The World in 2030

50 The World in 2030
shipbuilding technology necessary to build galleons and
warships. Telescopes were invented to gaze into the heavens,
anatomists peered inside the human body and natural
philosophers pondered the physical laws of the universe.
By the time civilisation reached the 18 th century, scientific
discovery and technological development were proceeding at
such a pace that it triggered the industrial revolution that was
to change western society for ever. Workers left rural areas for
cities and began to create our modern way of life. Today cities
dominate our economies, our nations and our way of life.
(Eckard Foltin, resident futurist at Bayer Materials Science
in Germany, has postulated in a report called ‘A Picture
Of Tomorrow’ 99 that by 2020 there may either be a strong
trend towards ever larger and more dominant ‘megacities’ or
a technological elite will emerge which will polarise society
between the extremely wealthy and the rural poor.)
In the 19 th century, ‘technological invention’ in the sense
we understand the phrase today began to shape history
and drive progress. The harnessing of electricity and the
subsequent development of the telegraph, the telephone,
railroads, the automobile and radio laid the foundations for
the most recent century of technological innovation (and
technology-mediated war). Information and knowledge
flows within society became ever faster.
And here, considering the momentous developments of
the Victorian Age, we first notice a difficulty that inhibits
our ability to think meaningfully about the future: when
developments come thick and fast we lack a language with
which to describe our technological future. And, I suggest,