Tuesday, October 23

Timeline of life on earth.

4 billion years ago. Microbial life begins near heat vents in a worldwide ocean. Not too exciting.

1 billion years ago. Multicellular life evolves and quickly diversifies and spreads into almost every environmental niche. All of it's still in the ocean though.

600 million years ago. Animals as a distinct kingdom of life evolve. Begin to colonize land in various ways.

475 million years ago. Land plants evolve, but not flowers or trees. Mostly ferns and mosses.

400 million years ago. Insects evolve and have been annoying ever since.

360 million years ago. Amphibians evolve and have been squishy and boring ever since.

300 million years ago. Reptiles evolve and get really big and take over the earth.

200 million years ago. Mammals evolve sort of unnoticed.

150 million years ago. Birds evolve. They fly around.

130 million years ago. Flowers finally evolve so dinosaur Romeos can gather them for their Juliets. Trees and fruit too but they aren't as popular with the ladies.

65 million years ago. A big extinction event kills almost all the dinosaurs and mammals shamelessly use this advantage to get big and take over the world.

2 millions years ago. Modern humans evolve in Africa and decide to take over the world. The flower trick works pretty well for them, too.

25 Dec 4. Jesus of Nazareth is born and people mistake him for God. This gets him killed.

25 Dec 1642. Isaac Newton is born and goes on to revolutionize our understanding of nature.

1776. The United States is sort-of born. This will be a good thing for quite awhile, then get bad when fast food chains and the Bible Belt are formed.

25 Dec 1972. Justin of California is born. Hilarity ensures. A few good poems are written.

2012. The Aztec Calendar predicts the end of the world. Nothing even close to that happens.

2029. A big asteroid tries to do us in but small rockets nudge it out of the way in time.

2032. World Peace is finally achieved at the nation level. Everyone seems pretty optimistic about the future of humanity.

2033. A Type II supernova occurred some time ago in our neck of the Milky Way just by pure chance, and the burst of gamma rays arrives at the same time as the pretty images on telescopes all over the earth, which is then utterly extinguished of all life in less than a day.

Nobody goes to Heaven or Hell, which turn out not to exist. No one is reincarnated as someone else, because life in the solar system is GONE. There wasn't enough time for humans to colonize anywhere but the moon and have some plans to maybe get something going on Mars soon.

The End.

5 comments:

Sara said...

I stubbornly, serenely, foolishly, wisely, hopefully, knowingly, lovingly, laughingly hold out for an alternative ending in my parallel universe..

Metamatician said...

I hear the tooth fairy is the one magical being that actually does exist. Maybe you should appeal to her?

Just kidding, she's not real either.

Sara said...

No, just the tooth goblins, which is why most people have dentures by the time the reach old age. Destructive little blighters.

Anonymous said...

i love the ending :)

Metamatician said...

=) Someone who appreciates misery as much as I do! Or at least irony.

Thanks, Sue.

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