It has been proposed that communication could substitute for travel and thus save material and energy. Rather, communication, travel and a lot of other things consume increasing amounts of material and energy. What has decreased drastically in the amount of material or energy per unit of communication. A small minority of the population produces all physical goods and services; thus most people need not live near particular physical resources, but might work in dispersed locations near to their homes, linked together by communications. It is not clear how much this would save in material and energy. Futher, the course that society will take will be influenced as much by government as by science and technology.
