"Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral."

-Kranzberg's first law of technology

It is not an intrinsic property of a technology that determines how it can change a culture, but rather how people react and interact with the technology in everyday life. This briefly paper explores three different cultures, and their interactions with novel technology. Then it attempts to argue that free/open source is part of the foundation for morally responsible ways for sharing technology.

A hand axe may not be the technology that comes to mind when you think of culturally uprooting technologies. However, in the case of the Yir Yoront in Australia, a small, yet widespread change in their relationship to the ax turned their entire society upside down. Before making contact with western society, the Yir Yoront framed every aspect of life in relation to the hand ax, from daily sustenance and family relationships, to trading patterns and annual festivals. Even spiritual beliefs and cultural mythology were grounded in the stone hand ax. Then A new technologically superior steel ax (in the sense that steel makes more durable axes than stone) was introduced to the Yir Yoront by missionaries. Providing ubiquitous access to a superior technology destroyed the cultural narrative of the Yir Yoront. Some of them donned trousers and started speaking english, while others wandered off alone into the wilderness. [1]

Another group of indigenous peoples on the other side of the globe had a similar interaction with novel technology, albeit with a more positive outcome. During the mid-twentieth century, the Canadian Broadcast Corporation introduced television coverage to the Inuit living up in the arctic. Initially, many of the indigenous communities resisted this new technology, fearing what it would do to their way of life. After some deliberation, they came together to form the Inuit Broadcast Corporation, which to this day continues to celebrate their traditions and language. [2]

Sometimes, the Amish get a bad reputation as technological luddites. Using horse and carriage, refusing to use electricity in the kitchen, among other things, has earned the Amish a bad reputation. But in reality, they have a really good method for interacting with and adopting new technologies. One person in the community tries it out. Other people watch. Everyone gets together and decides if it will be better for the culture. Sometimes, certain technologies are considered beneficial, such as the blender. But other technologies, such as the use of grid electricity in the kitchen, would be too disruptive. So the Amish hack the blender to run on compressed air. Awesome.

“we are all immigrants to the future, none of us are native to that land…”    -Margaret Mead

As we journey into the 21st century, we are entering a fully globalized world in which new technologies are rapidly created, traded and shared across cultural and political lines. Whether its a story being shared or an object being printed, the amount of time it takes to transfer tools and information is approaching zero. Recently, Google announced high altitude blimps that can broadcast the internet across vast swaths of territory.[3] There are more phones than people,[4] and some 3D printers cost as little as $200,[5] while others are capable of printing human tissue.[6] We are entering a post-industrial world where practically anyone can instantly create and share media and objects. As we have seen ith the Yir Yoront, even simple technologies can be incredibly disruptive, and it is important to be cautious when introducing novel technologies to traditional cultures.

It is impossible to predict how cultures will react with a new technology is introduced, and it is equally impossible to control how the culture will use that technology Even so, it is possible to provide the right tools and information that give people agency on how they engage technology in their lives—allowing them the freedom to actively consider the effects of technology on society, rather than simply consuming it. Mind you, that I am not advocating for the widespread distribution of every technology to every culture, but rather I am asking you to assume that new technologies are becoming increasingly accessible to a wider range of cultures around the world, and if a a group or individual is sharing or distributing technology, they must consider the following:

Do technology adopters have the tools to become actively engaged in technology's effect on their lives? I would argue that deliberately designing technology—and the information that goes along with it—to be open is imperative in order to help insure the preservation of cultural diversity in the world. If a technology creator glues a device shut, locks the firmware, or — as happened with the Yir Yoront — introduces a technology without sharing the process for manufacturing in a culturally mindful way, then that technology creator is creating a potentially destructive situation where thousands of years of cultural knowledge can be lost in an instant. This is an important thing to consider when transferring technologies from post industrial communities to pre industrial or industralizing societies. Please forgive my use of the deterministic pre-, post-, and indsutrializing model, but it seems to be what we're working with at the moment. Anyways, leapfrogging technologies is one thing, but post-industrial society must be equally wary of novel technologies.

When will we see the 21st century equivalent to the steel hand axe? Will we fall like the Yir Yoront, or well we cautiously engage with and reappropriate technologies like Inuit? Do we as a species have the community and resources to appropriate, and re-appropriate, new technologies into our own cultures and lifestyles? For our sake, I hope we do find within us the power to use our technologies to the best of our abilities for good and cultural expression.   

References[edit | edit source]

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Authors Nicolas Weidinger
License CC-BY-SA-3.0
Language English (en)
Related 0 subpages, 1 pages link here
Aliases Novel technology adoption
Impact 199 page views
Created August 6, 2013 by Nicolas Weidinger
Modified June 9, 2023 by StandardWikitext bot
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