Technology Is the Driving Force of History — The Anthology of Balaji

A technological determinist view of history is surprisingly rare. From this view, much of history is not as much about the eternal rights of man as about the newest features of machines. Mapmaking technologies enabled creation of accurate maps. We take this for granted today, but without good maps, there were no explicit borders, only a gradual diminishing of the power of one sovereign as its territory bled into another. In theory, the state was meant to be an innovation in violence reduction. You stay in your territory; I stay in mine. Clear sovereigns would keep domestic order, and the principle of national sovereignty would deter aggression from abroad. It didn’t entirely work out like that, of course. Both intrastate and interstate conflict still occurred. But it may have been preferable to the preceding era of fuzzy-bordered empires and sovereign conflicts. Feudalism was enforced by knights on horseback in shining armor with heavy swords; guns changed that. Guns reduced the import

A technological determinist view of history is surprisingly rare. From this view, much of history is not as much about the eternal rights of man as about the newest features of machines. Mapmaking technologies enabled creation of accurate maps. We take this for granted today, but without good maps, there were no explicit borders, only a gradual diminishing of the power of one sovereign as its territory bled into another. In theory, the state was meant to be an innovation in violence reduction. You stay in your territory; I stay in mine. Clear sovereigns would keep domestic order, and the princ