Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think

by Peter H. Diamandis

Certainly all three of these forces—the coming of age of the DIY innovator; a new breed of technophilanthropist; the expanding creative/market power of the rising billion—are augmented by exponential technology. In fact, exponential technology could be viewed as their growth medium, a substrate both anchoring and nurturing the emergence of these forces. Yet exponentially growing technologies are just one part of a larger cooperative process—a process that began a very long time ago. On our planet, the earliest single-cell life forms were called prokaryotes. No more than a sack of cytoplasm with their DNA free floating in the middle, these cells came into existence roughly three and a half billion years ago. The eukaryotes emerged one and a half billion years later. These cells are more powerful than their prokaryote ancestors because they’re more capable and cooperative, employing what we might call biological technology: “devices” such as nuclei, mitochondria, and Golgi apparatus that make the cell more powerful and efficient. There is a tendency to think of these biological technologies as smaller parts in a larger machine—not unlike the engine, chassis, and transmission that combine to form a car—but scientists believe that some of these parts began as separate life forms, individual entities that “decided” to work together toward a greater cause. This decision is not unusual. We see this same chain of effect in our lives today: new technology creates greater opportunit...