# We are in the "Modern Age." What's next?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-in-the-modern-age-whats-next/662943>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [July 8, 2013, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-in-the-modern-age-whats-next/662943 "2013-07-08T14:24:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![si\_blakely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@si\_blakely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/si_blakely)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-in-the-modern-age-whats-next/662943/21 "2013-07-09T08:42:59Z")

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nm

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**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-in-the-modern-age-whats-next/662943/22 "2013-07-09T10:08:44Z")

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> [@garygnu](#):
>
> Geologically, I think mankind’s nulcear activities may leave a tracer significant enough to become a marker in the long-term record, but aren’t ages in that sense usually demarkated by extinction-level events?

It’s already happened; we’re living through it. Plenty of species have been killed off by us, and not just in modern times.

There’s also the diaspora of various species around the world, carried by humans into foreign ecosystems deliberately and otherwise.That’s also ecologically significant.

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**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-in-the-modern-age-whats-next/662943/23 "2013-07-09T10:27:33Z")

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Well if some people are correct we may be seeing the Age of Singularity soon although I doubt it personally.

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**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-are-in-the-modern-age-whats-next/662943/24 "2013-07-09T22:11:00Z")

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Historian Paul Johnson (“Modern times”) dates the beginning of Modern Times with the acceptance of Einstein’s theory of relativity. I think things have been going downhill since Art deco died (ca. 1942). Since that time society has become very retro-we are now about 1860 in terms of our outlook on things.

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