Reminiscing about the Space Shuttle got me thinking of just how far past the “space age” we’ve gotten. I’ve generally considered us to be in the “silicon age” and have greatly enjoyed the connectedness, abundance resources, wealth, and productivity that computers have created for us.
I believe that we’re now entering a new age - the age of constraints. In the age of constraints, the driving force behind our life decisions will be how our choices fit within our constrained resources. In the silicon age, the primary constraint was time, but today those resources are physical. We’ve reached limits on how much energy, oil, water, metal, corn, et cetera can be cheaply applied to create wealth.
It may be inconvenient compared to our current lifestyle, but this new age will reward the innovative. We are so wasteful today that there is great wealth to be made in replacing efficiency for waste. For example, tremendous fortunes will be made from ecosystems around LED lighting. Some entrepreneur will profit every time a morsel of efficiency is wrung from converting egregiously wasteful space age products into sleekly efficient AoC artifacts.
Note: I’m working on a catchier name…I’m just a pundit in training.