The Age of Fire is 📝Charles Eisenstein's name, in 📝The Ascent of Humanity, for the era of civilization defined by 📝separation and domination — the technological face of the 📝Age of Separation.
Fire is the fitting metaphor because it is linear: a one-way conversion of matter into energy, light and heat now, cold and toxic ash later. The economy of the Age of Fire works the same way, Eisenstein argues — burning through stored natural and cultural wealth to liberate value as money, generating progress and prosperity for a while alongside steadily accumulating waste, from strip mines to wasted human lives. Its defining assumption is an infinite reservoir of inputs and a limitless capacity for sinks.
That assumption is false, which is why the age is ending. A sustainable economy cannot be built on fire in either its literal or its metaphoric form; what follows must draw on other elements. Eisenstein calls that successor the 📝Age of Water.