Technology

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Technology is a broad concept that deals with a species' usage and knowledge of tools and crafts, and how it affects a species' ability to control and adapt to its environment. In human society, it is a consequence of science and engineering, although several technological advances predate the two concepts. Technology is a term with origins in the Greek "technologia", "τεχνολογία" — "techne", "τέχνη" ("craft") and "logia", "λογία" ("saying").^[1] However, a strict definition is elusive; "technology" can refer to material objects of use to humanity, such as machines, hardware or utensils, but can also encompass broader themes, including systems, methods of organization, and techniques. The term can either be applied generally or to specific areas: examples include "construction technology", "medical technology", or "state-of-the-art technology".

The human race's use of technology began with the conversion of plentiful natural resources into simple tools. The prehistorical discovery of the ability to control fire increased the available sources of food, and the invention of the wheel helped humans in travelling in and controlling their environment. Recent technological developments, including the printing press and the Internet, have lessened physical barriers to communication and allowed humans to interact on a global scale. However, not all technology has been used for peaceful purposes; the development of weapons of ever-increasing destructive power has progressed throughout history, from clubs to nuclear weapons.

Technology has affected society and its surroundings in a number of ways. In many societies, technology has helped develop more advanced economies (including today's global economy) and has allowed the rise of a leisure class. However, many technological processes produce unwanted by-products, known as pollution, and deplete natural resources, to the detriment of the Earth and its environment. Various implementations of technology influence the values of a society and new technology raises new ethical questions. Examples include the rise of the notion of efficiency in terms of human productivity, a term originally applied only to machines, and the challenge of traditional norms.

Philosophical debates have arisen over the present and future use of technology in society, with disagreements over whether technology improves the human condition or worsens it. Neo-luddism and similar movements criticise the pervasiveness of technology in the modern world, claiming that it alienates people and destroys culture; proponents of ideologies such as transhumanism and techno-progressivism view continued technological progress as beneficial to society and the human condition. Indeed, until recently, it was believed that the development of technology was a concept akin and restricted only to human beings, but recent scientific studies indicate that other primates and certain dolphin communities have developed simple tools and learned to pass their knowledge to other generations.

Contents 1 Definition and usage 2 Science, engineering and technology 3 History 3.1 Prehistory (— 5000BCE) 3.2 Ancient history (5000BCE — 0CE) 3.3 Modern history (0CE —) 4 Fields 5 Economics and technological development 5.1 Funding 5.1.1 Governmental funding 5.1.2 Private funding 5.1.3 Not for profit 5.2 Other economic considerations 6 Sociological factors and effects 6.1 Values 6.2 Ethics 6.3 Lifestyle 6.4 Institutions and groups 6.5 International 7 Environment 8 Control 8.1 Autonomous technology 8.2 Government 8.3 Choice 9 Technology and philosophy 9.1 Technicism 9.2 Optimism 9.3 Pessimism 9.4 Appropriate technology 10 Other species 11 See also 11.1 Theories and concepts in technology 11.2 Economics of technology 12 Notes 13 References 13.1 Printed sources 13.2 Online sources 14 Further reading 15 External links 15.1 Appropriate technology

[edit] Definition and usage

In general, "technology" is the relationship that society has with its tools and crafts, and to what extent society can control its environment. The Merriam-Webster dictionary offers a definition of the term: "the practical application of knowledge especially in a particular area" and "a capability given by the practical application of knowledge".^[1] Ursula Franklin, in her 1989 "Real World of Technology" lecture, gave another possible definition of the concept; it is "practice, the way we do things around here".^[2] The term is often used to imply a specific field of technology; the media uses "technology" to refer to high technology, rather than technology as a whole.^[3] However, the term is mostly used in three different contexts: when referring to a tool (or machine), a technique, the cultural force, or a combination of the three.

Technology can be most broadly defined as the entities, both material and immaterial, created by the application of mental and physical effort in order to achieve some value. In this usage, technology refers to tools and machines that may be used to solve real-world problems. It is a far-reaching term that may include simple tools, such as a crowbar or wooden spoon, and more complex machines, such as a space station or particle accelerator. Tools and machines need not be material; virtual technology, such as software and virtual machines, fall under this definition of technology.

