The Digital Civilizations Interviews

Invention

Some of the technologies that were still in the labs in 2010 started hitting the market near 2015. In affluent suburbs, people would proudly line up their roofs with sick-them-up solar coatings, wear intelligent fabric T-shirts in their isolated interiors during winter, and boast about how few things they owned (as opposed to renting them or hiring specialized help when needed). The cleverest corporations had hired the best and most innovative designers to make sustainable living not only «right», but pleasant, and also an object of pride. Recycling centres became destinations, other products would recycle themselves into useful or funny trinkets. «SharedOne» beacons would broadcast the shareable status of any object, from cars to drilling machines, and families would rate each other by how much they shared.

Innovation was the name of the game. There were several ways of going about it as a company. You could become rich and loathed by coating your innovation with a shiny armour of patents, as BP did with its PersonalHydrogen (TM) system; or you could be loved and not-so-rich by publishing your designs as open-source. A few people managed to be both loved and rich at the same time but eventually, the vast majority would end up one way or another.

This was a time when thousands of new products and services were marketed every month, often with good chances of success. People were eager for «cool & good» novelty, «good» meaning both demonstrably good for the environment, and good for oneself. Biotech firms started selling personal enhancement drugs such as memory, sense or stamina extension, as well as others that would colour your skin or eyes, or make them glow in the dark while improving night vision.