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TEchn0l0gy’S<br />
TRAGECT0RY<br />
The varieties of whatever will increase. Those varieties that give humans<br />
more free choices will prevail.<br />
Technologies will start out general in their irst version, and specialize<br />
over time. Going niche will always be going with the low. There is<br />
almost no end to how specialized (and tiny) some niches can get.<br />
You can safely anticipate higher energy eficiency, more compact<br />
meaning and everything getting smarter.<br />
All are headed to ubiquity and free. What lips when everyone has one?<br />
What happens when it is free?<br />
Highly evolved forms become beautiful, which can be its own attraction.<br />
Over time the fastest moving technology will become more social,<br />
more co-dependent, more ecological, more deeply entwined with other<br />
technologies. Many technologies require scaffolding tech to be born irst.<br />
The trend is toward enabling technologies which become tools for<br />
inventing new technologies easiest, faster, cheaper.<br />
High tech needs clean water, clean air, reliable energy just as much as<br />
humans want the same.<br />
In general the long-term bias of technology<br />
is to increase the diversity of artifacts,<br />
methods, techniques. More ways, more<br />
choices. Over time technological advances<br />
invent more energy eficient methods,<br />
and gravitate to technologies which compress<br />
the most information and knowledge<br />
into a given space or weight. Also<br />
over time, more and more of matter on<br />
the planet will be touched by technological<br />
processes. Technologies tend toward<br />
ubiquity and cheapness. They also tend<br />
towards greater complexity (though many<br />
will get simpler, too). Over time technologies<br />
require more surrounding technologies<br />
in order to be discovered and to<br />
operate; some technologies become<br />
eusocial — a distributed existence — in<br />
which they are inert when solitary. In the<br />
long run, technology increases the speed<br />
at which it evolves and encourages its<br />
own means of invention to change. It aims<br />
to keep the game of change going.<br />
What this means is that when the<br />
future trajectory of a particular ield of<br />
technology is in doubt, “all things being<br />
equal” you can guess several things about<br />
where it is headed <<br />
<strong>USER</strong><br />
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