Technology conclusions five powers

Technology

may be thought of as an existing set of conditions

requiring contingency plans.

Conditions characterized by tool complexes of related inventions to fit specific conditions of places.
Material artifacts and devices that contribute solutions to the existing conditions to alter their arrangements.
The associated ideas that enable the tools to function effectively among a society of users.

impacts | five powers of technology | time | summary

The power of some technical inventions to reorganize our world: Five ages are identified with the underlying material of which tools were made.

Technological changes have been used to divide our past into periods.

	Periods	approximate start	dominant tool complexes
I	Stone Age	10,000 BC	hand ax, edible plants,domestic cattle, pigs, fire, bone
II	Bronze Age	5000 BC	copper smelting, wood fuel, forges, horses
III	Iron Age	1000 BC	charcoal fuels, olive oil, rice wine, hot metal forges, canals
IV	Mechanical Age	1543	clocks, textiles, steam engines, coal & coke fuels, railways
V	Information Age	1953	electricity, radio, telecommunications, satellites, airplanes

impacts | five powers of technology | time | summary

Technology is a material manifestation of dominant ideas, practices and institutions with varied means and powers to solve problems that serve a human purpose.

Technology influences our characterization of appropriate gender roles.

Laws of Technology reveal the power of certain tools and discoveries to alter the measure of our surrounding world, experience and values: sundials, clocks, watches, computers.

Technologies in the contemporary world, based on a mechanistic view of reality where machines alter our behavior "aims to remake nature and compel us to live entirely in a technical milieu." For example: automobiles, telecommunications, film, automatic rifles.

impacts | five powers of technology | time | summary

Conclusions:

Technological change has reorganized our ideas of space, time and appropriate behavior, offering humankind a great choice to either adapt and learn, or remain powerless and enslaved by our self-satisfied ignorance of nature, history and one another's needs.

In German gestalt psychology, which deals with how we perceive whole or related experiences, theorists suggest there are three worlds in which we reside:

Technology alters all of these worlds:

Eigenwelt is the personal world of our experiences.

Mitwelt is the social world in which we participate with others.

Umwelt is the universe, the cosmos, the earth to which we are tied.

Authors:

The Two Cultures

Pursell | Pacey–World | Postman | Head | Tenner |Pacey–meaning| Eberhart | Snow | Kaku | Boulding | Delillo | Kranzberg

| Postman–Tech | Postman–Television |

Related pages

impacts | five powers of technology | time | summary

"We are what we use."