The word "technology" can also be used to refer to a collection of techniques. In this context, it is the current state of humanity's knowledge, either in a particular field or in general, of how to combine resources to produce desired products, to solve problems, fulfil needs, or satisfy wants; it includes technical methods, skills, processes, techniques, tools and raw materials. Terms such as "medical technology", "space technology" and "state-of-the-art technology"^[4] refer to the state of the respective field's knowledge (as well as the tools used).

"Technology" can be viewed as an activity that forms or changes culture.^[5] A modern example is the rise of communication technology, which has lessened barriers to human interaction and, as a result, has helped spawn new subcultures; the rise of cyberculture has, at its basis, the development of the Internet and the computer. Not all technology enhances culture in a creative way; technology can also help facilitate political oppression and war via tools such as guns. As a cultural activity, technology predates both science and engineering, each of which formalize some aspects of technological endeavor.

[edit] Science, engineering and technology

The distinction between science, engineering and technology is not always clear. Generally, science is the reasoned investigation or study of nature, aimed at discovering enduring principles among elements of the phenomenal world by employing formal techniques such as the scientific method.^[6] However, technologies are not usually direct products of science, because they have to satisfy requirements such as utility, usability and safety; therefore the application of scientific knowledge to concrete purposes requires the contribution of engineering research. Engineering is the goal-oriented process of designing and building tools and systems to exploit natural phenomena for practical human means, using results and techniques from science.

The development of technology broadly involves the use and application of knowledge, such as scientific, engineering, mathematical, linguistic, and historical knowledge, to achieve some practical result. It is usually a consequence of science and engineering — although technology as a human activity has preceded the two fields. For example, science might study the flow of electrons in electrical conductors, by utilising already-existing specialist technology and knowledge. This new-found knowledge may then be used by engineers to create new tools and machines, such as semiconductors, computers, and other forms of advanced technology. In this sense, scientists and engineers may both be considered technologists; the three fields are often considered as one for the purposes of research and reference.^[7]

[edit] History

Main articles: History of technology and Timeline of invention

[edit] Prehistory (— 5000BCE)

The history of technology is at least as old as humankind, if not older. Primitive tools have been discovered with almost every find of ancient human remains.^[8] Archaeologists have uncovered tools made by humanity's ancestors more than two million years ago,^[9] and the earliest direct evidence of tool usage, found in the Great Rift Valley, dates back to 2.5 million years ago.^[10] The hunter-gatherer lifestyle, characteristic of the Lower Paleolithic era, involved a limited use of technology, and the earliest tools, such as the handaxe and scraper, were developed to aid early humans in that role.^[11][12]

The discovery and utilisation of fire, a simple energy source with many profound uses, was a turning point in the technological evolution of humankind.^[13] The exact date of its discovery is not known; evidence of burnt animal bones at the Cradle of Humankind site suggests that the domestication of fire occurred before 1,000,000 BCE;^[14] scholarly consensus indicates that Homo erectus had controlled fire by between 500,000 BCE and 400,000 BCE.^[15][16] Fire, fueled with wood and charcoal, allowed early humans to cook their food, thereby increasing the total amount of food available and its nutritional quality.^[17]

Other technological advances made during the Paleolithic era were clothing and shelter; the adoption of both technologies cannot be dated exactly, but they were key to humanity's progress. As the Paleolithic era progressed, dwellings became more sophisticated and more elaborate; as early as 380,000 BCE, humans were constructing temporary wood huts.^[18][19] Clothing, adapted from the fur and hides of hunted animals, helped humanity expand into colder regions; humans began to migrate out of Africa by 200,000 BCE and into other continents, such as Eurasia.^[20]

A more sophisticated toolmaking technique was developed at around the same time. Known as the prepared-core technique, it enabled the creation of more controlled and consistent flakes, which could be hafted onto wooden shafts as arrows.^{[citation needed]} This new technique helped to form more efficient composite tools and weapons, and combined with fire, this new technique enabled humans to hunt more effectively; wooden spears with fire-hardened points have been found as early as 250,000 BCE.^{[citation needed]}

Technological developments in the Upper Paleolithic era, helped by the development of language, included advances in flint tool manufacturing, with industries based on fine blades rather than simple flakes.^{[citation needed]} Humans began to work bones, antler, and hides, as evidenced by burins and racloirs produced during this period.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Ancient history (5000BCE — 0CE)

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Continuing improvements led to the furnace and bellows and provided the ability to smelt and forge native metals (naturally occurring in relatively pure form).^[21] Gold, copper, silver, and lead, were such early metals. The advantages of copper tools over stone, bone, and wooden tools were quickly apparent to early humans, and native copper was probably used from near the beginning of Neolithic times (about 8000 BCE). Native copper does not naturally occur in large amounts, but copper ores are quite common and some of them produce metal easily when burned in wood or charcoal fires. Eventually, the working of metals led to the discovery of alloys such as bronze and brass (about 4000 BCE). The first uses of iron alloys such as steel dates to around 1400 BCE.

