Innovation's Role Is Sorely Exaggerated

Strudelkugel writes "The New Yorker has a book review describing our common misunderstanding of the value of technology and its ultimate uses. The reviewer notes that the way we think about technology tends to ignore older objects of technology. Quoting: '[W]hen we do consider technology in historical terms we customarily see it as a driving force of progress: every so often... an innovation — the steam engine, electricity, computers — brings a new age into being. In "The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900", by David Edgerton, a well-known British historian of modern military and industrial technology, offers a vigorous assault on this narrative. He thinks that traditional ways of understanding technology, technological change, and the role of technology in our lives, have been severely distorted by what he calls "the innovation-centric account" of technology.'" Money quote: "Seen in this light, my kitchen is a technological palimpsest."

Comments

Re:ooh I think you're talking smack about ME

[SadGeekHermit]

Yeah, ok. You didn't get your lawyer job with your knowledge of Shakespeare, pal. You studied a specific TRADE in LAW SCHOOL. All that arty-farty crap you studied beforehand was just an artificial barrier to entry designed to reduce the field to people with enough money to pay for six to eight years of school. There's no *practical* reason why "law school" can't be an undergrad degree.

My point about diff.eq and calculus was that techies study these things in school. I did. You did not.

Congratulations on your rental successes, I'm sure you're very happy. But tell me, did you get a good price for your soul? There are so many lawyers getting minted these days, I can't help but think the prices may be dropping...