Looking back through human history, we can recognize two great phase transitions: the emergence of agriculture about ten thousand years ago and the rise of the scientific age over the past few hundred years. In our current era, it's becoming clear that we're entering a third great transition.8 But a transition to what? To a glorious age of technology, in which human limitations can be overcome and unimaginable possibilities beckon? Or to the collapse of civilization itself, as presaged in Limits to Growth? Or something in between these two extremes, with convolutions we can't even begin to
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