Meanwhile, humans were learning to harness other forms of energy. The earliest known use of wind power is the sailboat. The earliest record of a ship under sail is shown on an Egyptian pot dating back to 3200 BCE. From prehistoric times, Egyptians probably used "the power of the Nile" annual floods to irrigate their lands, gradually learning to regulate much of it through purposely-built irrigation channels and 'catch' basins. Similarly, the early peoples of Mesopotamia, the Sumerians, learned to use the Tigris and Euphrates rivers for much the same purposes. But more extensive use of wind and water (and even human) power required another invention.

According to archaeologists, the wheel was invented around 4000 B.C. The wheel was likely independently invented in Mesopotamia (in present-day Iraq) as well. Estimates on when this may have occurred range from 5500 to 3000 B.C., with most experts putting it closer to 4000 B.C. The oldest artifacts with drawings that depict wheeled carts date from about 3000 B.C.; however, the wheel may have been in use for millennia before these drawings were made. There is also evidence from the same period of time that wheels were used for the production of pottery. (Note that the original potter's wheel was probably not a wheel, but rather an irregularly shaped slab of flat wood with a small hollowed or pierced area near the center and mounted on a peg driven into the earth. It would have been rotated by repeated tugs by the potter or his assistant.) More recently, the oldest-known wooden wheel in the world was found in the Ljubljana marshes of Slovenia.^[22]

The invention of the wheel revolutionized activities as disparate as transportation, war, and the production of pottery (for which it may have been first used). It didn't take long to discover that wheeled wagons could be used to carry heavy loads and fast (rotary) potters' wheels enabled early mass production of pottery. But it was the use of the wheel as a transformer of energy (through water wheels, windmills, and even treadmills) that revolutionized the application of nonhuman power sources.

[edit] Modern history (0CE —)

Tools include both simple machines (such as the lever, the screw, and the pulley), and more complex machines (such as the clock, the engine, the electric generator and the electric motor, the computer, radio, and the Space Station, among many others).

As tools increase in complexity, so does the type of knowledge needed to support them. Complex modern machines require libraries of written technical manuals of collected information that has continually increased and improved -— their designers, builders, maintainers, and users often require the mastery of decades of sophisticated general and specific training. Moreover, these tools have become so complex that a comprehensive infrastructure of technical knowledge-based lesser tools, processes and practices (complex tools in themselves) exist to support them, including engineering, medicine, and computer science. Complex manufacturing and construction techniques and organizations are needed to construct and maintain them. Entire industries have arisen to support and develop succeeding generations of increasingly more complex tools.

[edit] Fields

Main article: Fields of technology

[edit] Economics and technological development

Economics can be said to have arrived on the scene when the occasional, spontaneous exchange of goods and services began to occur on a less occasional, less spontaneous basis. It probably didn't take long for the maker of arrowheads to realize that he could do a lot better by concentrating on the making of arrowheads and barter for his other needs. Regardless of the goods and services bartered, some amount of technology was involved—if no more than in the making of shell and bead jewelry. Even the shaman's potions and sacred objects can be said to have involved some technology. From the very beginnings, technology can be said to have spurred the development of more elaborate economies.

In the modern world, superior technologies, resources, geography, and history give rise to robust economies; and in a well-functioning, robust economy, economic excess naturally flows into greater use of technology. Moreover, because technology is such an inseparable part of human society, especially in its economic aspects, funding sources for (new) technological endeavors are virtually illimitable. However, while in the beginning, technological investment involved little more than the time, efforts, and skills of one or a few men, today, such investment may involve the collective labor and skills of many millions.

