[antisthenes]

> You can point to a lot of periods in history where everything changes rapidly for at some points a couple of centuries before settling down again. It's hard to say if the modern period is unique or just another period of tumult between long stretches of calm. I'd caution against the notion that history is a science.

Whether history is or isn't a science is completely orthogonal to how unique a period is.

The modern period is unique due to the amount of resources being exploited per capita being unprecedented compared to any other time in human history. Although in the future it's possible that that number will trend down, for the time being our current prosperity is only enabled by copious amounts of energy spent on modern conveniences, particularly infrastructure, appliances and utilities.

[ch4s3]

The ability to turn raw materials into resources and to generate energy is certainly unique so far, but it may turn out to be basically the norm going forward.