Overview
review of technicsNavigating the site:
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Historical periods as watersheds in technical change
How technology controls so many aspects of our lives (a summary view)
Karl Wittfogel's hypothesis–the hydraulic society examined for what it did for people.
The Wittfogel Hypothesis explains the rise of Asian, called "oriental," despotism which he argued was based on the necessity of controlling water to grow rice. The level of social organization needed to control water included canals, locks, sluice gates, in addition to vigilance and team work.
This argument is based on the labor theory of value and the belief that the necessity to acquire material subsistence governs many if not all of the social relations hydraulic technology fosters.
Pursell | Pacey–World | Postman | Head | Tenner |Pacey–meaning| Eberhart | Snow | Kaku | Boulding | Delillo | Kranzberg 
Flooded rice fields in Chinese Tibet.
Significant dates in the (mechanical) period of the history of technology
- 1666 • The plague and followed by the great fire of London.
- 1780 • Watt's steam engine improvements.
- 1801 • The atomic model of chemical elements.
- 1830 • The earliest railways in England
- 1905 • Nettie Stevens discovered the Y chromosome;
Einstein's description of the photo-electric effect, Brownian motion, & relativity.- 1916 • The general theory of relativity.
- 1942 • First nuclear chain (fission) reaction occurred in Chicago.
- 1953 • The molecular structure of nucleic acid explained.
Technology disturbs whatever it engages; people, places, artifacts and relations among users and tool makers.
How that disturbance is managed is really up to us and those who use the tools.
Postman essentially argues that the technical changes that have come with (accompanied) machine-control, electricity, and media have all converged to create a new authority in the world: the technological imperative.
Files with notes related to technology on this site, are organized in four parts.
Card making in the 1700s reveals the specialization technology encourages.
Clarify | Organize | Reflect | Examine
Course overview and Technological Complexes
- A
time line of crucial technologies, tools and inventions
- Automated
technology shapes our expectations
- Chronological Periods of tool use
- Introduction
to technology and keystone tool complexes
- Kranzberg's
Laws of technology
- Pacey's
three planes or dimensions of tool use
- Political influences of inventions and tool complexes
- Power of Technology
- Technology
alters our values!
- Technology defined
- Three technical aspects of tools
- Time and the relation of clocks to tools
Pursell | Pacey–World | Postman | Head | Tenner |Pacey–meaning| Eberhart | Snow | Kaku | Boulding | Delillo | Kranzberg
A comprehensive overview of the history of technology
The original relation of science and technology
Arkwright and textiles
Renaissance changes in practice, thought and applications.Technology related pages.
Technology implies politics.
Technology possesses 3 related planes of existence [diagram]
Technology subjects overview of key ideas.
Technology from an Organizational & Reflective point of view.
Technology that sustains modern conditions connected.
Measuring time as the driver of technological,changes since 1500,
Arnold Pacey–Pacey's argument: there are Three Dimensions or sides to tools and technology
All tools possess three facets or dimensions of influence in our lives.Tools of Toil – Focus Readings:
Pursell
Pacey Technology in World Civilization
PAceyTWCOverview.html
PaceyTWCIntro.html
Pacey_Gunpowder-empires.html
PaceyTWC9RailRoadEmpires.htm
PAceyTWC8Guns&Rails.html
PaceyTWC6-7.html
PaceyTWC-10.html
Pacey
PaceyOne.html
PaceyMeaning1to9.html
PaceyMeaning1.html
PaceyMeaning2.html
PaceyMeaning3.html
PaceyMeaning4.html
PaceyMeaning5.html
PaceyLastCH9.htmlTools involved in Music and Architecture drove mechanization.
Tools explored and explained.
Tools force us to reflect on how well we use their power to affect changes.
PaceyGender.html
PaceyDimensions.html: PaceyDimensionsTechUPSIDE.jpg
Pacey4Socialmeanings.html
Pacey2visual.html
Pacey,MeaningintheHands.htm
PostmanThesis.html
ThamusStory.html
Technical changes
Epistemology, undermining techniques
Technocracy emerges
Technocracy is
Broken Defenses
An Improbable World
Hidden techniques
Monopoly of Technology.
PostmanWorld.html
PostmanTwo.html
PostmanThesislong.html
PostmanSummary.html
PostM-termQuestTechnopoly.htmlCarrol Pursell
PursellSUMPower.html
PursellPromptTimeOrgan.html
PursellArguSciTech.html
Pursell_CH1_page14.html
Pursell2Out.html
PursellCH3Step.html
PursellClubSciTech.html
PursellLastCybesex.html
Prometheus.Evelyn Keller | genetic resistance | genes | human genome | Pursell | Postman | Kaku
David Bainbridge, The X in Sex: How the X Chromosome Controls our Lives, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003).
Charles Percy Snow, The Two Cultures, 1956
Ross Gelbspan, The Heat is On & Boiling Point The Heat is On,1997.Kenneth Boulding: “Technology has produced many paradoxes.”
Boulding, “The Two Cultures,” Technology in Western Civilization: 2 Vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 1967. Vol. II, pp. 686-707.
Pursell | Tenner | Pacey–World| Pacey–Meaning | Postman | Eberhart | Snow | Kaku
Technological experiences according to Arnold Pacey (physicist) have meaning
Technocracy an Overview of the assertion by Postman.
Technological laws by Melvin Kranzberg.
Technology and freedom, liberty and independence.
Technology history homework.
The History of technology as a Matrix of meaning.
The History of technology explained and briefly described.
technology defined several ways.
Technology: Conclusion, what humane values are changed or promoted?
Technology as component parts in a complex and as a Complete review.
The history of technology: Chronological Terms.
Pursell | Pacey–World | Postman | Head | Tenner |Pacey–meaning| Eberhart | Snow | Kaku | Boulding | Delillo | Kranzberg
