I’m preoccupied with finishing the manuscript of the second edition of Humans to Mars, so here’s another brief pointer to one of my favorite websites.
The Speculative Dinosaur Project is rollicking great fun, not least because its participants don’t take themselves too seriously. It seeks to answer the question in the post title above. On Specworld (as they call their dinosaur-populated Earth), the asteroid that punched a 300-kilometer hole in the Yucatan 65 milion years ago missed. Dinosaurs and their contemporaries went “whew!” and got on with the serious business of evolving into weird and wonderful new species.
Alas, the site hasn’t been updated lately. But never mind, there’s still plenty to explore.
Thanks David for your comments.
It appears to me that where dinosaurs once ruled, we now have new rulers. The new rulers are human beings who evidently think of themselves as Masters of the Universe. Let me explain.
In our time too many people in my not-so-great generation of elders appear to be doing a disservice to everything and everyone but ourselves. We are the “what’s in it for ME?” generation.
We demonstrate precious little regard for the integrity of Earth; precious little willingness to protect the environment from irreversible degradation; precious little serious consideration for the preservation of biodiversity, wilderness, and a good enough future for our children and coming generations; and no appreciation of the understanding that we are no more or less than human and have “feet of clay”.
We live in a soon to be unsustainable way on Earth and we are proud of it, thank you very much. Certainly, we expect to “have our cake and eat it, too”. We fly private jets, live in McMansions, go to our distant hideouts and risk nothing of value to us. Please do not bother us with the problems of the world. We choose not to hear them, see them, or speak of them. We, economic powerbrokers, bought-and-paid-for politicians and our many minions in the mass media will meet you with hysterical deafness, willful blindness and elective mutism. If left to our own devices, we will exercise our ‘rights’ to dissipate Earth’s limited resources; to expand economic globalization unto every corner of Earth and beyond, without regard to consequences; to encourage the unbridled growth of the human species so that where there are now 6 billion people, soon we will have 9 billion members of the human community in 2050 and, guess what, even more people, perhaps 90 billion into the distant future, if that is what we desire.
We are self-proclaimed Masters of the Universe. We have no regard for human limits or Earth’s limitations, thank you very much. Please understand that we do not want anyone to present us with scientific evidence that we might be living in an artificially designed, temporary world of our own making…… a manmade world rapidly filling up with distinctly human enterprises which appear the be approaching a point in human history when THE INCREASE in global consumption, production and propagation activities of the human species becomes patently unsustainable in the planetary home God has blessed us to inhabit….. and not to overwhelm, I suppose.
Sincerely,
Steve
We definitely wouldn’t be the masters of the universe if the planet were inhabited by Evil Piranhakeets and Rhynchoraptors instead. Thank you, David, for pointing this out - It’s a wealth of wonder, and a lot of fun.
What if dinosaurs still rule the Earth?
What if dinosaurs still live on the Earth?
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Why the dinosaurs still live on the Earth?
Because we don’t know the answers on the simple questions:
” Who am I ? ,Why am I ?, ……etc…….”
I think we’re smart enough and environmentally conscious enough to maintain the world for us to live in. I know there are people out there who don’t care at all, don’t recycle, litter all of the time, etc. but that’s why they get fined for littering, and maybe eventually we’ll be able to fine them for not recycling, if that’s what it takes.
As long as the dinosaurs rule under a capatalist, representative democracy, I couldn’t care less what they do.