What Is Basic Technology?
The most basic technologies are those that form the foundation for more advanced or specialized ones. Some examples of basic technology are electric power, telecommunications, and software programming.
Basic technology often makes it possible to do things that are otherwise difficult or impossible. For example, the discovery of fire allowed humans to cook food, melt metal, and create clothing. Without it, these tasks would require much more effort and time. In addition, the invention of telecommunications allowed people to communicate with one another, even across vast distances.
Technological advancements are changing the world around us in both positive and negative ways. Understanding how these changes are occurring is essential to making informed decisions about whether or not to use them.
Technology is a means of moving closer to the way we wish the world to be. As such, it necessarily prioritizes certain routes or ends over others. It also imposes its own constraints on what constitutes an acceptable end.
As such, technology is never neutral; it always has a bias toward some kinds of behavior over others. As new technologies emerge, they tend to replace and supplant older ones. For instance, as digital cameras became more popular than analogue ones, they deprioritized the old pathway to photographs — one that involved inefficient but gratifying processes such as darkrooms and painstakingly retouching images for hours.