Recently I got to see the new version of War of the Worlds. Aside from the fact that the movie was pretty silly, it made me start thinking about the life cycle of technology. Modern human technology has only really existed for the last fifty years or so. Most of what had been created and developed before then was a precursor to now. So really, we get to watch advances in technology at the relative beginning of advancing technology, which is pretty exciting.

If you didn’t see the movie, [spoiler alert!] it starts out with aliens being transported on bolts of lightning through the ground into machines that had been buried for millions of years. The machines then climb out of the ground and begin attacking.

The idea that another life form would plant technology on this planet and then millions of years later still have the ability (and desire) to use it poses some questions about technology. As I mentioned earlier, the human race has only had “advanced” technology for the last half a century. We can see this from WWII, the first trips into space, and the birth of the early Internet.

If indeed we buried technology into the ground today, do you think that in just 100 years we would dig it up and bother even trying to use it? Probably not. Why? Because technology advances on us so fast it just wouldn’t be worth it. Whatever was buried would likely be obsolete and practically unusable.

So here’s the question: Is there a ceiling on technological advancements? Is it possible to say, or better yet prove, that at some point we will know that there is no longer room for improvement - that what we have is as good as it can get, and in a million years it will remain unchanged?

I don’t have the slightest idea, just some food for thought.