The short-term nature of this civilisation is evident in its short-term economic system: impulse buying, instant gratification, single-use commodities and single-use natural resources are all manifestations of a mindset that systematically ignores long-term repercussions. Our psychological coping mechanisms and addictions seek short term relief in unhealthy foods, drugs, and habits that make us feel good right now, but we pay for it later. Everything is becoming more instantaneous and temporary as self-destruction gathers pace. The 10 minutes are becoming 10 seconds as both our attention span and our patience run short in a world overtaken by its own speed. At a time when humans should be engaging with their long-term brain functions, existential issues that require planning and projection are indefinitely postponed. A civilisation that is constructed as a short-term stint can only ever have a finite duration.
This is all happening at a time when the climate is being rearranged, reconfigured, rerouted and rewired. Weather systems are moved around like furniture, leaving our 10-minute brain to wonder in surprise: “This wall wasn’t here. The TV is upside down. Why is there a hole in the roof? The catastrophe is not rapid enough for the 10-minute brain to register. For a civilisation that has developed so many advanced and specialised scientific disciplines it is astounding that the very simple math of human overpopulation, by far the biggest factor in overshoot, is being censored by society. The daily survival of 8 billion humans continues to depend upon destruction and extinction. This is a survival model which is undoubtedly unsurvivable.
Given the strong drivers for its selection, the 10-minute brain is quite possibly a feature of all civilisations: terrestrial or not. Somewhere in this galaxy there may be a solar system with an intelligent species who may have just about managed to avoid destroying itself.
George is an author, researcher, molecular biologist and food scientist.
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George Tsakraklides 
Both ancient Egypt and premodern China had been able to last thousands of years as civilizations with distinct, recognizable identities. All without overtaxing their resource bases and home ecosystems AFAIK (correct me if I’m wrong on this, though I’m confident I’m not). It is only Europe in the last few hundred years that has embarked on this path of destructive development we’re all familiar with and compelled the rest of the world to do so. China at first didn’t want to do so; she just wanted to be left alone to follow her ancient ways. She eventually took this path because, if she didn’t, then it would have been easy for those who did to trample on her.