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Medieval agrarian : 12th to 18th century |
Industrial : 18th to 20th century |
Cognitive : 21st-22nd century |
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Materials |
Wood, stone, iron. Iron was mainly a military material (swords and
armour). After the departure for the crusades (1096), its use spreads to
agriculture (shovels, pickaxes, rakes, harrows, scythes). The iron
ploughshare allows major land clearings |
Steel (for all machinery), then concrete (a symbol of major
cities), copper (for electricity and plumbing), rubber (for tyres), then
aluminium (for aeronautics). Power is measured in millions of tons of
steel, coal or oil |
Birth of a diversity of materials. Many thousand varieties of
polymers, elastomers, glues..., in all imaginable forms : threads for
reinforcements (Kevlar, carbon), fibres for textiles (polyester),
membranes for inflatable structures (mylar), foams for padding of
mattresses, seats..., isolation of partitions... (polyurethane). One can
almost create custom-made polymers, able to meet a predetermined
specification. Alloys, ceramics, composites, glass increase the potential
adaptability of matter even more. Thus, the manufacturer has a surfeit of
choices, it becomes necessary to use databases and "cost-analysis" methods
to know where he stands. Generally materials become lighter in all
fields |
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Energy |
Animal traction (yoke). The windmill known since Roman times as a
milling tool, is used to cut wood, power smith's bellows, to mill cloth...
It is pre-industrialization, tested out and spread by the Cistercian
monasteries |
Steam engine (for trains and motive power for factories), then the
internal combustion engine (for the car) and the jet engine (for
aircrafts). The source of energy is chemical : combustion. The industrial
system will continue developing until exhaustion of combustible deposits
(coal, oil, gas) |
Networking of electricity and harnessing of energy. Energy wastage
of industrial society (up to 7 tons oil equivalent per inhabitant and per
year, or 117 times the average weight of a human being at 60 kg decreases,
as resources are not inexhaustible. Electrical techniques (micro-waves,
plasmas, chopped currents) allow supply of energy in precisely required
quantity exactly where needed, and causing less pollution (for example
electric or hybrid cars). Electrification also means immediate
availability, therefore a change over one generation, of system of
household appliances - lighting, refrigerator, washing machines, household
robots... |
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Life & Nature |
Nature Seed and animal selection, prompted by the first agronomy
manuals circulating between monasteries. Agriculture takes off from the
level where the crop is just sufficient to resow, once population and
animals have been fed. Deforestation caused by land clearings. Agrarian
systems develop until the land is saturated (1315) |
Vaccination (Pasteur), followed by antibiotics (Fleming) lessen
microbial diseases. The industrialization of agriculture, of animal
husbandry, of fishing increases productivity and depopulates the
countryside. The pollution risks make necessary the constitution of
protected areas (national parks) and the development of green
technologies |
Biotechnology can directly interfere with the chemical molecules
constituting living creatures, not only observing and displaying their
form and composition on computer, but also, cutting, grafting, creating
hybrids. The prospective of manufacturing to order living beings equipped
with predetermined capacities, to order, confronts humanity with vital
responsibilities of greater complexity than ever before. Having
impoverished its natural heritage through industrialization and tropical
deforestation, it will undoubtedly need to compensate by enriching it with
artificial species, able to form stable and complete ecosystems
(biospheres) among themselves |
|
Rythms |
The village bell rings the seven canonical hours. Life in the
fields passes in rhythm to these hours as was the case already for life in
the monasteries. Mechanical clocks appears |
Chronometry in the "scientific" organization of work, the time
scale is measured in tenth of seconds: separation of tasks, monitoring,
mass production |
The time scale of a microprocessor is measured in billionth of
seconds, that of an optic computer in million billionth of seconds. Human
perception remains at a level of a tenth of a second. Computers are
already from ten to a hundred million times faster than the human brain,
on which they can impose their rhythms. They immerse their subjects in
virtual reality universes designed either for teaching technical know-how
(piloting, surgery, etc.) or for ensnaring them (video games,
etc.) |
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Space &trade |
Reconstitution of local and regional markets (11th-12th
centuries). The stern post rudder (1242) facilitates the progress of
merchant shipping, notably in the Baltic : establishment of a Hanseatic
system (13th century) around Lübeck, Danzig, Königsberg... |
Railways, car, aircraft : space becomes smaller. One can go from
one town on earth to another in less than a day. World market for basic
products (petrol, steel, non-ferrous metals, coffee, cocoa, timber, etc.),
for capital goods (machine-tools), and consumer goods (cars, cameras,
etc.) |
After a phase of urban implosion, new conquest of inhabitable
space, made possible by the generalization of telepresence (videophones,
etc.) in real or deferred time, and the skill to create local, autonomous
biospheres. "Challenge-towns" fit for habitation - in inhospitable areas,
on the oceans, in interstellar space, etc. Trade is no longer concerned
with bulky staple commodities, but with artistic or technical creations,
data held in databases, the programming of future achievements. Distances
are no longer physical but cultural : the difficulty to be understood in
another language or another culture |
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Communication & education |
Technical information is communicated in Latin, thanks to the work
of copiers, within the transnational network of the monasteries.
Charlemagne's school. Birth of the critical university
(scholastic) |
Printing initially has religious consequences (Protestantism),
then literary (classical age) then technical from the 18th century on (the
Encyclopaedia) ; spread of a technical culture. Universal education
project after 1850 |
Telephony - the web of the telecommunication network creates a
kind of "planetary brain". It is possible to get in touch with anyone
immediately and everywhere, by sound or image. The new technical system
develops up to a level of saturation of the human mind. Individuals have
to protect themselves against communication. Mass education teaches how to
navigate in a sea of knowledge. It is stimulated by personal contact with
teachers, but it operates within the terrain of a cultural heritage stored
in artificial memories (laser discs and others) |
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Social territory & organizations |
The earth is the basis of the resources necessary for family,
village, feudal survival. It is therefore at stake during battle. The
object of ownership, it is passed on to descendants. The feudal hierarchy,
a military caste, is the protector of the land, autarchic guarantor of
security. Market towns are created to develop trade, organized on an
"isonomic" model, first in the Hanseatic League, then in Mediterranean
region (Genoa, Venice) |
The means of production (factories, machinery...), i.e. capital,
form the basis of resources. Survival depends on production, supplies and
outlets. This sphere is unstable. One has to be active to maintain one's
position. The Nation-State preserves economic and social security;
companies assume the risks. Beginning of a separation of powers, necessary
for openness to innovation |
The resource base which ensures survival is personal know-how. It
can be concerned with leading-edge, sophisticated technology or on the
contrary go back to an ancestral knowledge, such as the art of surviving
amidst ice floes or in the desert. It requires many years to acquire it,
there is constant risk of obsolescence and, unlike the former heritage, it
can only be transmitted through effort. Wealth is an internal attribute.
Intellectual property is one of the possible legal statutes of this new
heritage. Development of protective organizations, with a separation
between the three powers (judiciary, legislature and executive). The
notion of business is extended from profit-making organizations to other
organizations which still have to balance their resources and their
expenditure. They support explorations and
creations |
