# Ages of technology.



## skeptical (Jan 29, 2010)

I know that what I am about to discuss is totally subjective, but it might still be interesting to tap other people's opinion.

We are used to describing parts of human history as 'ages'.  eg. the Stone Age.    The Bronze Age.  The Iron Age.  etc.

What about recent history and the future?  Can we describe the last couple hundred years in the same way?  Can we predict this for the future? 

For purposes of definition, I would suggest the 'age' be the period in which a technology reaches sufficient maturity to be enormously useful.   So we do not have to count its beginning, when prototypes are not of great value, or the later stages of development, when something already useful becomes even more so.

I would suggest the following.
The 19th Century.   The Age of Steam.  Meaning when steam power developed to the point of major value to humanity.

The 20th Century saw faster change, so I split it in two.

1900 to 1950.   The Age of the Internal Combustion Engine.   The rise of cars, trucks, buses, diesel powered ships, and aircraft.

1950 to 2000.  The Age of the computer.   Computers changed from limited power monstrosities to powerful miniaturised devices in many homes, connected to the internet.

What of the future?   I suggest the following.

2000 to 2050.  The Age of Genetics.   In which humanity will develop the power to change crops, and even ourselves genetically to make a much better world.

2050 to 2100.  The Age of the Robot.   In which robots become cheap, often tiny, and ubiquitous, to make human life better all around.

22nd Century.   The Age of Space Travel.  Following the construction of the first space elevator, more and more people are able to leave the Earth's gravity well, and even live in space habitats.   The solar system gets explored as thoroughly as Planet Earth has been today.

I am not prepared to speculate about anything beyond this, because the longer term future will be so full of surprises.

What do others think?


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## dustinzgirl (Jan 29, 2010)

Well the ages of bronze, iron, ect were based on technology at the time. People had to discover how to make metal from ore, and that took a while and completely changed darn near every aspect of human life. 

An Age, I think, has to have much more than just fifty years---an age is based on the core change of human capabilities. I think an age is about two thousand to a thousand years. 

Which makes sense, and while we might think that the last fifty years have permanently altered human existence and human conditions, history may tell differently as all that we have wrought can easily be erased by time. 

I think this would be the age of industry, or the age of knowledge, or something to that effect since all that you describe basically required two things to occur, regardless of the output product: machinery and knowledge.


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## Dave (Jan 29, 2010)

Well, there are established names already in use for some of your eras:

- the 'Industrial Revolution', which would equate to your Age of Steam, but was more than just bringing steam powered engines into factories and mass-producing previously hand-made goods. There was also, in parallel, a huge agricultural revolution with crop rotation, enclosure, drainage and soil fertility, which produced the surplus agricultural labourers who moved into towns and cities and worked in the factories.

- then came 'Automation' in which people no longer made the whole object, but added a piece on a conveyor belt. This was possible because of electricity and electrically driven machinery. It made factories much more efficient.

- there was also a steady improvement in communications - from letter, to telegraph, to telephone, to wireless, to Internet.

- there was also a huge explosion in the number of different chemicals that could be synthesised - oils, fertilisers, drugs, explosives, but especially plastics.

- then came the 'Green revolution', which made more of an impact in the third world than in industrialised countries, with artificial fertilisers, agricultural machines and mono-culture cash crops replacing smallholdings.

- we are certainly in the midst of a computer-based revolution now. There is a 'Information Technology Revolution' which allows us to access any piece of information instantly. And on the BBC News this morning I heard them describe the 'Virtual Revolution' in which all business transactions are moving online and all communications are moving online.

- I couldn't speculate too far into the future, except to say that the next revolution will be a Genetic one. Both genetic engineering and genetic information technology are going to change our whole world.

I have another way of looking at it: The Industrial Revolution was the age of Physics, then we had the age of Chemistry, and we are now entering the age of Biology.


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## Werewoman (Jan 30, 2010)

I think we are moving out of the Industrial Age into the Information Age.


