Photo stolen unscrupulously from SeriousEats.
At any rate, Dan Carlin was discussing the Fermi Paradox. The Fermi Paradox, in essence, poses the question: If the probability of intelligent life existing elsewhere in our universe is so high, why is there no evidence of it? Or, perhaps more simply, where is everyone?
One theory is that it is the natural progression of intelligent species to destroy themselves.
When did we, as humans, acquire the potential to pose a truly existential threat to ourselves? Many would argue July 16, 1945 - the day the first successful nuclear weapons test was conducted. Dan Carlin argues that it was right around the start of WWI, a little over thirty years earlier. WWI was the first large-scale military conflict in which both sides possessed automatic weapons. The brutality of our own killing machines had advanced so quickly that warships constructed a mere decade prior to the start of the war were outclassed so completely by warships possessed by other nations as to be almost useless.
I only bring this up because I began thinking that if our civilization is indeed marching towards its inevitable self-destruction, then what will inherit the earth? My guess is micro-organisms. I do not mean from the standpoint of the next organism to evolve consciousness, but rather the organism which will outlive all of us - human, animal, and plant.
We are already slaves to our invisible future-rulers. We rely upon them to aid our digestion, to keep so-called "bad bacteria" at bay, to produce the food which enables our plants to grow (and in that sense, enables our lives as well).
We are also at their mercy. Something we cannot even see, if introduced at the wrong time to our systems, can start a cascade which can take our very lives away from us. In some sense our tiny neighbors are more advanced than we are. Dramatically shorter generations enable exponential rates of evolution and thus adaptation we can only dream of as a species.
Cheese, yogurt, pickled foods of all kinds (a list nearly too long to count), alcohol, leavened bread, vaccines, pharmaceuticals.. the list goes on and on.
And of course, tea.
Forgiving a few special varieties, nearly all the tea we consume is alive. Puer probably most of all. Many people have touched on this subject before and I find it extremely fascinating. It leads me to believe that humans have far more than the acknowledged "tastes" - sour, salty, sweet, bitter, umami (protein?). I would argue that we have evolved another - fermentation. Sure fermentation is predominantly a mixture of the other tastes, but there is something inherently old and complex about it which many find pleasing.
What is more interesting is how people who find one or more member of the fermented food family to be to their liking will often find other foods from the family to their liking as well. Liking pickles can lead to liking kimchi and sourdough bread, liking puer tea can lead to appreciating whiskey, and so forth. Complex foods beget desire for other complex foods.
I for one welcome the future lords of our planet, and I invite everyone in this New Year full of doubts and uncertainties to remember that ultimately, we are all insignificant. Practice love, practice compassion, share life, and share tea. It is the only way forward.
Happy Tea Drinking.
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