Dealing With Technological Trajectories: Where We Have Come From and Where We Are Going

Abstract

Technological progress is widely recognized as having considerable impact on human societies, which have become more and more dependent on human-made tools that entail intricate scientific processes, considered technology [item 1) in the Related Works]. The adoption of such tools is borne out of the necessity of survival at first [item 2) in the Related Works], and subsequently as a means to improve access to food, shelter, and clothing; arguably things that we cannot live without. Nevertheless, the urgency of understanding the role of technology in human life has never been as vital as today. Indeed, one could say that technological progress is the key ingredient driving human civilization: the invention of ever more complex tools traces the history of human civilization and its development. Each generation of technology lays the foundation for the next, the invention of simple machines, such as the wheel, for example, enabled the invention of the wheelbarrow, which enabled in turn building larger structures. In parallel, the wheel enabled the construction of gears to transmit power from crankshaft to driveshaft and also the rotation of magnetic tapes permitting the capture of binary data leading to the spinning hard disk drives and their superior digital data storage capacity.