Distinctions between the industrial age and the postindustrial.

We can already see the differences between the industrial age and the new age. The distinctions are basic and profound.

The differences between industrialism and the next stage are primarily differences in the way we organize and deploy energy and information.

(I call the postindustrial world the fe/espheral age precisely because telecommunication more than ever will play a central pivotal role.)

The new telecom is already playing havoc with the way we have traditionally organized our time and space.

In this emerging electronic environment far and near—small and large—slow and fast—powerful and powerless—right and left are be­ginning to lose meaning.

For example in the telespheral environment you do not travel to access services. Services come to you—wherever you are.

The stage beyond school education is teleducation.

The stage beyond the hospital is telemedicine.

This is a new world of telegenesis—telenetwork—telebanking— teleshopping—telecommuting—teleconferencing—teledemocracy—etc.

In the industrial world people are rushed to a hospital after they have succumbed to an illness. In the postindustrial environment you are hooked up to medical services—the protective preventive care is within you—wherever you are. In case of an imminent malfunction telemed automatically alerts you—_;often before you yourself are aware of a malfunction.

Such protective telemedical support is already provided to many homebound elderly people via Lifeline and to ambulatory cardiac pa­tients via remote monitoring. In the coming years more and more healthy people will have such continuous protection.

Then too videotex services in some cities of North America and Western Europe have introduced electronic home banking—electronic shopping—teleducation (via two-way TV seminars)—electronic infor­mation retrieval (telelibrary)—instant voting and polling (telede­mocracy).

In the telespheral world everything is decentralized—despecialized —demonopolized—debureaucratized—globalized.

Here is a shorthand breakdown of some of the distinctions between the industrial age and the telespheral:

Industrial age

One-way broadcast communi­cation

Labor-intensive mechanical tech­nology

Finite monopolizable sources of energy

Economics based on heavy in­dustry

Authoritarian/hereditarian family units

Values based on hardship—

puritanism—scarcity

Short life expectancies 50 or 60 years

Limited growth within this planet

Telespheral age

Two-way interactive telecom

Technology-intensive self-operating systems

Limitless cheap nonmonopoliza-ble energy

Economics based on information and services

Fluid reciprocal networks

Values based on pleasure—

leisure—abundance

Life spans beyond 120

Limitless growth across the solar system and beyond

The above telespheral tracks do not ran parallel to one another. They interconnect and reinforce one another organizing life in fundamentally new ways.

We are at the very beginning of the postindustrial age. We do not know exactly how things will coalesce. But we do know that the ethical—social—economic—political—international transformations will be profound.

Date: 2015-02-28; view: 791