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What is Technology? — Letters to a Young Technologist

letterstoayoungtechnologist.com · 1,664 words · saved by 8 readers

As young technologists, our work involves acts of immense power, and society both admires and fears these acts. This is a recent phenomenon. In ancient times, those who made technology were devalued as laborers: they were lowly potters and bronze-smiths, not space billionaires. Plato believed in the inferiority of practical craftsmen compared to philosophers, since they deal with the corrupt material world rather than the pure plane of Being and Ideas.1 But for the last century technology has been eating the world. The newfound status and significance of modern technology requires us all to set aside space for probing the weighty questions that our work elicits, questions about its meaning and influence. We must start at the beginning: what is technology? Indeed, how deeply do we understand what we make? The increasing power and consequence of technology seems to obscure its definition. Technology is like a cloud; it envelopes and surrounds us, but we can't quite apprehend it because i

What is Technology? — Letters to a Young Technologist Letters to a Young Technologist About → What is Technology? As young technologists, our work involves acts of immense power, and society both admires and fears these acts. This is a recent phenomenon. In ancient times, those who made technology were devalued as laborers: they were lowly potters and bronze-smiths, not space billionaires. Plato believed in the inferiority of practical craftsmen compared to philosophers, since they deal with the corrupt material world rather than the pure plane of Being and Ideas. 1 But for the last century te

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