For the futurist Alvin Toffler, the information technology revolution was a “third wave” in human society following the Agricultural and Industrial revolutions. Joseph Schumpeter saw waves as explosions of innovation igniting new businesses in bursts of “creative destruction.” The great philosopher of technology Lewis Mumford believed the “machine age” was actually more like a thousand-year unfolding of three major successive waves. More recently the economist Carlota Perez has talked about “techno-economic paradigms” rapidly shifting amid technological revolutions. Moments of booming
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