Extinction is inevitable. We can prolong it but we exist on a finite time line no matter how expansive. Happened to a billion species before us and it'll occur to a billion more after us. These species will have their hayedays; roaming the Earth (or whatever they might call it) consuming and devouring natural resources; perched at the top of the food chain.

We are doomed by our inability to transcend our own limitations. We're built to go only so far. Take Australopithecus Africanus for example; inhabited the earth roughly 3 - 1.6 million years ago, that's an awful long time. But in those million plus years they never managed to develop any tools more complex than a sharpened stone, it never even occured to them to put it on the end of a stick and make a spear. Were they dumb? Sure by our standards; they just weren't built to think that far ahead and eventually they died off and a species more adept to the enviorment sprung up and took charge.

And so it goes... We'll face the same thing someday. Whether it's because we've exhausted our natural resources, bombed the shit outta one another or been smashed by some stellar anomaly; we will meet our ends. All we can hope is that the next dominant species is intelligent. That they too will grow learn explore and discover what we’ve left behind; that they’ll be prepared, someday, to build on our infinitesimal contributions… But there’s no guarantee.

The dinosaurs didn’t have any social structure, sense of history or culture and they got along fine for a long while. If a great environmental shift were to leave the planet completely submerged would the dominant species be mermaids or giant sharks which have already survived a million years without evolving any? If the next dominant life form is unintelligent all our toil will be lost. There will be no Homo Superior to dig up the Constitution, New York City or rob the graves of our exalted heroes. What will existence be without music or art or esoteric conversation? Pretty damn pointless.

All you can do is hope the next dominant species is intelligent.

-Johnny Zito
JohnnyZito.Com