Predicting the End of History: Mathematical Modeling and the Anthropocene

The word Anthropocene purposely draws our attention to the anthropos, the humans who are now changing the planet’s climate. We must not forget, however, what media theorists and philosophers like Marshall McLuhan, Friedrich Kittler, and Bernard Stiegler have pointed out — humans are inherently technological. It is not mere humans that have reached out and changed the climate but humans extended by planet-scale economies and industries. The computed climate models that show us the climate has changed are just another way we’ve come to rely on automated devices to understand what is happening before our very eyes. The problem of the Anthropocene is not simply one of scale (whether geologic or temporal) but of a change in the very way we order our world. If history is text, then history is over — numbers have replaced text.