ELEMENTS: The techonomics of survival
The dimension of Techonomy that we call Elements examines how humans interact directly with our physical world. It concerns how we extract and use energy, how we feed ourselves and how we provide necessities like clean water. It involves learning to mitigate the effects that arise as we exploit physical resources. It addresses how we manipulate biology and chemistry to alter and shape our environment and ultimately the nature of life itself. The elements of the periodic table are the building blocks most of these technologies manipulate, hence the name.
Elements Techonomic Multipliers:
- Mastery of fire
- Domestication of plants and animals
- Written language and numeric systems
- Invention of the telescope, microscope, and accurate clocks that amplified human senses and enabled the rise of modern science
- Emergence of Newtonian physics and the discovery of the atom
- Darwin’s theory of evolution and Gregor Mendel’s study of selective breeding, and the emergence of genetic engineering
Industries: Agriculture, Biotech, Pharmaceuticals, Natural Resource Extraction, Synthetic Materials, Environmental Sustainability and Climate technologies. All of these are responses to survival issues, influenced mainly by innovations in physics, biology and chemistry.