twenty-five poorest countries already spend twenty percent of their GDP on water. This twenty percent, about thirty cents, ain't much, but do the mat… - Peter Diamandis

There are now kits that let your plants tweet when they need to be watered, Wi-Fi-connected cow collars that let farmers know when their animals are in heat, and a beer mug that can tell you how much you've drunk during Oktoberfest. As Arduino hacker Charalampos Doukas says, as sensor prices crash downward, "The only limit is your imagination.

Nothing accelerates technological development like money. More bucks, more Buck Rogers. More cash means more people experimenting, failing, and, eventually, driving breakthroughs. And this brings us to our next force: an unprecedented rise in the availability of capital.

My pyramid of abundance, while a little more compressed than Maslow's, follows a similar scheme for similar reasons. There are three levels, with the bottom belonging to food, water, shelter, and other basic survival concerns; the middle is devoted to catalysts for further growth like abundant energy, ample educational opportunities, and access to ubiquitous communications and information; while the highest tier is reserved for freedom and health, two core prerequisites enabling an individual to contribute to society.