A special future

We left off with an exponential increase in the ease with which we distribute and receive audio, video, and text. From here on I will be lumping these three broad categories into an even broader category: information. At an unprecedented rate that continues to increase, human beings are consuming and creating information.

With the combination of more efficient compression (video: divx to xvid to x264 for example) and an explosion in the amount of raw storage (I now carry more storage space on my keychain than my entire desktop from ten years ago had), this is a trend that is unlikely to abate any time soon.

Now, before I continue let me introduce a quick word of warning. Much of the following makes the (not trivial) assumption that our current energy situation (read: unlimited and cheap) continues. If you are unfamiliar with Peak Oil theory I would strongly suggest you research whether you believe this to be the case, but for this strictly academic exercise we will not get bogged down in such minor details.

Back to information.

There was a time when the level of information present in the world stayed relatively constant. This fact can be attributed to two main reasons. The first of these is that information was not permanent. The fire at the Royal Library at Alexandria is proof of this; many unique (read: truly one of a kind) pieces of literature and science were destroyed. The second fact is that information simply was not being produced at the same rate as it is today.

It would be unfairly simplistic to say we are smarter than someone living three hundred years ago. The isolation (both physical and informational) necessitated diversity in the allocation of the subjects of that information just to survive. As we mentioned last post, farming knowledge, sewing knowledge, teaching knowledge, medical knowledge, etc. was necessary for survival. So while I may know more about physics, I can’t sew a button onto my pants let alone sew an entire dress.

If we make the assumption the amount of knowledge we can retain is finite (whether we’ve reached that point is inconsequential because if we haven’t, we will), we can also make some interesting conjectures about the future. As the level of information in the world continues to grow it will be necessary for individuals who wish to reach the cutting edge of their field to make sacrifices in other areas just to have space available for the information.

What I’m describing is specialization and we’re already beginning to see it. Think about the number of possible professions today and compare that to fifty years ago. Industrialization has proven specialization more efficient in the economic world and its naïve to think we cannot apply it to other realms.

But with this improved efficiency come sacrifices to the autonomy of the individual pieces in the whole. To combat this shortcoming it is vital for the communication framework to be as efficient as possible. While the network is improving (letters to phones to e-mail to sms messaging) there are still huge leaps here to be made especially in the transmission of multimedia.

Enter the social network.

Social networks are already used as communication devices albeit with a (not so) slight recreational bent. But if we think back to recent acquisitions (Cisco’s purchase of Tribe.net, Google’s purchase of YouTube) you can begin to understand why the infrastructure is an as important element as the reputation of these properties (more so in Cisco’s case than Google’s).

There is much more to come in this series and on this subject, the inevitable development of a hive mentality and the role social networks will have in this creation, as well as the idea of time as currency and even a few anecdotes grounded firmly in science fiction (downloadable memories anyone?).

This thought thread continues to be a work in progress so any thoughts, ideas, criticisms, and/or insults are very welcome. I’ll be devoting more time to this subject in the near future so keep on the lookout. Until then,

To be continued…