Difference between revisions of "Main Page/Fundamental resources"

Revision as of 00:12, 3 October 2006 (view source) CharlesC (Talk | contribs) ← Older edit		Latest revision as of 00:49, 17 April 2008 (view source) CharlesC (Talk | contribs)
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−	[[Image:Air sea and land.jpg|120px|right]] So what have we got to work with?<br>	+	{{:Fundamental resources/Intro}} {{more|Fundamental resources}}
−	These are the four fundamental resources of humanity:	+
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−	*Materials	+
−	*Energy	+
−	*Intelligence	+
−	*Information	+
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−	And despite what we might read, none are in short supply. In fact they are all massively abundant. {{more|Fundamental resources}}	+

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Latest revision as of 00:49, 17 April 2008

So what have we got to work with? Mankind's fundamental resources are material, energy, intelligence and information. In reality they are all so enormously abundant that it's incredible to think that there are people in this world who are still going without the basic human necessities.

In the past a lack of technology could be considered a significant cause of scarcity but that is certainly not a reason any more. Despite common perceptions, there is no actual lack of material or energy available to us. Emerging methods of co-operation and advanced automation have the potential to unlock these resources to provide a good standard of living in all parts of the world, while causing minimal harm to the natural environment - a combination that although is hard to imagine today and might appear at first glance to be contradictory, is very much possible.

An important trend in technological progress is the tendency of products and processes to steadily become more effective while using less material and energy – i.e. doing more with less – something that Buckminster Fuller  termed ephemeralization .