'All History is Relevant, but the History of Technology is the Most Relevant': An informal tribute to Kranzberg's Laws

Excerpt

It is agreed that technology is a vital and natural part of our contemporary world, an integral part of our daily lives. The naturalization of technology is the result, on the one hand, of a continuous coexistence with technical devices, a familiarity that has increased steadily since the eighteenth century, and, on the other hand, of a shift in the nature of the relationship between technology, humans and nature, particularly during the last 250 years. Evolving from its 'natural' realm — techne — to gradually become a new episteme, technology has incorporated doing and thinking. It has become the building block of progress par excellence as conceived by Immanuel Kant and Claude Henri de Saint-Simon, that is a civilizational mark of never ending growth.