We began as hunters and gatherers.
Generally, the men hunted and the women gathered.
Our earliest ancestors went to where the game was;
went to where the seed plants and roots were.
They were travelers, following seeds and game.
Ten thousand years ago,
someone with a bent back and tired feet
figured out that she could plant the seeds,
near the river, and watch and wait,
and someone else snared a rabbit,
putting it into an improvised pen.
Historians said they started a revolution:
agricultural revolutions, near rivers everywhere.
They made places to store the extra grain,
and settled down to stay in shelters,
making villages, ten thousand years ago.
An idea became a village,
and a few people quit gathering and hunting
and began to make sandals, and cloth.
Two hundred years ago,
someone with a bent back and a team of horses
figured out that he could capture the steam
from the pot on the fire, and make it push through a pipe,
and someone else discovered that coal was better fuel than wood,
and oil better still, and they made a steam whistle
for a factory and a locomotive and a boat,
all powered by steam instead of human and animal muscle.
Farm boys came to where the steam was
and made cities where the village had been,
along the rivers in America and England and Germany.
Historians said it was another revolution:
an industrial revolution, along the rivers and oceans.
Like the first one, it changed everything:
where people lived and worked, what a job was,
when you got up, and when you ate, and who got rich.
We are in another revolution, still:
right in the middle of it as it happens to us,
changing everything, again: what work is,
who can do it, where we live and work,
who gets rich and who gets left behind.
Ours is an electronic revolution.
Someone figured out how an atom works;
what an electron is, and how to manipulate it,
how to take advantage of its lightning speed,
and use it to make word signals fly,
and numbers carry ideas everywhere,
fast and tiny and tirelessly.
But you have a computer, or a cell phone!
You probably have internet access, and a bank card.
You know that it is not so much whether you have a milk cow
or a steel factory in the back yard: it is what you can know,
and what you can know is almost anywhere,
and that if you don't know it, or can't find it, fast,
someone on the other side of the world will.
You don't have to be able to lift your grandpappy's hammer.
You have to know who can, or what can, and how
to formulate the steel, and what makes even better steel.
Electricity does not need coal and oil,
and your food does not have to come from your river valley.
It is what you know that counts.
That is why the factory went to Taiwan
and why schools matter most.
That is why politicians don't know.
Generally, the men hunted and the women gathered.
Our earliest ancestors went to where the game was;
went to where the seed plants and roots were.
They were travelers, following seeds and game.
Ten thousand years ago,
someone with a bent back and tired feet
figured out that she could plant the seeds,
near the river, and watch and wait,
and someone else snared a rabbit,
putting it into an improvised pen.
Historians said they started a revolution:
agricultural revolutions, near rivers everywhere.
They made places to store the extra grain,
and settled down to stay in shelters,
making villages, ten thousand years ago.
An idea became a village,
and a few people quit gathering and hunting
and began to make sandals, and cloth.
Two hundred years ago,
someone with a bent back and a team of horses
figured out that he could capture the steam
from the pot on the fire, and make it push through a pipe,
and someone else discovered that coal was better fuel than wood,
and oil better still, and they made a steam whistle
for a factory and a locomotive and a boat,
all powered by steam instead of human and animal muscle.
Farm boys came to where the steam was
and made cities where the village had been,
along the rivers in America and England and Germany.
Historians said it was another revolution:
an industrial revolution, along the rivers and oceans.
Like the first one, it changed everything:
where people lived and worked, what a job was,
when you got up, and when you ate, and who got rich.
We are in another revolution, still:
right in the middle of it as it happens to us,
changing everything, again: what work is,
who can do it, where we live and work,
who gets rich and who gets left behind.
Ours is an electronic revolution.
Someone figured out how an atom works;
what an electron is, and how to manipulate it,
how to take advantage of its lightning speed,
and use it to make word signals fly,
and numbers carry ideas everywhere,
fast and tiny and tirelessly.
But you have a computer, or a cell phone!
You probably have internet access, and a bank card.
You know that it is not so much whether you have a milk cow
or a steel factory in the back yard: it is what you can know,
and what you can know is almost anywhere,
and that if you don't know it, or can't find it, fast,
someone on the other side of the world will.
You don't have to be able to lift your grandpappy's hammer.
You have to know who can, or what can, and how
to formulate the steel, and what makes even better steel.
Electricity does not need coal and oil,
and your food does not have to come from your river valley.
It is what you know that counts.
That is why the factory went to Taiwan
and why schools matter most.
That is why politicians don't know.
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