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## Learning... (Jun 19, 2010)

Hi all, this is my first post on these forums and I'm liking what I see of everthing here so far! Hmmm.

Hello, skeptical. Nice topic.

The current age we are in, if defined by the use of technology, scares me. It seems alot of current technologies that define our humanity are competing for one another. With that in mind, I'm officially subscribing to the "Energy-Age" theory as the one we are in.

Biology is blessed for its uses in reducing a carbon footprint of a nation. Renewable energy resources are constantly finding space in the headlines. Those being of the wind and earth. where as we are in the information age, I think we'll always be there, what with HTML 5 coming up (perhaps an age ends when a technology is absorbed into society as an actual infrastructure rather than a venture into the unknown)
Scientists are looking into the energies of the atom at finer scales. Advences at CERN, JET and the oh-so-awesome ITER will find new physical properties and hopefully signify the end of this Energy-Age.

With that, comes the future of technology. I dream, blissfully ignorant, of the end of the Energy-Age starting the Nano-Age. This is where, with energy supply sufficiently met, humanity can truly concentrate on creating super-materials with vastly increased budgets.

From this age of construction, literally creating nothing from almost thin air, we can build those massive space lift platforms and finally, after much Sci-fi and dreaming, start a real "Space Age"

It's almost a perfect plan...

Nice post, Skeptical.


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## zhefa (Jun 20, 2010)

I think in the near future, DNA technology (Genetics) will be progressing in a steady pace whereas computer technology and robotics are now improving in an exponential growth. The reason is that in researching in Genetic field, there is a lot to do with lucks and collection data which take time to complete. Maybe there will be a breakthrough soon in Genetics field though and the DNA technology will make a leap forward but that cannot be predicted precisely. 

I would rather say that in 2000-2100, both Genetics and Computers (Robots also) would be improving along side of each other independently for a while. Both technology served human from a different aspect. One will improve body health and welfare whereas the other improved productivity and convenience for us. 

Nano Technology is another interesting one too. Considering that one day we understand and can control this kind of technology, anything can be built and function perfectly. And as Learning... said, Space Age would be not far from now if we have a breakthrough in this field.


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## skeptical (Jun 20, 2010)

Slightly off topic, but I was in a discussion with a friend a while back.  Subject :  _If they made another Star Trek series, set further in the future, what technology improvements would they introduce?_

My idea, related to zhefa's comment on nanotechnology was to suggest that the entire _Enterprise_ star vessel would be made of nano-robots.   This would make it self-repairing, and also give it the ability to reconfigure into different shapes for special purposes.   With modern computer graphics, this could make for awesome special effects!


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## Learning... (Jun 20, 2010)

In the last episode of Voyager, Janeway commanded a ship with some strange armor. Was that nano produced armor? It just built kind of uncloaked when deployed.

And as for Nano tech, the most horrid example I read was from a Alistair Reynolds book. Planet destroying herds of nano bots programmed to destroy any emergent life. Beautiful stuff, really.


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## Stephen Palmer (Jun 21, 2010)

Check this out:

The Third Millennium: The History of the World, 2000-3000 A.D. Paladin Books: Amazon.co.uk: Brian Stableford, David Langford: Books


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## MrBobbles (Sep 19, 2010)

Before it can be truly said that we are beyond the Industrial age, we are going to have to perfect nanotechnology, and the concept of micro-production.

Because the reality is that the vast majority of humanity is still involved either in mining 'stuff', making 'stuff', or in moving said 'stuff' around. So until a bigger proportion of people move beyond this (ie when nanotechnology makes possible extreme automation of mining/manufacture and transport), we cannot truly say we have moved beyond the Industrial age.

Coz if you think about it, mostly computers are still predominantly used to aid in making stuff, or moving it around. So therefore I would argue that we are not truly in the 'Information age'. Yet.

