A trio of homo sapiens expressing delight, presumably while--or shortly after--consuming various amounts of highly alcoholic beverages. Photo via Flickr / CC.
The proverbial Wikipedia blackhole just got a lot more, well, cosmic. And turns out it event-horizons (because that's a verb now) right under our noses. By which I mean the article for Human is written entirely in the third-person, as if by some alien race looking quizzically down at our pathetic and fragile little species stamping around in dervish warpaths of self importance.
Have you ever noticed this? It's pretty hilarious, actually--and is at turns poignant and sobering. Here are some choice excerpts from the one Wiki article most assuredly written by either extraterrestrials or our reptilian, shape-shifting overlords. Or both.
With individuals widespread in every continent except Antarctica, humans are a cosmopolitan species, and by 2012, their population was estimated to be around 7 billion.
With the advent of the Information Age at the end of the 20th century, modern humans live in a world that has become increasingly globalized and interconnected. As of 2010, almost 2 billion humans are able to communicate with each other via the Internet, and 3.3 billion by mobile phone subscriptions.
Technology has allowed humans to colonize all of the continents and adapt to virtually all climates. Within the last century, humans have explored Antarctica, the ocean depths, and outer space, although large-scale colonization of these environments is not yet feasible.
As humans are rarely preyed upon, except by other humans for a variety of reasons, they have been described as apex or superpredators.
So what's left to do but rape the planet, right?
War is a state of widespread conflict between states or other large groups of humans, which is characterized by the use of lethal violence between combatants and/or upon civilians. (Humans also engage in lesser conflicts, such as brawls, riots, revolts, and melees. A revolution may or may not involve warfare.)
Ah, war--not just for humans anymore.
Reach Brian at firstname.lastname@example.org. @thebanderson