Inventions in our lives

Inventions have changed our lives over the last few centurieps, for the better or the worse. Here I will examine how various inventions affect our lives and our world. What do we take for granted that is in fact a recent construction in the world? The aim here is not so much to look at how things came to be as they are in the world today. Instead by looking at these additions in our lives and their positives and negatives, I wish to make the blank slate, the starting point clearer, and possible alternatives of the world as it could be or might have been.

Firstly, to what extent are inventions of importance at all? Technological change has unrecognisably altered the world over the past few milleniums and especially the last hundred years. Not only have they extended the average human life span, given us more leisure time and also irrepairably destroyed the natural environment, they have also been the trigger or even perhaps the sole reason of many of what are widely regarded as social changes. For example the increases in power and position of women over the last century cannot be understood without looking at technological change. The declining importance of physical strength in employment due to a knowledge-based highly educated society, the move from an agricultural society to an industrialised one and the accompanying preference for fewer numbers of children, inventions that enabled reduced working hours in the home for women as the need for it came along, in the form of washing machines, irons, dishwashers, refrigerators, microwaves. The preferred narrative is one of a continuing enlightenment in the equality by society. But it is really more the change in circumstances just like our society is not simply more open-minded once you take into account the access to many ideas that we have, or even not less barbaric once you take into consideration the constant surveillance we are under since early childhood. Taking this into consideration, how might adjusting our environment further improve humanity, and on the other hand, what negative effect do technological changes also have on us?

I hope this page will be interesting to read. Much of it is an investigation in how the formation of the world around us through artificial means through technology affects society and our understanding of ourselves and our choices.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

The Written word.

Non-existent or unaccessible to most of the cultures that have ever existed, the written word is now the primary form of communication for many modern people. Allowing a time lag between production and receipt of information, as well as being reproducible, it greatly expands the options of communication. It is more efficient in many ways, allowing receivers the freedom to allocate themselves the time to receive the information, for example taking a booklet to read later. Most people also can read faster than people can speak and listen, although few can type or write as fast. Writing is less spontaneous and is more responsive to conventions of expression and grammer. It also reiterates gaps in education, social standing, personal ability and power in that all the way through the history of the written word until the internet, only members of certain circles or those with money or sometimes talent could publish material for mass distribution.

Inventions in our lives