[edit] Funding

Consequently the sources of funding for large technological efforts have dramatically narrowed, since few have ready access to the collective labor of a whole society, or even a large part. It is conventional to divide up funding sources into governmental (involving whole, or nearly whole, social enterprises) and private (involving more limited, but generally more sharply focused) business or individual enterprises.

[edit] Governmental funding

The government is a major contributor to the development of new technology in many ways.

Governments also invest in the long-term technological strength of a nation or group of nations; the European Union funds the Framework Programmes to support European research, and the Unite States government has created the National Nanotechnology Initiative to encourage further developments in nanotechnology.

In 1980, the UK government invested just over 6 million pounds in a four-year programme, later extended to six years, called the Microelectronics Education Programme (MEP), which was intended to give every school in Britain at least one computer, microprocessor training materials and software, and extensive teacher training. Governments around the world have instituted similar programmes.

Technology has frequently been driven by the military, with many modern applications being developed for the military before being adapted for civilian use. However, this has always been a two-way flow, with industry often taking the lead in developing and adopting a technology which is only later adopted by the military.

Entire government agencies are specifically dedicated to research, such as America's National Science Foundation, the United Kingdom's scientific research institutes, America's Small Business Innovative Research effort. Many other government agencies dedicate a major portion of their budget to research and development.

The U.S. government spends more than other countries on military research and development, although the proportion has fallen from about 30 percent in the 1980s to less than 20 percent.^[23]

[edit] Private funding

Research and development is one of the biggest areas of investments made by corporations toward new and innovative technology.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Not for profit

Many foundations and other nonprofit organizations contribute to the development of technology. In the OECD, about two-thirds of research and development in scientific and technical fields is carried out by industry, and 20 percent and 10 percent respectively by universities and government. But in poorer countries such as Portugal and Mexico the industry contribution is significantly less.

[edit] Other economic considerations

• Intermediate technology, more of an economics concern, refers to compromises between central and expensive technologies of developed nations and those which developing nations find most effective to deploy given an excess of labour and scarcity of cash. In general, a so-called "appropriate" technology will also be "intermediate".
• Persuasion technology: In economics, definitions or assumptions of progress or growth are often related to one or more assumptions about technology's economic influence. Challenging prevailing assumptions about technology and its usefulness has led to alternative ideas like uneconomic growth or measuring well-being. These, and economics itself, can often be described as technologies, specifically, as persuasion technology.

Public schools have attempted to introduce varied concepts of technology on the junior high level to better prepare youngsters for subsequent schooling, as well as entrance into the workforce.

[edit] Sociological factors and effects

The use of technology has a great many effects; these may be separated into intended effects and unintended effects. Unintended effects are usually also unanticipated, and often unknown before the arrival of a new technology. Nevertheless, they are often as important as the intended effect.

The subtlest side effects of technology are often sociological. They are subtle because the side effects may go unnoticed unless carefully observed and studied. These may involve gradually occurring changes in the behavior of individuals, groups, institutions, and even entire societies.

[edit] Values

The implementation of technology influences the values of a society by changing expectations and realities. The implementation of technology is also influenced by values. There are (at least) three major, interrelated values that inform, and are informed by, technological innovations:

• Mechanistic world view: Viewing the universe as a collection of parts, (like a machine), that can be individually analyzed and understood (McGinn). This is a form of reductionism that is rare nowadays. However, the "neo-mechanistic world view" holds that nothing in the universe cannot be understood by the human intellect. Also, while all things are greater than the sum of their parts (e.g., even if we consider nothing more than the information involved in their combination), in principle, even this excess must eventually be understood by human intelligence. That is, no divine or vital principle or essence is involved.

• Efficiency: A value, originally applied only to machines, but now applied to all aspects of society, so that each element is expected to attain a higher and higher percentage of its maximal possible performance, output, or ability. (McGinn)
• Social progress: The belief that there is such a thing as social progress, and that, in the main, it is beneficent. Before the Industrial Revolution, and the subsequent explosion of technology, almost all societies believed in a cyclical theory of social movement and, indeed, of all history and the universe. This was, obviously, based on the cyclicity of the seasons, and an agricultural economy's and society's strong ties to that cyclicity. Since much of the world (i.e., everyone but the hyperindustrialized West) is closer to their agricultural roots, they are still much more amenable to cyclicity than progress in history. This may be seen, for example, in Prabhat rainjan sarkar's modern social cycles theory. For a more westernized version of social cyclicity, see Generations : The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069 (Paperback) by Neil Howe and William Strauss; Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (September 30, 1992); ISBN 0-688-11912-3, and subsequent books by these authors.

