Technology’s Evolution Was Messy


Welike to think there’s been one nice, continuous, linear direction in the development of technologies. We turned silica stone into an axe and then it was all one long train of events to when we turned silica stone into microchips. It wasn’t at all that way. It was in fact, quite messy, with lots of fits and starts. Sometimes technologies would just be lost. Whoever invented it had a heart attack before it was finished and no one else came along and re-invented whatever that idea was.We’ve just discovered technology made by our non Homo sapiens ancestors that are little balls.

Unless we invent a time machine, we will never know why or what they were used for. The tool exists, the context is gone.We like to think agriculture and all its related tools happened one day when we got tired of bashing around the woods fighting the bears for berries.It took several thousands of years and some cultures decided they rather enjoyed fighting the bears rather than growing the berries and abandoned the use of agriculture. They didn’t have social media to entertain them back then.