Disruptive Technolgy

Dear Members,

Disruptive Technology: It is a cool phrase, very 21st Century. It is an event, a moment of discovery and adoption that changes the way we live, the way that we operate or perceive the world in which we live.

Although we think of disruptive technology in our digital world, it started eons ago.

First, there was fire and sharpend stones, our first tools, and then farming, that led to a more reliable supply of food. Settlements led to civilizations, clay was baked for utensils and bricks. As the glaciers receeded, humans spread outward, on foot, to populate the continents.
The wheel, the lever, discovered and utilized to build and advance civilization.

We forged stones for iron and bronze for strong tools and weapons. The populations grew and traded with other populations, we learned to count and measure, add and subtract, develop a system of numbers that was reliable and could be applied to the real world around us.

Knowledge was passed on through legend and superstition, and then we learned to write. We chisled on stones, we worte on crushed reeds with natural pigments and oils.

Reading and writing was the province of a few, until the Guttenberg Press mass produced the written word. Knowledge and ideas could now be shared.

We burned wood and whale oil until we found coal and petroleum. We discovered and studied electricity, the electric light, the wireless transmitter, radio, telvision, and telephones and cell phones.
We boiled water and captured steam for motors, untill the internal combustion engine was developed.

Polished glass gave us a lens, a telescope to study the sky and a microscope to discover and study the smallest life, that plagued mankind. We crushed leaves and roots and made potions, we studied the small world and learned to save countless lives and lengthen our time here on earth.

On and on, in peace and in war, the new disruptive technology replaced the old. 

As Iook toward the future, I am in awe. So much knowledge within us, and yet, so much more to discover.

(Of course, there are hundreds more distruptive technologies that I have overlooked. Just think, we have come so far and have so far to go.)

I welcome all comments and suggestions.

JJC