Though I believe this could shift within the next 20 to 40 years. Depending on other factors such as political stability, wars etc etc, which are like wildcards in the deck of progress.




Stephen Palmer said:


> Check this out:
> 
> TheThird Millenium: The History of the World, 2000 - 3000 A.D.



Am quite interested in this, btw. Thanks for posting.




Learning... said:


> And as for Nano tech, the most horrid example I read was from a Alistair  Reynolds book. Planet destroying herds of nano bots programmed to  destroy any emergent life. Beautiful stuff, really.



'Silver Rain.' Yeah, read that same book myself just recently. Terrifying description of nano technology gone wrong.


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## Pyan (Sep 19, 2010)

MrBobbles said:


> 'Silver Rain.' Yeah, read that same book myself just recently. Terrifying description of nano technology gone wrong.



And if you liked that, try _Prey_, by *Michael Crichton*...


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## Vertigo (Sep 19, 2010)

As DG said earlier an age is generally considered to cover a longer time. Also most ages are named in retrospect, when we can look back at history and consider what was the turly defining aspect of that age - stone, bronze, iron etc.

I'm not so sure that when our current age is looked back on it might not end up being called the Age of War or maybe Destruction. Since the Iron age we have taken our ability to make war and wreak destruction to levels undreamt of by earlier humanity and I truly believe that has been the greatest defining aspect of the last thousand years; technology has simply been a tool to aid it. If you doubt that then take a look at how technology and science always leaps forward in time of war. 

The other possibility is the Age of Waste. When future generations look back at this era I believe they will be shocked that humanity managed to squander so much of the planet's finite resources in such an incredibly short space of time.

Sorry if I seem a little pessimistic there and I am no tree hugger but I do truly believe that is how history will view the last couple of centuries at least.


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## skeptical (Sep 19, 2010)

I, on the other hand, believe we have barely tapped the surface in exploitation. Sure, some things are on the way out. Mainly oil products. However, they will be replaced. Certain marine algae are already being developed as new sources of oil.

As far as metals go, all we have done is tapped the richest ores. The vast bulk of the world's metals are deeper underground, and many are a part of the underlying magma. It will take a major improvement in technology to tap these sources, but when we do, the total resource available totally dwarfs what we have already tapped.

So far humans have extracted a few million tonnes of minerals. The total magma content of planet Earth is more than a trillion *times *as much.


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## Vertigo (Sep 19, 2010)

True Skeptical, but what about our genetic resources. Our destruction of natural habitats is causing extinctions and the loss of irreplaceable genetic heritage.


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## skeptical (Sep 19, 2010)

An interesting possibility for debate, Vertigo.
Just to throw in one idea.   Yes, humans are destroying genetic diversity.  However, so far at least, we are uncovering more.

For every species known to become extinct (about 10 to 20 per year), there is at least 100 new species being discovered.   While I am not denying your point, I am saying that, at present, new genetic diversity is being discovered at a much greater rate than the genetic diversity being lost.


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## MrBobbles (Sep 20, 2010)

Sorry I hope no one minds if I gatecrash this conversation; you guys make some interesting points on a topic that quite interests me. So for what it is worth (about 2 cents worth, I estimate), here is my, errr, 2 cents worth. o_0



Vertigo said:


> I'm not so sure that when our current age is looked back on it might not  end up being called the Age of War or maybe Destruction. Since the Iron  age we have taken our ability to make war and wreak destruction to  levels undreamt of by earlier humanity and I truly believe that has been  the greatest defining aspect of the last thousand years; technology has  simply been a tool to aid it. If you doubt that then take a look at how  technology and science always leaps forward in time of war.



Seeing as war has been a virtually uninterrupted theme of human  civilization since we became self aware, whenever that was,  it  doesn't seem likely that our age in particular will be named for this.  Many previous generations were just as horrified by the destructiveness  of war in their own times as we are now. Though I freely admit you are  right when you say that war has become destructive in ways undreamt of  by earlier generations.

