Eras Defined - Focus on Next One

Eras/Ages Defined - focus on what is next

-- a university of arizona course on methods and approaches for studying the future

The big eras or ages have also been referred to as revolutions. The commonly used examples are: agricultural, industrial, service, technology, and information. What comes next is mostly speculation, but I will speculate a bit below and also refine the"information" age description. There are many descriptions for "era", these are used to give context to where we have been and where we are going. They are therefore useful to provide the overall framework for understanding both the change and the speed of change that we are facing.
The past: • Hunter/Gatherer. The old days! This era lasted a very long time, until the agricultural era. All your time was essentially spent collecting food.; • Agricultural. Farming. Mechanized/scientific - 16th - 19th century.; • Industrial. Steam, iron, - mid 1800s followed by manufacturing and communications in 20th century.; • Service. Service by others for needs (e.g., restaurants. Laundries, agents of all types - mid 20th century

What is current?: • Technological. (that is my view, many would say the information age). The three big ones are information technology (especially digital aspects), biotechnology, and materials technologies.; The often cited "information age" is a subset of technology (it includes information and communication but also various devices and other techniques that are digital but not necessarily classified as information). The key aspect of "information" is really the digital portion (rather than analog) which allows interconversion and vastly new opportunities compared to the older information "technologies". This allows the support for many additional new technologies which depend ability of finding and using information (e.g., biotechnology) or planning and testing final products (even without prototypes) in materials. A more recent new technology is nanotechnology. However, all of these can be put together - digital-, bio-, nano-, and materials- technologies. The all interact to allow new things to happen and old familiar things to happen in new ways. Of course, there were early signals of "technology" present in all the earlier eras - hunting, agriculture, industry, and service. It is only when the subject of technology becomes so dominant in so many areas that it is legitimate to designate it as an era/age.
What is next? Sustainability?: There is not a lot of discussion on "what is next", some have said "spiritual" and not necessarily in the religious sense, but I don't think that term is broad enough (although I would included the term as part of the answer). I am inclined to say "sustainable", where sustainable is not restricted to the old use of "saving resources", but something more inclusive (see below).
: Two perspectives about eras are important. 1) all the above descriptions are still with us - agriculture, industry, service, technology, and they will continue to be so (including ideas expressed over the last few thousand years), and 2) the early signals of a new era underway, but it is hard to discover this change AND be sure of it before more examples are evident.
: Some factors that suggest this include: 1) a rise in the need for interdisciplinary understanding - one needs to know and understand how things are connected together to a much greater extent for the future, 2) something more inward directed, looking at self improvement, and interactions among and within the groups and individuals that make up society, 3) a greater interest in sustainability, to include resources but also people, and more businesses and government are addressing issues that might be listed as sustainability, ethical or responsible behavior, and quality, and 4) a greater appreciation of long term, systematic thinking rather than focusing on short term behavior or results. In addition, organizations are learning from how biological systems are organized - where the primary objective is reproduction (another way of saying sustainability).
: What might be incorporated into a "sustainable era"? Sustainability covers a lot of topics - cultures, learning (continuing), economic needs, development of all types, population and resources. It addresses some of the pending issues such as increasing ratio of old to young people (the world maximum population growth rate peaked in 1962 and the most people added in a single year was in 1990; the world population is heading for sustainability levels), the need for understanding of many diverse topics (e.g., cultures, species, approaches), and even spirituality. We need to remember, it s to early to really understand what is happening and to separate early indicators of fundamental change from trivial trends or fads. Nonetheless, it is still useful to try and understand what comes next, as could give a framework for everything else we do in our futures work (note: don't put all your eggs in one basket - you better have an alternative approach if this one turns out to be wrong).
Sustainability should not be thought of as "maintaining the present" but as enhancing the present to have a long term positive future. So, maybe we should use the term "sustainability and enhancement" to describe the next ere.
: Some components of a sustainable era might include:; • Global and interconnected; • Cooperation and communication; • Values and ethics, responsible care or behavior; • Historical perspectives as fundamental driving forces; • Human/nature interface and compatibility
: • Long term perspectives rather than short term, life long learning, self actualization; • Living with uncertainty, innovation, constraint, voluntary simplicity; • Self fulfillment, personalization, lifelong learning, spirituality; Go to the Sustainability list of web links.; Some further descriptors of this new era include (you and many more for yourself):

Return to "Anticipating the Future" course home page
Prepared by Roger L. Caldwell