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After the information age, what could be next?

Technology has this innate momentum (or intertia) to continue developing until the hypothetical end when the infinite game of life as we know it reaches its final destination.

People have different guesses on what that end is or when it might happen. Though we don't have a date, a religion like Christianity has one answer of what it would look like when it happens. Not sure I've seen if there's a scientific answer for when the world will end due to factors like global warming, or the expansion of the universe, or something else.

Technology Is Heading Somewhere

If the question is framed as, "What does technology want?" - that assumes that technology has some kind of an inherent bias to move towards something that it wants.  Kevin Kelly wrote a book with that question as the title. And this video ted.com is worth watching to get the full context.


What is the conclusion? Kevin Kelly alludes to what technology wants in a few statements like these:
Somewhere, today, there are millions of young children being born whose technology of self-expression has not yet been invented. We have a moral obligation to invent technology so that every person on the globe has the potential to realize their true difference. We want a trillion zillion species of one individuals. That's what technology really wants.  ... 
... Our humanity is actually defined by technology. All the things that we think that we really like about humanity is being driven by technology. This is the infinite game. That's what we're talking about. You see, technology is a way to evolve the evolution. It's a way to explore possibilities and opportunities and create more. And it's actually a way of playing the game, of playing all the games. That's what technology wants. And so when I think about what technology wants, I think that it has to do with the fact that every person here -- and I really believe this -- every person here has an assignment. And your assignment is to spend your life discovering what your assignment is. That recursive nature is the infinite game. ... [emphasis added]

Something will be coming after today's information age

Nick Kellet on Listly and has crowdsourced and compiled a couple dozen suggestions for what could be next, the post-information age:


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