Technology Matters: Questions to Live With
Technology matters, writes David Nye, because it is inseparable from being human. We have used tools for more than 100,000 years, and their central purpose has not always been to provide necessities. People excel at using old tools to solve new problems and at inventing new tools for more elegant solutions to old tasks. Perhaps this is because we are intimate with devices and machines from an early age—as children, we play with technological toys: trucks, cars, stoves,telephones, model...
Search in google:
Discusses in nontechnical language ten central questions about technology that clarify what technology is and why it matters.
1Can we define "technology"?12Does technology control us?173Is technology predictable?334How do historians understand technology?495Cultural uniformity, or diversity?676Sustainable abundance, or ecological crisis?877Work : more, or less? : better, or worse?1098Should "the market" select technologies?1359More security, or escalating dangers?16110Expanding consciousness, or encapsulation?18511Not just one future209
\ From the Publisher"Nye's book addresses many of the issues and debates surrounding our highly textured technological society, and these are reflected in the questions he asks. Does technology control us? Does it lead to cultural uniformity or diversity? To sustainable abundance or to ecological crisis? To more security or escalating danger? The book is rich in examples, is easily readable and is short enough to be recommended for a day's read." Nature\ "The incessant march of technology's evolution is the subject of David Nye's very readable book. It is written in the form of questions and expansive answers, with read like a primer (if not a discursive catechism) on what historians of technology have been thinking about over the half-century or so since their field was formalized. One of the striking effects of Nye's treatment is that it leads the reader to the incontrovertible conclusion that the answers to questions about technology evolve no less than technology itself. This is hardly surprising: thinking and writing about technology can be as creative a pursuit as inventing." New Scientist\ \ \