[edit] Ethics

Winston provides an excellent summary of the ethical implications of technological development and deployment. He states there are four major ethical implications:

• Challenges traditional ethical norms.
• Creates an aggregation of effects. Aggregation of effects occurs when small, seemingly harmless byproducts combine together to create great harm. The ethical dilemma is that the assignment of responsibility for the harm is difficult. For example, the burning of hydrocarbons creates very small amounts of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. However, millions of hydrocarbon burns create very large accumulations of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, creating large scale pollution. The resolution of this pollution problem, however, reaches across individual, societal and international responsibilities.
• Changes the distribution of justice.
• Provides great power. Technology empowers its users, sometimes at the expense of others. For example, as digital technology becomes more ingrained in our lives, the advances afforded by technology enlarges the gap between the technological haves and have-nots; the same gap that exists between those that have or can get access to information, and those that suffer for lack of that access.

[edit] Lifestyle

Technology, throughout history, has allowed people to complete more tasks in less time and with less human intellectual or manual labour. Many herald this as a way of making life easier. However, work has continued to be proportional to the amount of energy expended, rather than the quantitative amount of information or material processed. Technology has had profound effects on lifestyle throughout human history, and as the rate of progress increases, society must deal with both the good and bad implications. In many ways, technology improves life.

• The rise of a leisure class
• A more informed society can make quicker responses to events and trends
• Sets the stage for more complex learning tasks
• Increases multi-tasking
• Global networking
• Creates denser social circles
• Cheap price

In other ways, technology makes life more complex.

• Sweatshops and harsher forms of slavery are more likely to be found in technologically advanced societies, relative to primitive societies.
• The increasing oppression of technologically advanced societies over those which are not.

Many people are starving,in this most technologically advanced age, than at any point in history or pre-history.

• The increase in transportation technology has brought congestion in some areas.
• Technicism
• New forms of danger existing as a consequence of innovative forms of technology, new types of nuclear reactors, unforeseen genetic mutations as the result of genetic engineering, or perhaps something more subtle which can i.e. destroy the ozone or warm the planet.
• New forms of entertainment, such as video games and internet access could have possible social effects on areas such as academic performance.
• Creates new diseases and disorders such as obesity, laziness and a loss of personality.

[edit] Institutions and groups

Technology often enables organizational and bureaucratic group structures that otherwise and heretofore were simply not possible. Example of this might include:

• The rise of very large organizations: e.g., governments, the military, health and social welfare institutions, supranational corporations.
• The commercialization of leisure: sports events, products, etc. (McGinn)
• The almost instantaneous dispersal of information (especially news) and entertainment around the world.

[edit] International

Technology enables greater knowledge of international issues, values, and cultures. Due mostly to mass transportation, mass media, and inexpensive personal communication, the world seems to be a much smaller place, due to the following, among others:

• Globalization of ideas
• Embeddedness of values
• Population growth and control
• Others

[edit] Environment

Most modern technological processes produce unwanted by-products in addition to the desired products, known as industrial waste or pollution. Whilst most material waste can be reused in other industrial processes, many forms are released into the environment, with negative environmental side effects, such as pollution and lack of sustainability. Different social and political systems establish different balances between the value they place on additional goods versus the disvalues of waste products and pollution. Some technologies are designed specifically with the environment in mind, but most are designed first for economic or ergonomic effects. Historically, the value of a clean environment and more efficient productive processes has been the result of an increase in the wealth of society, because once people are able to provide for their basic needs, they are able to focus on less-tangible goods such as clean air and water.

The effects of technology on the environment are both obvious and subtle. The more obvious effects include the depletion of non-renewable natural resources (such as petroleum, coal, ores), and the added pollution of air, water, and land. The more subtle effects include debates over long-term effects (e.g., global warming, deforestation, natural habitat destruction, coastal wetland loss.)

Each wave of technology creates a set of waste previously unknown to humans: toxic waste, radioactive waste, and electronic waste.

