The figure above, from Robert Anson Heinlein's "Pandora's Box" (1952), is perhaps the first graphical representation of the concept that technology is not only progressing, but progressing at an exponentially growing rate. Today, this concept goes sometimes under the name of the "technological spike" or the "technological singularity". However, we see also increasing concerns about peak oil and, more in general, about "peak civilization". Will the future be a spike or a peak?