512 instance, he points out that many economists predict that US productivity could enjoy a long-term increase of some 2.5% per year. If extended for 100 years, this would make Americans 12 times richer in real terms than they are now. China, starting from a lower base and with a rather higher growth rate for a few decades, would be 20 times richer. Both these countries have prodigious appetites for more resources, notably fossil fuels. The world is not running out of fossil fuels yet, but it is running out of the atmospheric capacity to absorb pollutants. Will there be a radical shift in production patterns, triggering a parallel shift in consumption patterns — or the other way around? Will people have to countenance a change from ‘more is better’ to ‘enough is best’? A seismic transition of that order would raise all manner of questions about society and its values. “The forces of the near future are so large that they will inevitably change civilization. Human survivability (more cogent than sustainability) and creating new concepts of civilization are inextricably linked,” Martin asserts. Apocalyptic as some of Martin’s writing is, he preaches not so much ‘doom and gloom’ as ‘doom or boom’. He sees humans “unlocking formidable new capabilities that could lead to more exciting lives and glorious civilizations” with “higher levels of happiness”. Such rhetorical flourishes — there is purple prose at many places in the book — may not be to the taste of all readers, but the writing style is justified, Martin believes, by the nature of his message. He predicts an apogee of human creativity by the time of the grand transition, around the middle of the century, when humans could be standing on intellectual tiptoe to an extent never presaged until now. Indeed, it takes someone of Martin’s vision to spell out such an exuberant prospect — hence the colourful phrasing to match the message. So persuasive is Martin that one can readily agree with him that, in the light of the sheer intensity of scientific research today, and of our apparent newfound capacity to solve whatever problems afflict us, the twenty-first century must surely rank as by far the finest time to be alive. ■ Norman Myers is an honorary visiting fellow at Green College, Oxford University, Upper Meadow, Quarry Road, Oxford OX3 8FS, UK.

/pdf/the-road-less-travelled-4t7cptp255.pdf

The road less travelled

Philosopher: Our project is drawing to an end, and our previous discussion has made clear that it will not be so easy for the social software enterprise to address, let alone cure, the ills of society. To get the discussion going, I would like to start today with a quote that I found in a collection of talks from the physicist Richard Feynman. It is from one of the pieces in The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, a digest of a talk on “The Value of Science”. The talk starts like this:

/pdf/social-software-and-the-ills-of-society-2f1tf7xsul.pdf

Social Software and the Ills of Society

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Social Software and the Ills of Society