Only by standing at a height of 10,000 m to see the world and observing the world
from the perspective of one hundred years can we have the vision and persistence,
not deviate from reality, and gain an earlier and further view.
If the 250 thousand years history of mankind from the hunting-gathering era was
condensed into one day, then in the first 23 h and 58 min and 30 s of that day, human
beings would be in the long process of evolution from hunting-gathering civilization
to agricultural civilization. Therewas no significant change in human living standards
in general until 1800 A.D., when human life expectancy was not much different from
that of the hunting-gathering era-basically 30-35 years old. However, in the last
minute and a half of that day, with the emergence of the Industrial Revolution,
mankind seemed to have opened the door of miracle. The Industrial Revolution lives
up to its reputation as a "great revolution". It has started the rapid development
of human civilization in the past two and a half centuries. Technological progress
has made mankind break through limits and created unprecedented prosperity. The
progress of agricultural technology has enabled mankind to solve hunger problems on
a large scale and continuously improve nutrition. The use of coal and oil has greatly
improved the efficiency of human production and laid the foundation for the industrial
system. The high-speed iteration and upgrading of computer and communication
technology have been constantly changing human communication and lifestyle and
have greatly reduced the costs of human production. Since the Industrial Revolution,
human life expectancy has doubled. By 2019, the global life expectancy reached
72.6 years old, and the life expectancy in developed countries generally surpassed
the threshold of 80 years old. The global population also increased from less than
1 billion in the early eighteenth century to 7.7 billion in 2019. Today, we are used
to the bustling world until the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc across the globe
in 2020, triggering memories of the 1918 Flu Pandemic (also known as the Spanish
Flu) that had been buried for more than a century. If we take this once-in-a-century
pandemic as the beginning of the next day, we cannot help but ask the following questions: Will prosperity after the Industrial Revolution continue to be in place
tomorrow? Can the human beings who ride in this blue ark in the vast universe
survive the era of resource scarcity and march toward endless growth?
In recent years, people of insight have actually felt that mankind is standing at
the crossroads of our times. I think that from the perspective of the span of time and
space over a hundred years, the changes of our times we are facing include three
aspects. The first is the great change in globalization and the world landscape. The
second is the great change in civilization form and production and lifestyle brought
about by taking carbon peaking and carbon neutrality as development goals. The
last is the great change of mankind as a species in the era of longevity. These three
aspects influence each other and will become the main forces affecting the global
future.
