The technologies of society consist of what is known as systems. Systems operate by obtaining an input, altering this input through what is known as a process, and then producing an outcome that achieves the intended purpose of the system.The earliest and simplest form of technology is the development of knowledge that leads to the application of basic tools. The prehistoric invention of shaped stone tools and the discovery of how to control fire increased the sources of food that were available to human beings. The invention of the wheel led to the travelling technologies that helped humans to further increase the yield of food production, travel in less time, and exchange information and raw materials faster. Humanity then progressed to the development of the printing press, the telephone, the computer, and then the Internet.While technological advances have helped economies develop and create the rise of a leisure class, many technological processes produce unwanted by-products, known as pollution, and the depletion of natural resources from the Earth's environment. As a consequence, philosophical debates have arisen over the use of technology and whether technology improves or worsens the human condition. Neo-Luddism, anarcho-primitivism, and similar reactionary movements criticize the pervasiveness of technology by stating that technology harms the environment and destroys human relationships. While this is the case, ideologies such as transhumanism and techno-progressivism view continued technological progress as beneficial to society and the human condition.While innovations have always influenced the values of a society and have raised new questions in the ethics of technology, the advancement of technology itself has also led to the pursuit of new solutions for the previously discussed concerns of technological advancement. For example, upcoming technology involves renewable resources being used in transportation, allowing humans to travel in space, for technology itself to become more affordable and reliable, and for increased automation.
Technicism
Generally, technicism is the belief in the utility of technology for improving human societies.[40] Taken to an extreme, technicism "reflects a fundamental attitude which seeks to control reality, to resolve all problems with the use of scientific–technological methods and tools."[41] In other words, human beings will someday be able to master all problems and possibly even control the future using technology. Some, such as Stephen V. Monsma,[42] connect these ideas to the abdication of religion as a higher moral authority.The use of tools by early humans was partly a process of discovery and of evolution. Early humans evolved from a species of foraging hominids which were already bipedal,[6] with a brain mass approximately one third of modern humans.[7] Tool use remained relatively unchanged for most of early human history. Approximately 50,000 years ago, the use of tools and a complex set of behaviors emerged, believed by many archaeologists to be connected to the emergence of fully modern language.[8]
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Hominids started using primitive stone tools millions of years ago. The earliest stone tools were little more than a fractured rock, but approximately 75,000 years ago,[9] pressure flaking provided a way to make much finer work.Human's technological ascent began in earnest in what is known as the Neolithic Period ("New Stone Age"). The invention of polished stone axes was a major advance that allowed forest clearance on a large scale to create farms. This use of polished stone axes increased greatly in the Neolithic, but were originally used in the preceding Mesolithic in some areas such as Ireland.[18] Agriculture fed larger populations, and the transition to sedentism allowed simultaneously raising more children, as infants no longer needed to be carried, as nomadic ones must. Additionally, children could contribute labor to the raising of crops more readily than they could to the hunter-gatherer economy.
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