First came the stone age. Then the bronze age. Followed by the short lived iron age. And finally the steel age. The accursed plastic age threatens to swallow us today. But an argument can be made – if the measure of an age is judged by a material’s use in the key technology of the day (swords, skyscrapers, computers, etc.) – an argument can indeed be made that we are not living in the plastic age, but the glass age.
A day when our wireless world, and the technology we rely on every single day, is connected and made possible by thousands of miles of glass fiberoptic cables stretching round and round our tiny Earth. Too many times to count.
I wonder if we will ever leave the glass age. And if we do, what the material of tomorrow will be. Perhaps graphene. Perhaps plastic will drown us all. Maybe vibranium. Or unobtanium. Or even fungi. Or wrapped in a material that has yet to exist. Or maybe, we’ll soon be living in a world that has moved beyond the lowly physical material entirely. But there will always be something. Some key material. Some precious resource.
And though the material changes from age to age, the people never seem to. We are still the same war ridden, poverty stricken, babbling flock of tribes we’ve always been. I wonder if that will ever change. Somehow I doubt it. no matter what material we all use in the same exact manner every single day – no matter what materials connect us, it seems we’ll always be fighting over who has more of them.