Web 3d.0 Oooh! Teh shiney!

A very long time ago, we were swinging around in trees. We got killed occasionally, and starved every now and then. Sometimes the starving wiped out small tribes, but some of us got through.

But we don't really like to starve, so the solution to that is to plant food. Then defend it. Then harvest it. Then a whole range of other problems that are really just based around having food when we want it. Civilisation seemed like a good idea at the time, but it does have an awful lot of problems that come with it. How about solving the original problem?

What is the most direct and straightforward way of dealing with the need for food? The answer is to limit the growth of that need for food, so that any solutions remain valid in the longer term. This is a problem that has been identified in the past with attempted solutions, so what further information do we have now that could change the solution to one that does work?

Rich countries have problems with low birth rates, which is a local problem that would be a solution if it were globally distributed. The primary factor appears to be the long term care that a stable society can bring to the infirm or aged. Raising the standards of living and health care for everyone around the world could stabilise the population to a sustainable level.

The difficulty is that it takes an enormous amount of resources to provide the level of comfort that is needed to achieve lower birth rates. This has been achieved at the expense of those in disadvantaged countries, and various social constructs throughout history. Now the comfortable people have consumed their way to the limits of the planet.

Things are going to have to change. Driving to work and back every day is going to become too expensive. Telecommunication work is going to become the standard way of working. Short term online contracts will mostly replace permanent 9 to 5 work. Growing your own food becomes normal. Local people will become more important.

There are many ways we will be affected, but merely coping with the changes and reducing the standards of living could start another baby boom as people realise that they need children to look after them. The same reasons they have children when their society isn't rich enough to support them. Then there's nothing, and people die.

As we reduce our resource usage through better engineering, we need to improve the quality of the products and achieve more breakthroughs and design ways of addressing human needs efficiently so that we can all be comfortable from cradle to grave. This is what we're already trying to do, and there's nothing better than doing that.

The change from resource limited economies to unlimited resource economies is happening in software as the Internet allowed people around the world to collaborate as effectively as localised companies. Reducing the costs of everything so that anyone can have (almost) anything is the end result of turning everything into information.

Bring on the colour TVs and tiny laptops and other great stuff, using less than half a watt and manufactured from plant byproducts. And when the poorest in the poor countries all have laptops and broadband (and food), we're coming up with solutions for the problems we face now. And the more minds we have on the problems, the better solutions.