Toby Ord's book, The Precipice, is one of the best books I've read. In it, Toby argues that we are at a particularly important time in human history, where there is a consolidation of x-risks that may result in us blowing everything up (nuclear war) or permanently locking in values due to superintelligent AI systems. The decisions made over the next hundred years may be extremely important. It is inferred in the EA community that there may be a period of "long reflection" after this initial period, where if we don't destroy ourselves or lock in bad values, we could chill for a bit and then strategically decide what the best moves our (taken hundreds of years to discuss before our next actions).
However, the progress of technology may make this claim entirely irrelevant. Perhaps in 200 years our problems are those of civilizational importance, but that civilization is about to colonize the galaxy and then universe. Determining if China and the US split the universe, or what specific space governance system should be implemented, may be drastically more important than the decisions we could make today. The discovery of novel physics in five hundred years, something crazy like the ability to create false vaccums or access different dimensions (or multiverses) could make those times the "precipice" of human history, where individual actions hold extaordinary weight. We are certainly, in my view, at the most important time period in human history. But aside from the consolidation of power possible through ASI, I have no reason to believe this trend will not simply continue upward.
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