Sci&Tech History

Revolution industry delivers human into an automation era. Thousand labors can be substitute by one machine, farming as one of human activities since the pre-history time, also find a significant change. Tractors, artificial fertilizer, DNA engineering are a few examples of how technology influence the way we farm and deal with the nature. But, does technology really make our life better?

For some countries, technology is the key to success. Natural resources lack ness force some countries to rises their human capacity to survive. Huge energy consumption is needed to face the winter. Fail to innovate means fail to defend warmth which maybe caused death. In this case, technology is not a matter of sophisticated or an accessories but a craft to survive.

As a craft that embedded with daily activities, human error can be eliminated or at least, be minimized. The situation will be different if someone adopts a technology. There is a gap between the specific purpose when the technology was designed and it functions in the new place where the technology is adopted. One thing, which caused this gap, is the culture. In a community which create technology, the people is already use to operate the technology, while in the new place, technology is seen as an ‘alien,’ and mystified as a tool to solve all problem which exist. When it happened, the ‘technology’ is no longer a technology, rather a totem.

Depend on a totem to increase our quality of life? I think it’s a bad choice…

Post to: delicious, Digg, ma.gnolia, Stumbleupon