# The Future: after the industrial age

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-future-after-the-industrial-age/841271>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [October 4, 2019, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-future-after-the-industrial-age/841271 "2019-10-04T17:14:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2019, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-future-after-the-industrial-age/841271/61 "2019-10-12T02:50:07Z")

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> [@XT](#):
>
> I tend to agree with you. We can’t see what is coming, for sure, or how it will impact our lives, or society or our culture and civilization, but I’d like to do a quick thought experiment. Many 'dopers were born before the technology we use every day was a thing. I was born when TV’s were just starting to be available to people (my family didn’t have it’s own TV until I was maybe around 10 or so) and radio was still heavily used (we had one that we listened to shows on as well as the news at night). Even electricity was not all pervasive (my folks first house had electricity that had been bolted on to a house that wasn’t designed for it, and the indoor plumbing was also retrofitted, so we had a single bathroom close to the kitchen, which is the only places where we had running water…cold water, since we didn’t have, initially, a water heater).

Sure, individually we adapt to new technologies pretty quickly. I’ve lived through vinyl, 8-tracks, cassette tapes, CDs, mp3 players and streaming music. It’s not like at any point I stopped figuring out how to listen to music I liked. But collectively, disruptive technology has a much bigger effect on companies, industries and even the balance of power between nations. Think about IT outsourcing. It’s not just that technology made jobs easier. It also made it easier to have people do jobs in countries where they didn’t have to pay people as much.

That’s what I think of when I think of the “singularity”. Some technological advancement that changes the way we do things in such a way that we can’t really imagine the world afterwards.

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**Author:** ![ralfy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ralfy/32/600_2.png) [@ralfy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralfy)\
**Post date:** [October 14, 2019, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-future-after-the-industrial-age/841271/62 "2019-10-14T01:44:07Z")

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Probably limits to growth at best.

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