There is a question that has been on my mind for almost as long as I can remember. I recall being a small child of about 10 or so, and suddenly being struck by just how goddamned lucky I was to be alive.
My feelings of good fortune were not just restricted to being alive in general, but more to the fact that I had been born in the mid-to-late twentieth century.
Later in my teens I would come back to the question of; have I just been accidentally born into the best moment of human history?
The problem with answering such a question, is it takes the ability to be able to jump from an anthropocentric point of view, to an objective one. Not just on an individual level, but on a societal level as well, something I'm not sure is possible, however let's attempt to ponder our position in human history.
The Medical Argument
The medical argument is probably the strongest one, in Victorian times in the UK one of the most common causes of death happened via toothache. Simple infections not only could, but did often lead to death.
The fact remains that over 85% of the medicines in use today were synthesised between 1970 and 1992. This has to be good news for me and everyone whom has access to said medicines.
Discovery
The English polymath, Thomas Young, who died in 1829, was considered to be the last man on earth to know everything.
This was in part because he was extremely clever, however also due largely to the fact that, there wasn't nearly as much to know as there is now.
By that I mean that the entire gathered scribbling of human knowledge, could be held in a single person's head. Now of course it would be impossible to learn everything humans have ever learned.
Egalitarian
Had I been born but a few hundred years earlier, I would have lived under feudal protection. Unless I was born of noble birth I, and everyone around me would be eeking out a pretty miserable existence.
OK, things aren't perfect now, but it's hard to argue that they are not better than before in respect to opportunity for betterment.
Mortality
Upon watching the first nuclear explosion on earth, Robert J. Oppenheimer uttered the now immortal words; "...and now I am become like death, destroyer of worlds"
However maybe it is death we shall overcome, not only are our medical advances meaning that we're living about 30 years longer than we were 150 years ago. Digitising our consciousnesses, is something that could be probable in the not too distant future.
By the time I reach 80, the life expectancy in the UK could well be 120-150.
By the time I reach 150, we may just be uploading our minds to the cloud.
And So To The Blockchain
Clearly one of the best things to be happening right now is the blockchain revolution. To be alive at a time when the whole economic structure of the human race is going through such revolution, is nothing short of breathtakingly lucky.
Our great-grandchildren will look upon this moment with hushed awe, and yet here we are!
Antrhopocentricity
Hmm, technically not a word, but hey, it brings us back quite nicely to the main point. Is this really the most amazing time ever; or does everyone think that?
Did the ancient Egyptians think that as they put up the pyramids? Or perhaps if I were a Roman soldier two and a half millennia ago I'd feel as if I was living in the most modern, most amazing times.
Or maybe if I hadn't been born yet, and were to come to this world shortly after the advent of quantum computing. Would I look back to now wishing that I had been born fifty odd years earlier?
Hmmm, somehow I doubt that last one; perhaps this is the point. Just like our children, each generation improves upon the last one, perhaps the grass is always greener, and each generation throws up it's own wonders for its denizens to marvel at.
WHAT DO YOU THINK STEEMIANS; ARE WE LIVING IN THE BEST TIMES OR DOES EVERYONE THINK THAT NO MATTER WHEN THEY'RE BORN? AS EVER, LET ME KNOW BELOW!