> technology : definition
my definition of technology is broad. most people would easily consider computers and the internet technology, but what about vitamins? if you think of technology as things people create to use to alter their lifestyle or their surroundings, then vitamins are a technology.
for the purposes of this writing, technology is concerned mostly with machines, and the infrastructure behind those machines. behind things like radios and telephones and bicycles, there is an entire structure of less visible technologies (in this case radio towers, phone wires and roads).when you look at all these machines, and the machines in turn behind them, and those behind them, and so on, you find an immense network of technology exists today. here we take that network apart and look at where people fit in, and where people make choices about those machines.
priorities for machine distribution
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often technologies evolve from specific uses to very general uses, loosely according to priorities for machine distribution.
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who makes consumer-level technology decisions: the user, or the experts?
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technological determinism
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perhaps our technology choices are determined by the machines themselves.
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together these interactions might determine our direction