The End of Stone Age
The civilizations of human beings have been erected on a number of bedrocks. In fact, each civilization had its own way of setting principles and ideals. The bedrocks were the reflection of their beliefs, accomplishments, strengths and weaknesses. These were the spine in the body of any given civilization; providing support to all parts and delivering messages from the powerhouse of ideas. While the powerhouse may be just a few ounces of fat in the actual human anatomy, it was the ultimate source of faith in the civilizations. It is no wonder that hundreds and thousands of civilizations set foot on this planet, and scores of them perished without even a trace. While the animals may believe that the fittest survive, but amongst us humans, only the smartest ones get to hold the torch of leadership. While the ideals may be the backbone, leadership is the brain in that body of civilization. The leadership, thus, does not only lie in political or military power, but the power of knowledge. The most modern knowledge allows the leaders in a society to emerge and expose the people to a new and unparalleled level of research and development.
Human beings found themselves using stones in almost all tools and weapons. Anyone from today’s world would find it irrelevant to use something made out of stones for anything other than decoration. But the people of the Stone Age depended on these simple ideas because it was the need of the moment. It is the need that forces us to level up and come forth in search of more useful resources.
The idea was recently pointed out by Hamish Mckenzie, in his book Insane Mode, where he not only talks about the shift from stones to salt, but to the need of modern automobile upgradation. The author also mentions that once stones were the prominent commodity, eventually to be replaced by salt.
As humans shifted from Stone Age to the Middle Ages, it was salt that became a commodity worth a fortune. From salaries of soldiers to a means of controlling masses, salt was the ultimate resource. Salt even became a reason for conflict during the French and American Revolution. But soon, like stones, salt was reduced to a thing of the past
Mckenzie notes, “These days dieticians say our problem is too much salt, not too little. So, if salt carried such strategic importance not only 150 years ago, why is it so cheap today? The answer is that it was supplanted by an invention that changed the course of history.”
The underlined invention is the refrigerator, that was found in its early variants around the last 1870s. This highlights that, things can change pretty fast, once a resource loses its value, notably due to some new resource or invention.
Taking this relation forward, the start of twenty first century saw mankind mongering war over oil. In 2019, just two decades, have seen oil being surpassed by data as the most valuable commodity.
According to The Economist, MNCs like Facebook, Amazon and Google amassed around $25 Billion in profits thanks to their massive servers and cutting-edge data collection algorithms.
As stones lost their value not because of shortage, but innovation, salt was subjected to the same treatment due to the same reason. The division of nations on oil saw the same pattern of conflict and turbulent international politics. The need for data is a need of the modern era, as data is going to be a tool of the future.
To wield the power of data, security of netizens’ is the main objective. The third generation of web shall consist of the very infrastructure that now seems to be the solution for every online device. The modern implementation of IoT is to be paired with the powers of the Semantic Web, whereby blockchain tech shall lead the convoy of data security with its decentralized structure.
The civilization is once again on the hinge of a major shuffle in commodities, and the solutions offered by web 3.0 are the only chance of making the online world safe, and keeping its surfers sane.
Written By: Humza Noor
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