Or so thinks Neil deGrasse Tyson. Source:
I loves me some NdGT but beyond the fact that if it wouldn’t have been Columbus, it would have been someone else soon enough, I would think maybe agriculture has it beat.
What do you think is the most significant thing to happen in our species?
The contact between Europe and the Western Hemisphere was pretty important, no matter who did it. Other Europeans discovered America before Columbus, but when Columbus discovered it, it stayed discovered.
I am torn between agriculture and space travel.
Surviving the genetic bottleneck about 70,000 years ago.
Digital watches.
Great answers all so far.
I’ll take “Genetic bottleneck” for $200 please, Alex. That’s the winner. Nothing else matters if we got that wrong.
The permanent discovery of the Americas and the ensuing trade & warfare was probably number 2. 600 years later we’re still working now in 2023 to level-up all the landmasses and all the people. But there’s no significant undiscovered land or civilization left; we know who / what / where everyone is.
Space travel may eventually dwarf finding the Americas, but not until we meet our first aliens out there and survive that civilizational encounter. Or plant a successful fresh civilization on some other “Class M” planet. Meantime it’s the equivalent of proto-apes wading into a pond hoping to capture some crayfish for dinner. Except we’re not smart or dexterous enough to catch anything yet; we’re just wading, groping, and stumbling, not catching the speedy crayfish.
That is a good one. The linked article suggests it’s in dispute- what’s the over/under?
I, for one, welcome our Alien Crayfish Overlords.
Is mastery of fire in the running at all?
Wouldn’t have happened if we never came down from the trees. Which, personally, I think was a bad idea.
The printing press led to books of maps circulating around Europe which led to Columbus.
The invention of the window blind.
Without that, it would be curtains for all of us.
mmm
Are you kidding? Calculator watches!
How do you figure?
Yummmm - crayfish. (Former resident of Cajun land.)
It is to me. It’s the first thing I thought of. Agriculture is second.
Other things not mentioned include the alphabet, the sail, and domestication of animals.
How about industrialization? That pretty much seems to have started a countdown on our overall existence.
Or possibly stopped the countdown.
What happens when CO2 is below 150 ppm?
Language.
But we’re never going to know who first used human-type language; and, by its nature, it can’t have been a single person.
[Mel Brooks] Saran Wrap! [/Mel Brooks]
It’s too soon to tell for some things. For example, our breaking free from the confines of our planet will be deemed supremely important to our species only if we survive and continue to be a space-faring civilization. Otherwise, space exploration will be deemed only as something cool, but insignificant humans achieved at the twilight of our existence. “Yeah, they gathered a few extraterrestrial rocks and took some pretty space pictures, then ‘poof’— global warming snuffed them out.”
If we do survive as a species, I believe the most significant event that humans have achieved, even more-so than space exploration, is AI. AI will transform humanity in a profound way, though it’s hard to envision the degree it will do so since we are just at its birth. AI is a newborn baby that will grow into a mature adult that may become humanity’s savior (it will solve existential problems like climate change with ease)…or our destroyer (it could conclude that we climate-changing morons are more trouble than we’re worth and simply get rid of us).
How about banging rocks together?