I try to think from raw principles
I see it like
@Galaxiom: You cannot equate earth history and human history (in this case the last 200 years with the start of industrialization from around 1830).
While earth's history only brings major changes in a long time lapse, but in our current perception (continental shifts, ice ages) it progresses quite slowly, the influence of humans on the earth is very dynamic and with exponential growth.
There used to be stagecoaches, now there are rockets. What does that tell you?
The rockets are no longer reserved for a few researchers; tourists will soon be traveling into space, to the moon and to Mars for their enjoyment.
It used to be a heroic act to climb Mt Everest, the highest mountain in the world, in a drastically life-threatening environment. Today, tourists, including the sick and old, are carted up after queuing at the foot of the mountain.
In just under six months, humanity uses up the resources that the earth can reproduce in a year. Western countries with their higher standards are much more “successful”; they don’t even need 3 months to do it.
People are successfully working on many fronts to deprive themselves of their own livelihoods. Of course not all people, but enough people.
So sooner or later (100 years, 200 years, 300 years, no one seriously thinks about a thousand years) people will ask themselves the question:
HOW, WHERE and WHAT OF WHAT will we live in the future?
For the universe and infinity, such a question is irrelevant; humans are just a momentary special configuration of stardust. But people could be interested in it. Ideologies, scientists, politicians and all other people can be measured by this.
But we are similar to the world in one way:
If another large asteroid crashes or the eruption of a supervolcano like Yellowstone, we have to counteract the unleashing of nuclear weapons in order to change the world in one fell swoop.