About 300,000 years ago the whole species Homo sapiens numbered some ten thousand individuals, fewer than a small town holds today. That figure crawled to 5 million when farming began around 12,000 years ago, touched 1 billion in the age of the steam engine, then shot past 8 billion within two centuries. Only a logarithmic axis can hold both ends at once, because nearly every technological turning point crowds into the shortest, most recent stretch.
About 300,000 years ago the whole species Homo sapiens numbered some ten thousand individuals, fewer than a small town holds today. That figure crawled to 5 million when farming began around 12,000 years ago, touched 1 billion in the age of the steam engine, then shot past 8 billion within two centuries. Only a logarithmic axis can hold both ends at once, because nearly every technological turning point crowds into the shortest, most recent stretch.
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