Remember life before the internet? Or the cell phone? When TV, magazines or the newspaper were our primary sources of information? Of course, very few of us bloggers like to dwell on how much more of a hassle things used to be… Admittedly, life was much simpler the further you go back, but was the lack of complication in our lives a necessarily better thing overall?

40,000 years ago we used to hunt and gather as our primary means of sustenance, and existence. Also, given that the average lifespan might have been around 30 years, it’s probably safe to say that life was a little more difficult then, no?

The first major technological breakthrough that made life easier (besides maybe the bow or spear of the lower paleolithic era) was the advent of agriculture, roughly 10,000 years ago, which allowed the human population growth rate increase exponentially. The following simple graph represents the effect of this boom (I love the inclusion of the peak oil-type bell curve in the inset chart!):

So in the move from the forests to working the land, we gained a little more complexity in our lives tending to livestock and the crops, yet this gain in stability is likely a fundamental cause for me and you being here. This chart also shows how the industrial revolution had a similar effect.

I’m not trying to equate progress with population growth explosions, but historically major advancements in technology gave rise to betterment of the human condition. Population growth being only an indicator in these two instances. But life’s complexity increases in each of these instances. The industrial revolution: Clearly life gets more complicated as life gets easier. And by easier I mean life with cars, and washing machines, and computers, etc.–the way we travel, work and communicate is progressively less and less work on an individual basis.

Of course, many want to rebel against the industrial revolution, because of the obvious costs in areas of resources, pollution, environment–not to mention multiple other worldwide consequences of the types of destructive greed which too often thrive in the modern era. The stereotype of old environmentalism rebelling against modernity is not without it’s virtues. In fact, because of historically new problems like peak oil, global pollution, and overpopulation, a paradigmatic transformation looms (or is underway). So far there are two major trends in the mainstream:

1. The projected solution of population reduction and/or massive conservation efforts as indicated/foreshadowed by the movie An Inconvenient Truth.
2. Or… The optimism of the next-generation environmentalism usually referred to as “bright green.”

Optimism versus pessimism. One option is regression to a simpler yet harder life, the other an inspiring reliance and investment in the likely possibility that technology can solve many of the environmental problems we face. Whether it be application of these technologies in a conscious manner in work and life, or the pure economic drive away from an increasingly costly fossil fuel economy, it’s clear this shift must happen.

Don’t get me wrong. Technology alone wont do the job but if the technology we use can be an indication of the level of our collective internal development we’re at or heading to, then much work should be put into examining and scrutinizing our inner worlds and personal lives to see where waste (not just the material kind, but emotional and mental as well) can be curtailed and eliminated. After all, looking at all of these external conditions that threaten the planet as merely an outward reflection of our collective selfishness, or naiveté is half of the equation, I think.