Humanity fighting wars has not changed at all, just the potential results of those war has changed.



Vertigo said:


> The other possibility is the Age of Waste. When future generations look  back at this era I believe they will be shocked that humanity managed to  squander so much of the planet's finite resources in such an incredibly  short space of time.
> 
> Sorry if I seem a little pessimistic there and I am no tree hugger but I  do truly believe that is how history will view the last couple of  centuries at least.



The age of waste. Hmmm. You could be on to something here. Though again,  it seems to me that humanity is just doing what it has always done, it  is just that now, the consequences are far worse.




skeptical said:


> I, on the other hand, believe we have barely tapped the surface in exploitation. Sure, some things are on the way out. Mainly oil products. However, they will be replaced. Certain marine algae are already being developed as new sources of oil.
> 
> As far as metals go, all we have done is tapped the richest ores. The vast bulk of the world's metals are deeper underground, and many are a part of the underlying magma. It will take a major improvement in technology to tap these sources, but when we do, the total resource available totally dwarfs what we have already tapped.
> 
> So far humans have extracted a few million tonnes of minerals. The total magma content of planet Earth is more than a trillion *times *as much.



I have been thinking a lot about this very thing. So much fearmongering over the scarcity of our resources. Rubbish! There is no scarcity. We may lose diversity, which would be a tragedy in itself, but there is no shortage of actual resources. The only shortage is in our thinking and coming up with solutions to the challenges we face. I surely hope that we can keep our environment alive through the next century or two while we get those breakthroughs that we need to propel us into the future.


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## Vertigo (Sep 20, 2010)

skeptical said:


> An interesting possibility for debate, Vertigo.
> Just to throw in one idea. Yes, humans are destroying genetic diversity. However, so far at least, we are uncovering more.
> 
> For every species known to become extinct (about 10 to 20 per year), there is at least 100 new species being discovered. While I am not denying your point, I am saying that, at present, new genetic diversity is being discovered at a much greater rate than the genetic diversity being lost.


 
I would definitely agree with you there Skeptical, however I don't see much change in our attitude to that loss. Lots of talk, yes, but not much actual change. In fact I suspect that if anything it is going to accelerate. With regard to the mineral aspects it would be interesting to be around to see at what point it becomes easier/cheaper to mine the moon/asteroids off planet rather mining ever deeper terrestially. Won't be in my lifetime though .



MrBobbles said:


> Sorry I hope no one minds if I gatecrash this conversation; you guys make some interesting points on a topic that quite interests me. So for what it is worth (about 2 cents worth, I estimate), here is my, errr, 2 cents worth. o_0.


 
No such thing as gatecrashing hereabouts MrB. If folk want a private conversation they can always go PM each other. So dive on in! And welcome to the Chrons by the way. If you haven't done so already you'll probably get hustled over to the Introductions area to, well, introduce yourself




MrBobbles said:


> Seeing as war has been a virtually uninterrupted theme of human civilization since we became self aware, whenever that was, it doesn't seem likely that our age in particular will be named for this. Many previous generations were just as horrified by the destructiveness of war in their own times as we are now. Though I freely admit you are right when you say that war has become destructive in ways undreamt of by earlier generations.
> 
> Humanity fighting wars has not changed at all, just the potential results of those war has changed.
> 
> ...


 
You make a good point that we have always made war and always wasted stuff and the only difference now is the scale. So you are probably right that it is not an appropriate name for the age.

However I'm also not sure that future generation will view this as either the Technology or Information age, simply because I suspect that future generations will view our technology and information manipulation as so crude and basic as to be hardly worth the title. Maybe the Fossil Fuel Age is possibly the truest and most defining description of our present times with the future being either the Nuclear Age (once we have cracked fusion) or as Skeptical suggested the Genetic Age (actually I suspect that one may well be the most defining technology of the next century or two).

