Earlier technological advances brought more benefits

Fire, writing, the wheel: all great and important inventions, and such an important part of the fabric of our society but very much overshadowed by other recent developments in technology: computers, digital technology and the Internet.

Who are the ordinary people in our society? The middle class with their new apartments, nice white-collar jobs, and cars double- parked on the street, or the struggling working class, farmers and homeless who have to constantly strive to put food in their mouths and a roof over their heads? For this second group, it is hard to find where the benefits of modern technology are available to them. Do they have access to modern health care, modern communication technology, or modern comforts? Often not – many of the new developments are not even reaching huge sectors of our communities, either in this country or other developing, undeveloped or even developed countries.

But these late, modern changes would not have been possible without the earlier developments. Fire creates heat necessary for working with iron; writing is at the base of our communication systems; and wheels are under our cars and in our watches.

It follows therefore that the earlier developments which have continued to exist (obviously some earlier inventions were found to be irrelevant and consequently lost – the record player, for example) are still bringing benefits to us long after they were invented even though they have disappeared from our thinking. In the future, sitting at a computer may seem very old-fashioned, but whatever we use, it will probably be the product of fire, and somehow made possible with the use of wheels and writing. (269 word)