Keeping in mind that we are...

"as a species, inclined to historical solipsism. The past is what has led to us; the future is what is being created by us. We claim ownership, triumphantly, of the best of times, and also, self-pityingly, of the worst of times. We tend to confuse our scientific and technological progress with moral and social progress. And we forget a little too easily that evolution is not just a process which has brought the race to its current admirable position but one that which logically implies evolution away from us."

"Nothing to be Frightened of"
Julian Barnes
Knopf, 2008