[edit] Control

[edit] Autonomous technology

In one line of thought, technology develops autonomously, in other words, technology seems to feed on itself, moving forward with a force irresistible by humans. To these individuals, technology is "inherently dynamic and self-augmenting."^[24]

Jacques Ellul is one proponent of the irresistibleness of technology to humans. He espouses the idea that humanity cannot resist the temptation of expanding our knowledge and our technological abilities. However, he does not believe that this seeming autonomy of technology is inherent. But the perceived autonomy is due to the fact that humans do not adequately consider the responsibility that is inherent in technological processes.

Another proponent of these ideas is Langdon Winner who believes that technological evolution is essentially beyond the control of individuals or society.

[edit] Government

Individuals rely on governmental assistance to control the side effects and negative consequences of technology.

• Supposed independence of government. An assumption commonly made about the government is that their governance role is neutral or independent. However some argue that governing is a political process, so government will be influenced by political winds of influence. In addition, because government provides much of the funding for technological research and development, it has a vested interest in certain outcomes. Others point out that the world's biggest ecological disasters, such as the Aral Sea, Chernobyl, and Lake Karachay have been caused by government projects, which are not accountable to consumers, so governments should stay out of industry entirely.
• Liability. One means for controlling technology is to place responsibility for the harm with the agent causing the harm. Government can allow more or less legal liability to fall to the organizations or individuals responsible for damages.
• Legislation. A source of controversy is the role of industry versus that of government in maintaining a clean environment. While it is generally agreed that industry needs to be held responsible when pollution harms other people, there is disagreement over whether this should be prevented by legislation or civil courts, and whether ecological systems as such should be protected from harm by governments.

[edit] Choice

Society also controls technology through the choices it makes. These choices not only include consumer demands; they also include:

• the channels of distribution, how do products go from raw materials to consumption to disposal;
• the cultural beliefs regarding style, freedom of choice, consumerism, materialism, etc.;
• the economic values we place on the environment, individual wealth, government control, capitalism, etc.

[edit] Technology and philosophy

[edit] Technicism

Generally, technicism is an over reliance or overconfidence in technology as a benefactor of society.

Taken to extreme, some argue that technicism is the belief that humanity will ultimately be able to control the entirety of existence using technology. In other words, human beings will eventually be able to master all problems, supply all wants and needs, possibly even control the future. Some, such as Monsma, connect these ideas to the abdication of religion as a higher moral authority.

More commonly, technicism is a criticism of the commonly held belief that newer, more recently-developed technology is "better." For example, more recently-developed computers are faster than older computers, and more recently-developed cars have greater gas efficiency and more features than older cars. Because current technologies are generally accepted as good, future technological developments are not considered circumspectly, resulting in what seems to be a blind acceptance of technological developments.

[edit] Optimism

See also: Extropianism

Optimistic assumptions are made by proponents of ideologies such as transhumanism and singularitarianism, which view technological development as generally having beneficial effects for the society and the human condition. In these ideologies, technological development is morally good. Some critics see these ideologies as examples of scientism and techno-utopianism and fear the notion of human enhancement and technological singularity which they support. Some have described Karl Marx as a techno-optimist.^[25]

[edit] Pessimism

See also: Neo-luddism and Bioconservatism

On the somewhat pessimistic side are certain philosophers like Herbert Marcuse, Jacques Ellul, and John Zerzan, who believe that technological societies are inherently flawed a priori. They suggest that the result of such a society is to become evermore technological at the cost of freedom and psychological health (and probably physical health in general, as pollution from technological products is dispersed). In Faust by Goethe, Faust's selling his soul to the devil in return for power over the physical world, is also often interpreted as a metaphor for the adoption of industrial technology.

Some of the most poignant criticisms of technology are found in what are now considered to be dystopian literary classics, for example Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and other writings, Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, and George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Perhaps the most widely read overtly anti-technological treatise is Industrial Society and Its Future which was written by Theodore Kaczynski (aka The Unabomber) and was printed in several major newspapers (and later books) as part of an effort to end his bombing campaign of the techno-industrial infrastructure.

[edit] Appropriate technology

See also: Technocriticism and Technorealism

The notion of appropriate technology, however, was developed in the 20th century to describe situations where it was not desirable to use very new technologies or those that required access to some centralized infrastructure or parts or skills imported from elsewhere. The eco-village movement emerged in part due to this concern.

