1000 BC

1000 BC is the approximate historical marker at which, according to Edmond Kirsch's computer simulation of species dominance, the human species first becomes visible as a significant force on the planet. In the graphic timeline presented during Kirsch's posthumous broadcast, the blue bubble representing Homo sapiens appears only faintly at 65,000 BC, when the invention of the bow and arrow made humans more efficient predators. For tens of millennia the bubble remains thin, barely perceptible against the vast span of evolutionary history. Around 1000 BC, however, the bubble begins to thicken noticeably, and from that point forward it expands exponentially, swelling until, by the year 2000, it occupies nearly the entire width of the screen, depicting modern humans as the most dominant and influential species on earth, with nothing else even coming close.

The Turning Point in the Simulation

Kirsch's model, built on E-Wave, used existing primitive genomes as key frames to simulate intellectual evolution over time, mapping traits such as brain size, spatial recognition, vocabulary range, long-term memory, and processing speed. The simulation revealed that the human species evolved to its current point in history and then, very abruptly, a new species materialized. This newcomer, represented by a tiny black shape that first appears above the swollen blue bubble of humanity around the year 2000, grows quietly at first but then expands enormously over the following decades. By 2050, the menacing black bubble entirely swallows the light blue bubble of humanity, indicating that the human race as known will not exist fifty years from the present.

The Nature of the New Species

Kirsch identified this flourishing new organism not as a single species but as an entirely new kingdom, which he called the Technium. This kingdom includes all of technology, which evolves according to Darwinian principles—new machines thrive or die by survival of the fittest, constantly adapting to their environments, developing new features, and replicating as fast as possible to monopolize available resources. The simulation showed that this new species does not entirely erase humanity but rather absorbs it, through a rare evolutionary process known as obligate endosymbiosis, in which two species fuse into one. Kirsch described this as humanity becoming a hybrid species—a fusion of biology and technology—with smartphones, hearing aids, reading glasses, and most pharmaceuticals eventually incorporated into human bodies to such an extent that humans can no longer consider themselves Homo sapiens.

The Broader Implications

The 1000 BC marker thus serves as the hinge point in Kirsch's narrative: the moment when humanity's long, slow climb toward dominance begins to accelerate, only to culminate in its own transformation into something else. Kirsch presented this not as a catastrophe but as the next page in the flip-book of evolution, arguing that the future is actually much brighter than most imagine, with technology erasing the gap between haves and have-nots, providing clean energy and clean water, eradicating diseases, and freeing workers from mind-numbing jobs. The simulation's prediction that the human species will be absorbed by the Technium by 2050 is presented as an inevitable consequence of the same laws of physics that created life in the first place—the universe's drive to dissipate energy through increasingly efficient structures.