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

It's an American Thing

[Puls4r]

I tend to think of this an American problem. An excellent analogy can be made, for instance, between American and Japanese technology. American companies concentrate on hitting "home runs". This is exciting, wins you the occasional game, and makes "superstars". Japanese companies concentrate on "singles". They concentrate on the long-term game plan, and make numerous small improvements to their technology. We see history the same way. How many people know who hit the most home runs in baseball, versus who has the highest all-time batting average? How many people know who developed the atomic bomb, versus who developed the first machine gun? We are very much a glitz and glamour, or "home run" society.