From first humans to civilization. From first civilizations to the scientific revolution. From scientific revolution to industrial revolution. From industrial to digital.
Not the progress itself. The speed of progress. Each leap is roughly 10 to 100 times faster than the previous one. The universe took 9 billion years to become complex enough for stars. Chemistry gave way to biology. Biology evolved. Then culture. Then technology. Each phase accelerating.
For most of human existence, the universe was simple. In the first moments after the Big Bang, there was only hydrogen. The simplest possible element. One proton circled by one electron. That is all there was.
Then slowly, complexity began to build. Stars ignited. In their cores, hydrogen became helium. Helium became carbon. Carbon became nitrogen, oxygen, iron. Nine billion years for the universe to produce the periodic table.
And then something miraculous happened. In the dust of dead stars, chemistry became biology. Non-living matter organized itself into self-replicating systems. Into life. From the universe's first elements to the first living cell. Roughly 10 billion years.
Once life existed, evolution accelerated dramatically. Single-celled organisms dominated for 3 billion years. Then, around 600 million years ago, complex multicellular life exploded into existence. From first life to complex life. 3 billion years. From complex life to mammals. 400 million years. From mammals to humans. 65 million years.
Each step faster than the last.
The pattern. Not optimism. What we do with it is up to us.