Incidentally to those who criticise the use of "age" here and the "length" of an age, I don't really have a problem with it as the pace of change has accelerated so much that an "age" is effectively shorter than it was. I'm no archaeologist but I wouldn't mind betting that the Stone Age lasted a awful lot longer than probably the Bronze and Iron ages combined.


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## ScrambleEggHead (Sep 21, 2010)

Sting put's it this way:

"I've never seen any "Miracle of science" that didn't go from a blessing to a curse.

I've never seen a "Military solution" that didn't end up as something worse." 

I'm not sure I totally agree with the first line, but sometimes I wonder if we've really "advanced" at all in the last 100 years except in the ability to grow exponentially (despite the reduction in population due to war), and I suppose in knowledge. 

On the other hand, I completely agree with the second line.


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## mosaix (Sep 22, 2010)

I think I can fairly confidently predict that the next age will be something that nobody predicted.


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## chrispenycate (Sep 22, 2010)

ScrambleEggHead said:


> Sting put's it this way:
> 
> "I've never seen any "Miracle of science" that didn't go from a blessing to a curse.
> 
> ...



Anaesthetics? A number of times, medical science has been like the three wish djinn; giving you exactly what was asked for, and the discovery of the dark side – especially when the dark was unnecessary, fuelled by greed or ignorance – afterwards, when it's too late to use anything but another wish.

Thus the reduction of infant mortality gave the seething, starving masses which are the planet's main problem right now.

Regards the military solution; I tend that way, being of the "violence is the last resort of the incompetent" school (the competent use it  rapidly and surgically, never waiting until it's the only solution left to them. Unfortunately, they get used to it, and end up without any too good a record either). Still. I'm old enough that the idealism of "there's always  a negotiated solution possible" has worn off me, and we can't ever know the "what if"s if that solution had not been chosen. One of the reasons for SF's existence. 

It seems to me that the 'ages' cited (early stone, late stone, bronze, iron)  are based on what gets left behind, rather than how life is lived. I would make a bet (if there were any way to collect) that during the "stone" ages, more organics (wood, leather, rope, antler or bone) were used as tools than ever stone. I've spent enough time knapping lumps of flint into blades and points to understand there would be a few tipped spears, and lots of fire hardened spears or bone scrapers, which time has been less gentle with.

Bronze was just too expensive for the vast mass of agricultural labour, and would be kept for important matters, like killing people.

And even iron, while distributed much wider, was expensive in real terms until the industrial revolution, and agricultural tools of any age still involve lots of animal and vegetable products.

We are now either in the steel age or the concrete age, though looking at cities I would almost suspect an extremely short lived glass age.

If we accept your meme definitions we need to cut culture up differently, with the overlay of previous technologies; the age of fire, the age of planting, of domestication, of writing, of armies. None eliminating the precedent, merely becoming the dominant factor visible at a particular period. These would be considerably shorter than your  paleological  ages, and would have the inconvenience that they would arrive at different times  in different corners of the planet (mind you, that's true of the other indicators; just that, being longer periods, they tend to have more chance to migrate).


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## ktabic (Sep 22, 2010)

chrispenycate said:


> Regards the military solution; I tend that way, being of the "violence is the last resort of the incompetent" school (the competent use it  rapidly and surgically, never waiting until it's the only solution left to them. [/quot]
> 
> "I'm not incompetent, I resort to violence long before last resorts are necessary"
> 
> ...


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## skeptical (Sep 23, 2010)

On violence, did you not consider that sometimes both violence and negotiation are unnecessary and incompetent?   Sometimes it is best not to resort to anything, but simply leave a situation alone to resolve itself.

Take Iraq.   The idiot, Bush junior, wanted to get rid of the monster Saddam.   Saddam had killed over 100,000 of his own people.   Bush got rid of him all right, but at a cost of (estimate by non military independent experts) about 2 million unnecessary Iraqi civilian deaths.  That situation would have been better dealt with by leaving Saddam to die of old age.

