Compounded......................

The problems of today were caused by yesterday's technological successes, and the technological solutions to today's problems will cause the problems of tomorrow.  This circular expansion of both problems and solutions hides a steady accumulation of small net benefits over time.  Ever since the Enlightenment and the invention of science, we've managed to create a tiny bit more than we've destroyed each year.  But that few percent positive difference is compounded over decades into what we might call civilization.

-Kevin Kelly,   The Inevitable