When it comes to technology, it seems as though some form of tech or another is integrated into just about anything these days. Even some kitchen appliances are connected to the internet these days. And, that’s for one good reason. Technology is designed with the primary goal of making life easier. We have long since solved many major problems, and aside from wars and natural disasters, most of our problems these days are minor. So, our tech induced conveniences grow ever smaller right alongside our shrinking problems. Such is the way of tech throughout history. And, I do mean throughout history. Before we had worry about whether we wanted McAfee or Norton antivirus, we worried about how to see in the dark and cook our food, hence fire. Of course, fire, itself, is not a human invention. It’s simply a part of nature, but we invented a way to generate fire, and that was technology. Technology tends to be a name applied only to high tech gadgets of the future of 2017, but tech is any man made tools or processes, so striking flint together to make sparks to light a fire is tech.
The long winded history of technology is a bit much for here and now, but it’s worth mentioning, because it’s worth seeing how far we’ve come as a species, and most of our accomplishments as a species are unique in the animal world. Many primates make and use simple tools, usually sticks, but it’s only humans that have made similar, but more advanced, tools out of metal. These low tech tools are nothing compared to our latest endeavors, of course. We’ve left planet Earth and gone to the moon, for instance, and the internet is a wondrous tool used to, among other things, shrink our global community by connecting us all through the ether. The internet, especially, has revolutionized how we live our lives, and in such a short time that it’s truly mind boggling.
It’s an exciting time, though not always for good reason, watching the internet come into being and then expand. It’s a time full of forward thinking, but also a time of reflection, and it’s a time for vigilance. Technology always has this problem, though. For every advancement, there’s someone who wants to exploit for money or power. So it goes. Our tools have evolved, and yet we have not. That is perhaps the biggest importance to all of this. We as a people need to remember where we came from and finally realize we’re all on the same team of freaks of nature, aka “humans.”
