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I hadn't run across the Holocene calendar before. Interesting. I have a similar peeve around the diagrams showing the history of earth as a day and humans evolving in the last second or so, which makes our tiny sliver of time seem like "the end" as opposed to a tiny sliver on the way to the earth getting burned up by the aging sun.

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This is a really great thought! I hadn't considered that before but what you're saying is really important for intuition as well, I think, for considering something like the Fermi paradox or great filter.

Perhaps not only is the Earth a rare planet with the right characteristics to support sentient life, but perhaps too we have evolved in a very tiny window between two much longer periods in Earth's life where something like a human cannot evolve.

It's always good to remember that where you are right now in your life is just in the middle of what will one day be a much longer past.

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