[edit] Other species

Main article: Technology usage by other species

The use of basic technology is also a feature of other species apart from humans. These include primates such as chimpanzees and some dolphin communities.^[26][27]

The ability to make and use tools was once considered a defining characteristic of the genus Homo.^[28] However, the discovery of tool construction among chimpanzees and related primates has discarded the notion of the use of technology as unique to humans. For example, researchers have observed wild chimpanzees utilising tools for foraging: some of the tools used include leaf sponges, termite fishing probes, pestles and levers.^[29] West African chimpanzees also use stone hammers and anvils for cracking nuts.^[30]

[edit] See also

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Main lists: List of basic technology topics and List of technologies

Bernard Stiegler Golden hammer High technology History of science and technology Innovation Internet Knowledge economy Lewis Mumford Luddite

Technique Technology assessment Timeline of invention Technological convergence Technology tree List of "ologies" Science and technology Technological superpowers

[edit] Theories and concepts in technology

Main list: Theories of technology

Appropriate technology Diffusion of innovations Philosophy of technology Posthumanism Precautionary principle Strategy of technology Techno-progressivism Technocriticism

Technological evolution Technological determinism Technological singularity Technological society Technorealism Technological revival Transhumanism

[edit] Economics of technology

• Technocapitalism
• Technological diffusion
• Technology acceptance model
• Technology lifecycle
• Technology transfer

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

[edit] Printed sources

[edit] Online sources

[edit] Further reading

• Adas, Michael (1989). Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-2303-1. 
• Monsma, Stephen V., et al. (1986). Responsible Technology: A Christian Perspective. Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans. ISBN 0-8028-0175-7. 
• Noble, David F. (1984). Forces of Production: A Social History of Industrial Automation. New York: Knopf. ISBN 0-394-51262-6. 
• Roussel, Philip A.; Kamal N. Saad, and Tamara J. Erickson (1991). Third Generation R & D: Managing the Link to Corporate Strategy. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press. ISBN 0-87584-252-6. 
• Smil, Vaclav (1994). Energy in World History. Boulder: Westview Press, pp. 259-267. ISBN 0-8133-1901-3.  Cited at Technology Chronology (accessed September 11, 2005).
• Stiegler, Bernard (1998). Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-3041-5. 
• Van Creveld, Martin (1989). Technology and war : 2000BC to the present. New York: Free Press. ISBN 0-02-933151-X. 
• Winston, Morton (2003). "Children of invention", in in Morton Winston and Ralph Edelbach (eds.),: Society, Ethics, and Technology, 2nd ed., Belmont, Calif.: Thomson/Wadsworth. ISBN 0-534-58540-X. 

[edit] External links

[edit] Appropriate technology

• Appropedia, a wiki for appropriate technology information and projects.
• Campus Center for Appropriate Technology Humboldt State University
• National Center for Appropriate Technology
• Student Projects Appropriate Technology Humboldt State University

v • d • e Major fields of technology
Applied Science	Artificial intelligence • Ceramic engineering • Computing technology • Electronics • Energy • Energy storage • Engineering physics • Environmental technology • Materials science • Materials engineering • Microtechnology • Nanotechnology • Nuclear technology • Optical engineering • Quantum computing
Sports and recreation	Camping equipment • Playground • Sport • Sports equipment
Information and communication	Communication • Graphics • Music technology • Speech recognition • Visual technology
Industry	Construction • Financial engineering • Manufacturing • Machinery • Mining
Military	Bombs • Guns and ammunition • Military technology and equipment • Naval engineering
Domestic	Domestic appliances • Domestic technology • Educational technology • Food technology
Engineering	Aerospace engineering • Agricultural engineering • Architectural engineering • Bioengineering • Biochemical engineering • Biomedical engineering • Chemical engineering • Civil engineering • Computer engineering • Construction engineering • Electrical engineering • Electronics engineering • Environmental engineering • Industrial engineering • Materials engineering • Mechanical engineering • Mechatronics engineering • Metallurgical engineering • Mining engineering • Nuclear engineering • Petroleum engineering • Software engineering • Structural engineering • Textile engineering • Tissue engineering
Health and Safety	Biomedical engineering • Bioinformatics • Biotechnology • Cheminformatics • Fire protection technology • Health technologies • Pharmaceuticals • Safety engineering • Sanitary engineering
Transport	Aerospace • Aerospace engineering • Marine engineering • Motor vehicles • Space technology • Transport