My personal political philosophy is that the best way of dealing with others is to make friends with them.  Instead of launching a military attack on another nation, offer them aid.  It will cost the taxpayer a tiny fraction of the cost of a war.  It will develop friendship, alliances and lucrative trade.


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## Vertigo (Sep 24, 2010)

I've been thinking some more on this one and there have been a lot technology proposals. However think about the really defining feature of each of the previous ages. It seems to me that each of them defined an advance that has had significant impact on the human species as a whole and impressive though our current technology is I don't think it has changed humanity's lot nearly as much as the discovery of tools (stone age) or the discovery of metal. However one thing that has and that touches on nearly every aspect of our lives, just as they did, is medicine. 

So I go for the Age of Medicine! 

I know there has always been medicine about, herbalism, shamans etc., but it was only with the advent of "modern" medicine that the human population growth has acclerated as never before. That is a major impact!


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## Dave (Sep 24, 2010)

Medicine is important and has undoubtedly increased birth rates, I'll also concede that antibiotics and anaesthetics and blood transfusions have been quite important, however, I'd say that the biggest impact to longevity of life and falling death rates would be better diets. In most of the world, no longer do we spend all day looking for our next meal, or storing up enough food to get through the Winter. With the exception of vitamin D, vitamin deficiencies are forgotten. Most people have no contact with the land, yet eat unseasonal food at any time, and never go hungry. In fact, a large proportion are so obese that life expectancy may actually be falling again. Then there are other parts of the world where this is not true and where hunger and disease go hand in hand.


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## skeptical (Sep 24, 2010)

Sorry, Dave

Better diets have been of minimal importance.
As witness, just look at all the people who eat McDonalds!

The key factors, in order of importance are :
1.  Hygiene and sanitation, and especially drinking pure water, even if it takes chlorine to make it so.
2.  Vaccines.
3.  Antibiotics.
4.  Other medical itnerventions.

The human animal is very flexible when it comes to diet, and we are able to survive very nicely on a wide range of foods.


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## Dave (Jan 2, 2018)

I know! Seven years between posts, but I'll accept that your 1,2,3,4 are more important. I'd just say that high infant mortality rates are undoubtedly related to diet and malnutrition, and that malnutrition in childhood would affect later adult health, and the effectiveness of the said vaccines, antibiotics and other medical interventions. Also that there is probably a very complex inter-relationship between all the factors involved.

That wasn't why I came here today though. I just read this article:  The Misleading Optimism of “Sustainable Design” Projects

I've long thought about our descendants mining our present day waste dumps, and about future archaeologists. So, I have no problem believing in, or have any underlying resistance to the fact that we have made irrevocable changes to Earth. What I did find interesting was the report that there are *already* new seabed rocks being formed that include plastic among the sand and coral and that they have named them _plastiglomerates.
_
I'm not a _recovering environmentalist_, I actually studied environmental technology and I still believe that many environmental problems *will* still be solved by technology and engineering. However, I do totally understand that feeling that many have, that some environmentalists (not to mention those Conservative anti-environmentalists) are far too optimistic in the their view of the future. The transition to a post-peak-oil society, and dealing with the effects of climate destruction and the associated economic stability will be far from easy, unlikely to be achieved peacefully, and certainly requires much more than a mixture of suburban self-sufficiency, permaculture, make-do-and-mend and reusing garbage.

There was another recent thread here that asked Does technological progress have natural limits? I still don't believe we have hit any technological barriers, or that we ever will, however, we are very clearly heading full-speed towards a _resources barrier_.

So anyway, maybe, this present age should instead be called *The Age of Plenty*.


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## LordOfWizards (Jan 2, 2018)

Actually, If you go by the "What gets left behind" meme (Chrispenycate), I'd say - ( and it's right in your post Dave) This will be remembered as the "*Age of Plastic*"


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