Technology keeps advancing, and the pace just gets faster.
Long ago early hominid tools got smaller, more portable, were made with materials sourced from farther away, and were decorated with pigments.
Technology has been the same ever since. Things start out big and clunky and they get small and portable.
Around 500,000 years ago in what’s now Kenya the seismic and climatic conditions disrupted food and water sources, encouraging the expansion of early hunter gatherers’ range. This expansion increased the likelihood of intermingling with other groups to and becoming aware of new resources and technologies.
Technology progresses because knowledge is always increasing. We invest in research and development, and no one intentionally replaces a good machine with an inferior one. Plus, workers’ skill levels keep rising because they’re getting more educated.
Inferior technologies sometimes succeed due superior marketing. Remember VHS vs. Betamax? That’s a rare exception.
This trend seems to occur in nature too. There’s a growing consensus that advanced adaptations such as flying, swimming and gliding, once acquired, are unlikely to be reversed over the course of evolution.
Technology and the rising tide it produces seems to be at the root of people’s lives trending towards “better.” The story of things getting better is a big story that gets missed. In our daily life it’s hard to see the changes for the better that are slowly accumulating. The news generally focuses on what’s getting worse.
Here’s an example of things getting better that doesn’t get noticed. Extreme global poverty has dropped from 90% just 200 years ago to 10% today. Most news would correctly report that 700 million people are living in extreme poverty. But that it’s being chipped away doesn’t get reported.
Soon, on the individual level, cyclists can look forward to a safer conditions after most cars and trucks are using self-driving technology, the machine drivers are better drivers and will make the roads safer for cyclists and passengers. Technology intermingles in ways we can’t predict.