Devo

In traditional Hindu cosmology, there are four world ages or yugas, all together lasting about four and a half million years.  

Each yuga is characterized by a decline in human capabilities, basically from gods to animals. 

We’re in the fourth now, the Kali Yuga, and it’s the one in which human capabilities are at their lowest level.  During the first yuga, the Satya Yuga, humanity was giant-sized and perfect in regards to truth and morality; a little less perfect but still ideal in the second, the Treta Yuga; by the third, the Dvapara Yuga, humanity was more degraded, but still way better than our sorry state now, which will lead to the eventual demise of the human race and set the stage for the cycle beginning all over again.

The French historian, Alain Daniélu, reckoned that the Kali Yuga would come to a close about the year 2442, when a catastrophe will wipe out all mankind; honestly, if that catastrophe is mankind itself, that seems about right (if not somewhat overly optimistic).

At any rate, take it all as metaphor, remove the supernatural implications, grounding the whole story in recorded history, and it still seems like those ancient Vedic sages were on to something.

Even though many contemporary human beings would (and do!) claim that the current state of humanity represents the apotheosis of the human experience, a strong case can be made that it’s entirely the other way around.  

Our average ancestor knew way more than any of us about how to survive; those ancient hunter-gatherers had to figure out everything; we just have to press a button and it’s done for us without any skill whatsoever on our part.  

Or think about sailors three hundred years ago crossing the oceans in sailing ships without GPS! 

Or turn-of-the-20th-century engineers building structurally sound bridges without computers.  

Or Victorian novelists writing some of history’s greatest literature by hand!

And then, everntially, this: 327 words typed on a laptop.