didn’t discover farm animals and instead relied on corn, soya etc.

It’s a shame that the world wasn’t filled with more deposits of coal and tin; we might have industrialised much sooner. I heard once that the Greeks had developed a steam engine, just never put it to use…

It’s a shame that history is full of sophisticated empires crashing, e.g. the romans, the Incas, the Khmer. It shows a pattern that we might also repeat, of feeling strong and untouchable, before society breaking down. (I’m still hopeful that we will continually improve things and not see a crash like this in our lifetimes, though).

Some of our observations are neutral:

It’s curious that humans developed and migrated worldwide, developing thousands of local cultures and languages.

We could have instead learned to develop languages and cultures even faster, so that every small community (village, town) has a language and identity. Or we could have not migrated before we developed high quality road and sea travel; we could have ended up much closer together and by the time we go exploring outside of Africa/Mesopotamia, we’ve invented big governments and civilisation already.

Thinking further

We don’t have to just think from our current position; we could also do this exercise from different points in history: Europeans observing how they are closely connected with different cultures, how they have horses and livestock and wood, how they have invented science and are developing new technology. Observing how they met certain more powerful forces; eg the Moors, but have not been dominated yet. Observing how their neighbouring countries all agree on a religion.

This kind of exercise allows us to see strengths and weaknesses of our collective position, prepare for unforeseen threats and write cool sci-fi. We could apply the same techniques individually to think of new business ideas, ways to make money, ways to develop science further.