Imagine if. . .

For all technological species across the galaxy there are key moments in the timeline of invention that are pass/fail tests.  From standing up so hands can use tools, to scientific advancment creating nuclear bombs, we have seen turning points that lead one way to extinction and the other to new eras.


We humans take for granted our successes; it's as natural as breathing to feel a string of good luck is the hand of fate or the will of the gods.  "We earned it," says the championship-winning team, never mind the random events that helped along the way.  


What is humanity's next key moment, the next pass/fail test?  Global climate change?  The so-called singularity?  Pandemic?


The 185 million-year-long age of dinosaurs ended abruptly.  Most fingers point the blame at a giant meteor strike.  However, some evidence seems to show this single event did not actually kill all dinosaurs at the same time.  Some experts believe the dinosaurs were truly driven to extinction by an unfortunately timed series of events, a domino-effect of disasters.


Like the great lizards, could our most important turning point be a similar concatenation of events?


Mankind has so far survived whatever Nature has thrown at us.  Someday, we may expect a run of bad luck, a series of disasters that will amount to global armageddon.  This isn't prophecy; it's just an expression of the odds.  The question is, how will we survive the kind of bad luck that finished off the most successful animals to yet walk the face of Earth?


Keep listening, SETI.  Maybe someone out there learned the answer and is willing to share.