Mankind in transition

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In a diagram from the book Mankind in Transition, ^[1] Bloomfield defines the history of man beginning over two million years ago and ending over a hundred thousand years in the future. This is a step function diagram based on an evolutionary biology called punctuated equilibrium.

The diagram of history shows mankind having long periods of stability interrupted with short periods of transition as theorized by punctuated equilibrium. Mankind is currently in one of those short periods of transition changing from a stable agricultural society through a transitional industrial and/or information society becoming a stable automated society. Each stable society has its own social organization. The animal society has a dominant male and everyone else; the tribal society has a chief, a medicine man, hunters and everyone else. The peasant society has a nobility, overseers and peasants in the food production category which also has a military category, a religious category, tradesmen and craftsmen. The transitional industrial society features top executives, managers and workers in many categories.

The technological evolution beginning in the tribal society had hand tools; the peasant society featured a plow, a domesticated animal on dedicated farm land plus a wide range of artifacts and tools; the transition to the industrial society began in England with the steam engine, textile machines and later it was the tractor that forced the peasants off the land and into the cities. Machines and computers dominate production in the industrial society. It is predicted that in the automated society all production will be controlled by computers. The forcing elements in the transition has been productivity. During periods of stability, productivity changes very little from year to year. But in a transitional period as we are experiencing, productivity changes every year. When productivity can no longer increase, we will be completely automated.

Using this interpretation of history, Bloomfield describes where mankind has been, where it is now and where it is going. According to the diagram of history, mankind will develop a stable automated society. Mankind will also evolve into a new biological species in colonies living in distant star systems. The automated society will be one where everyone will have just about everything they want without physical effort. Everyone will be rich in today's terms.