Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think

by Peter H. Diamandis

Bio- and nanotechnology create products and services at the molecular level, holding the potential to completely eliminate waste and pollution. Biomimicry emulates nature’s processes to create novel products and services without relying on brute force to hammer goods from large stocks of virgin raw materials. Wireless information technology and renewable energy are distributed in character, meaning they can be applied in the most remote and small-scale settings imaginable, eliminating the need for centralized infrastructure and wire-line distribution, both of which are environmentally destructive. Such technologies thus hold the potential to meet the needs of the billions of rural poor (who have thus far been largely ignored by global business) in a way that dramatically reduces environmental impact. Alongside dematerialization, there’s also the demonetization exemplified by Chris Anderson’s drones to consider. In the past decade, this force has been steadily reshaping markets across the globe. eBay demonetized transactions, putting local stores out of business, yet increasing the availability of goods while simultaneously reducing their cost. Then there’s Craigslist, which demonetized advertising, taking 99 percent of the profits out of the newspaper industry and putting them back into the pockets of the consumer. Or iTunes, which tanked the record store and liberated audiophiles. And the list of similar examples runs long. While short-term job loss is the inevitable and ...