write the story on technology
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Every age is defined by its technology. The stories of Dickens would not have been possible without the steam engine and the industrial revolution it brought about. For that matter, neither would the stories of people like Vanderbilt or Carnegie. And what would the 20th century have been like without the internal combustion engine and electricity?
Yet we often miss the fact that stories drive technology as well. Steve Jobs, quite famously but not uniquely, believed that the humanities and technology are deeply intertwined and the power of story has a lot to do with it. Technology, after all, doesn’t live in a vacuum but co-evolves with mankind.
That’s why can’t truly understand technology without understanding the stories embedded in it and the stories of people who use it. Also, as Fareed Zakaria points out in his book, In Defense of a Liberal Education, innovation is highly dependent on how we communicate those stories. Technology, when properly understood, is far more than a collection of soulless artifacts.
Revealing The Potential Of Technology
World War II made clear the destructive potential of technology. As deadly machines ravaged Europe and bombs of unimaginable power exploded in Asia, the whole planet was engulfed in a maelstrom of human design. It seemed that the technology we had built had become a global version of the Frankenstein monster, ready and able to turn on its master.
Yet the German philosopher Martin Heidegger saw things differently, In his 1954 essay, The Question Concerning Technology he described technology as akin to art, in that it reveals truths about the nature of the world, brings them forth and puts them to some specific use. In the process, human nature and its capacity for good and evil is also revealed.
He gives the example of a hydroelectric dam, which uncovers the energy of the river and puts it to the use of making electricity. In much the same sense, Mark Zuckerberg did not “build” a social network at Facebook, but took natural human tendencies and channeled them in a particular way. After all, we go online not for bits or electrons, but to connect with each other.
I’ve always found this an incredibly useful way to approach technology and innovation because it highlights the importance of understanding not just the mechanisms of technology, but the basic forces that it brings forth. To truly internalize those forces, we must first unlock the stories embedded in technology.