The first human civilisations were all mostly agricultural as our hunter-gatherer ways were no longer sustainable with significant population growth. We started farming and doing animal husbandry to feed large populations. This freed many of us to venture into other domains like art, construction, politics, and academia. This was the beginning of civilisations, as we started learning and discovering new things over the course of many centuries.
We remained primarily agricultural, up until 300 years ago when we invented steam engines. After that, some parts of the world became industrial civilisations and just like that we had machines to carry out farming on a large scale which in turn freed more of us to work in factories. The need for industries grew during the world wars as we needed to produce more and more to feed the machines of war. The best example of this is the automobile industry; it grew out of necessity during the wars. Most of the auto giants of today were conceived during the war, example Volkswagen. It was a government-owned company, part of the Nazi propaganda to strengthen the nation through industries.
As the wars ended, industries were transformed, we no longer needed shells, armours, and guns. If we think of it, theoretically, physical resources are finite, thus limiting the progress we can achieve by exploiting them. History says that civilisations built around any physical resource are bound to perish, take the Indus valley civilisation built around primarily agriculture. It saw great strides in technology, economy, and culture. It prospered in trade with the neighbouring Mesopotamian civilisation. It had cities with drainage systems better than what we can find in many places today. It was the first to come up with a standardised system of weights and measurements. At its peak, it had a population of around five million. The entire civilisation built around the Saraswati river dried up eventually due to silt deposition caused by excessive farming over the years. Once the river dried up, its economy was no longer sustainable and thus came the end of this great civilisation.
The industries in the post-war era faced a similar crisis, they had the option to evolve or perish, and as always we evolved. Industries are now used to produce goods on a massive scale, and the general population has become a consumer. This marked the beginning of post-industrial society where the majority of the people were no longer required to farm or work in manufacturing.
We now needed something new, so came in the age of the internet. Until now, everything of value was tangible like either goods or farm produce. In this new age of the internet, feelings and experiences were valued like commodities; this was a revolutionary idea.
Something similar happened to industries after the war, there weren’t enough factories to employ everyone. By the extension of this logic, the same thing is bound to happen with the IT industry in the future, when we have enough software and AI, we won’t need those many programmers. We are no longer producing physical goods; the IT industry produces feelings and experiences which we will never run out of.
This highlights the fact that we are no longer separate civilisations, but humanity as a whole is one big civilisation and civilisations thrive not when they produce goods, but when they add value. We as a species have always found ways to add value to our society, and we will thrive until we continue to do so.
Just saying 