In the next 24 hours, more than 150,000 individual humans will become extinct. Over the past three decades, upwards of 1.6 billion people have disappeared from the Earth forever.
Death is tragic, robbing us of mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, daughters, sons, teachers, artists, friends, leaders, and companions.
But it’s not just humans who are being lost:
“We are predicting the extinction of about two-thirds of all bird, mammal, butterfly and plant species by the end of the next century, based on current trends.” - Peter H. Raven (1999), former President of AAAS, the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Of course, there is a difference between the actual extinction of a whole species and the individual loss of a human life. Whether you consider one more tragic than the other depends, perhaps, on how close you were to the person who died.
Beyond that, it is not just individuals who die—and not only species of plants and animals that become extinct—but also ideas and trends.
Here is an interesting chart that attempts to place a number of different extinction events, circa 1950 to 2050, together on one timeline.
From SMALLPOX and the BERLIN WALL in the recent past, to POST OFFICES and GLACIERS in the near future, extinction is all around us.
But is there hope for the extinction of death itself? The chart includes DEATH as one of the things that should be expected to become extinct within the foreseeable future, along with COINS, KEYS, NATION STATES, and UGLINESS.
Unfortunately, there is no specific date listed for death’s departure. It’s still speculative as to when—or even if—we can put the grave into the grave. Will that time come soon enough to save you, or me?
Let’s just hope we won’t miss the boat.
Mike Treder is the Managing Director of the IEET, and former Executive Director of the non-profit Center for Responsible Nanotechnology.