Sunday Musings 02/02/2014: What after the Information Age?

It is interesting to examine the clichés and pet phrases from past decades. Just about a decade ago "The Information Age" was the favourite tool in every pontificator's tool box. With the projections of Moore's law more than coming true, with the third generation of the Internet already in the geriatric ward, isn’t it surprising that the phrase has kind of been laid to rest. But do a little bit of digging and you realize that this is just a minor manifestation of a much deeper cycle at work. The phrase “The Industrial Age” was currency in the intellectual discourse of the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s and disappeared with the coming of the flower children of the 60’s. And then in the 70’s the first mutterings of the phrase “The Information Age” were heard in the 80s and the 90s one could get sick of hearing it. And faded out in the Oughts. Which gives rise to an interesting question? What’s next? I have a dog in the fight. Many years ago on a mellow evening with a friend I had expounded a theory. And felt warm satisfaction when the cover story on the future of jobs in The Economist dated January 18 sort of confirmed it. A paradigm shift in a society’s technology creates a new class of jobs that in time change the very structure of the society. The Industrial Age created blue and white collar jobs that in turn created the middle classes which lead to the creation of modern society with social, economic, cultural and political structures that the world had not seen before. The Information Age on the other hand while democratizing information has paradoxically created a global elite and a weakening of the middle classes. The next epoch will have network of computers, smart fabs and things take over functions that while hastening the demise of the middle classes will also destroy the power structures that today feed the global elite, especially the vast and global manipulation of money. So with the networks doing most things that today we do as work what will be the future of work? The Economist’s article stops short of saying what that will be but does express optimism that the world will find a way to have all our children and children’s children productively engaged. But where The Economist does not tread I shall venture further. The currency of the Industrial Age was material goods, the currency of the Information Age is information and it is my prediction that the currency of the next age is going to be emotion. Fifty years of now the principal economic activity will be that of decoding, generating, storing, buying and selling of emotions. We can see the crude, early prototypes of these key economic activities of the future in the music, art, cinema, TV and gaming products and services of today (they are like the abacus was to the computers of the Information Age). What will this coming age be called? If humanity is fortunate enough to take the right route than perhaps we will have the Spiritual Age. If not we will have the Entertainment Century before humanity discovers the secret at the core.