Many seem confident that the modern civilization that has developed over the past few hundred years will endure, even though climate change and global pandemic are creating a different and more dangerous world. No doubt humankind will somehow adapt. But the nature of these adjustments is unclear. Will the kinds of societies that exist today be renewed in different forms? Or will institutions from the past – feudalism or slavery, for example – be revived and maintained with new technologies? No one can tell. The future of human life on Earth is as unknown as what (if anything) comes after we
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