The Technology of Man

The future always arrives too fast… and in the wrong order.

as Alvin Toffler
an eminent futurologist, once said.
And the future comes to us via technology. Adam Singer argues that technology is the evolutionary engine that drives successive economic waves of change. For example, transistors gave Sony the chance to eclipse that valve based giant RCA, wireless meant that Vodafone became the new BT, and ironically in MP3, Apple's iPod is the new Sony Walkman.
The new digital economics of technology is eliminating the trade-off between richness and reach, blowing apart the foundations of traditional business. The spread of connectivity and common standards is redefining the information channels that link businesses with their customers, suppliers and employees. Increasingly, your customers will have rich access to a universe of alternatives, your suppliers will exploit direct access to your customers and your competitors will pick off the most profitable parts of your value chain.
Today, conversations between the young are about music players, mobile phones, Bluetooth technology, digital cameras, robots, plasma screens and laptops. From Tokyo to New York these are the digital generation, brought up on generating their own or, consuming the content they want digitally. So profound is their impact, that companies like Time Warner, Sony and Walt Disney are being forced to rethink their business models.
Human-Built World: How to Think About Technology and Culture by Thomas P. Hughes is further examination of how our world changes and how our values adapt as a consequence.
The Cistercian order became known in the 12th century for its development of water mills and windmills that ground grain, sawed wood and worked metals. They reasoned that, possessing a divine creative spark, humans could design tools and machines that would allow them to transform the land into a new Garden of Eden.
In a review of the book by Mark Archer of the Financial times entitled Social Engineering Hughes argues that the most dangerous threat from technology is the assumption that it is "value free". It is not.

We can use technology to consciously… shape our eco-technological world according to our wishes, if we realise that technology is complexly value laden and that we can embody our values in its creations.

And this debate is an important one to have because as Buddha said "nothing lasts forever except change". And technological change is relentless.

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