We are on the threshold of unlimited greatness!!
“New technological advancements in solar energy, nanotechnology, and genomics will very soon eradicate most of the problems. We will need political solutions to the issues of workers rights, education, healthcare and justice, and technology alone will not help us in that regard.
We are only 15 to 20 years away from limitless clean energy, as solar power is quickly reaching grid parity. Nano-manufacturing, again, no more than a quarter-century away before it becomes mainstream, will not just be a more efficient and quicker means to manufacture the “stuff” we consume, it will also be totally green. It will be the end of resource-based production, as everything will be built from basic elements or simple compounds, i.e. from atoms and molecules. Nano-manufacturing will be the ultimate in recycling, as our waste will be broken down into the basic elements needed to build new stuff. (Yes, our landfills will be mined for their valuable materials and cleaned up in the process.)
Beyond nano- engineering, although it is probably 50 years or more off, pico-engineering is already being suggested hypothetically to follow: That is, manufacturing stuff from subatomic particles. (Now that will be a sustainable economy.) Nanotechnology will also be used to purify and desalinate water, producing plentiful, inexpensive, clean water for household use, manufacturing and agricultural irrigation for everybody.
We all want a green, sustainable economy with zero waste. Technology is very quickly going to bring us there. We are not however going to stop producing stuff. In just a few years, we will be producing annually more stuff than all the stuff our species has produced since day one. We will be producing so much stuff because it will be virtually free. Any item will be made out of basic components for little or no cost. I believe this is a good thing as “stuff” will lose its value, and by extension, we have the potential to become less materialistic. There is room for limitless growth in this universe, so we are only at the thin edge of the wedge. Certainly we must ask philosophical questions about whether or not this will make us happy or not, but to me the question is more whether or not we are happy in the natural order of things or not. If we are not, then perhaps the problem is not external. By external I mean, the problem is not the way other people or humanity is carrying on. Perhaps the problem is within our self, and our view of what is going on. Constant change is nature’s way. But as we look at change in nature, we find it takes the form of evolution. Not just the evolution of life, but the evolution of matter, even the universe itself…right from the Big Bang. We also must see that evolution is really an increase in complexity, growing exponentially with an ever quickening pace, and that all that is in human endeavor is part of the natural order and hence it must follow this pattern, and grow exponentially. Our technology cannot be removed from this natural order. We do not arrive at the ideal by denying natures way, in fact I believe it is impossible: that is, trying to slow down or reverse the inexorable path that the universe is on. That Luddite view comes only from a place of fear: From the position that the human arena must be defined by its limits, and not it’s potential.
We are on the threshold of unlimited greatness!”
- Tony Dives -
