“The future of humanity is going to bifurcate in two directions: Either it’s going to become multi planetary, or it’s going to remain confined to one planet and eventually there’s going to be an extinction event” – Elon Musk
We have moved from Agriculture Age (18th century) -> Industrial Age (19th century) -> Information Age (20th century) . Now moving to Conceptual Age (21st century).
In every revolution/age, major inventions and break through took place at peak level. As a side effect, some things we damage then we tend to come back or reverse them. But you can never come back to where we have started or restore fully.
Let me give an example. If we take Agriculture area, we started eating pesticide based food then now genetically modified food. At the peak of advancements, we realize that “oh we are eating mostly chemicals”. Then we try to take U turn and come back to “natural/organic” food. But you can never come back where we have started – pure natural foods. We can reduce the damage little bit and come back may be 1/4 th. Like trying to eat little bit of organic food wherever some possibility. This is what I am call as “1/4th U Turn”.
Same thing happened with Industrial revolution. We have damaged whole planet. Now we are talking about “Green”. Now you re-read the above quote from Elon Musk. What is he saying?. We have done all destruction on planet Earth and now go and start fresh on some other planet ;).
One set of humans will go on inventing breakthrough for their own kick (called some times as “Purpose”) and the other small set will try to “save/restore” things (another form of kick). So this games goes on and on.
Point is very simple. This pattern (1/4th U Turn) goes on even in current and next Age. Part and parcel of human mind and nature. You can choose to be part of “invention/creation” or “restoring/saving” group.
Future will be really exciting in both cases.
YK
Murali
Interesting.