Human evolution over time is a long journey of millions of years, in which the human race has evolved from its primitive stage in the forests, competing with other animals for natures bounties and survival to the current stage, in which human existence has moved beyond the physical dimension to the digital domain.
The whole human journey is divided into Ages, for example, the Iron age, the Bronze age, the Industrial age or more recently the Digital Age. There is no uniformity in the duration of each period. However, each new era has is marked by a drastic change in the quality of human existence.
For example, if we were to visualize the pre-Iron age, perhaps our ancestors were competing with their environment and their deadly wild competition with sharp pieces of wood or animal bones as weapons. A society of hunters and gathers would have existed where the exploits of the hunters would be shared with their communities, particularly woman and children, who were less equipped to fight. However, then one day, perhaps an adventurer in their midst found a powdery substance which was readily available and which when in the molten state could be moulded into various shapes. I imagine the whole balance of power in the wild changed after the emergence of Iron. Human’s with their stronger and sharper weapons made from Iron, could hunt the wildest and scariest of the animals. This development must have been a defining and euphoric time for humans then, as their lives would never be the same again.
However, it may not have been as happy a time for everyone. Visualize an old warrior, who would have made his living by using sharp wooden weapons for hunting animals and who would not have embraced Iron molded weapons, because he did not understand or trust them or perhaps, he did not have familiarity with them or considered them to be evil. He would have found himself sliced in combat with the adversary. Also, imagine the job of the gatherer, who went looking for dinosaur bones to sell them as weapons, probably saw himself without a profession.
The human experience had changed as the result of the discovery of Iron, and while overall it was good, it was not necessarily good news for everyone. As we embrace the digital age, we find drastic changes are happening in our midst, which will affect the lives of individuals, businesses, and governments. These, while perhaps overall good for human experience, will likely not be immediately good for millions of people. A new set of formidable challenges faces us in this age.
The object of our study to identify various themes in the Digital Age is not to come up with an exhaustive list. Nor is it to precisely to crystal ball the future, to accurately predict what is there to come. Doing so will be an exercise, destined to fail, as the evolution of the human progress is considerably unpredictable as there are so many factors and variables to consider and to predict them with a high level of accuracy is exceptionally hard. However, the attempt is to get, a broader sketch of how the world of the next ten years, around 2030 would like. This, we believe is relevant, as we ought to adapt to the changing environment so that we can cope and thrive in it. We would not want to be, or the reader to be, the wooden hunter who got killed with the onset of the iron age.
Current Role:
