Harnessing Power
The Beginning of Global Energetics

At this point in our tour, we'd like you to think about the economy of power and change.

Over time new mechanisms become available to humanity to provide more and more power. This in turn leads to accelerating advancements, mounting greater complexity in economic systems, growing trade and commerce, and ultimately pushing the limits of resource use. Here is a place to start thinking about the processes that today contribute to global change.

Water wheels may seem a simple technology that have little to do with today's nuclear power or coal fired generation of electricity, but think of this as a root that grows as the appetite for human-material ventures that expand over time. Capacity to harness power may go hand-in-hand with the perception of having greater ''needs.'' The greater the population, the greater the perception, and the greater the use of resources. Water wheels, in their day, met the need of that time.

The time line will bear witness to the technological advancements both in harnessing power sources and also in the utilization of power... all this drives change, propels the generation of information, and speeds up the pace of life, the pace of resource use, the pace of environmental decline, and the perception that material wealth is somehow tied to success in life. That is a material oriented goal which is temporal and per person ends at some point — as the saying goes: ''you can't take it with you!'' The legacy of prior use is left for the generations to follow.

Also note that the the time line goes to points beyond the material realm itself. Yet within the material realm, for the time being, water turning a wheel and drive shaft is part of an avenue leading to convergence — a process that picks up its pace later along the time line. Again, here is a place to think of changes that will come in time. This is a transition you can think of when seeing the simpler leading to the more technological advancements yet to come.

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