Every Technology Since Fire

Before fire was mastered things were, in fact, simpler. By definition, there was no gathering of firewood, making the fire, stoking the fire, yelling at the kids to stay away from the fire, cleaning up around the fire pit, etc.

After fire, there was a lot more to do and there was a lot more to think about: who’s going to keep the fire going, when are they going to be back with more firewood, where should we build tomorrow’s fire ‘cause this spot sucks and don’t even get me started about how bad the smoke is from this crappy wood.

And more serious considerations: getting badly burned, accidentally burning down your house or having to flee the area because now the meadow is on fire. But fire meant warmth, protection and the almost immeasurable benefits of cooking.

Every technology developed since then has had complications: maintenance, second-order effects, misuse and abuse—and just plain difficulties when trying to use it. Just getting a new technology to work at all is hard, but I think it’s much harder to see clearly in advance what kind of complications might arise when the adoption and use of it scales up.

Because we’re far more clever at using things that already exist than we are at making brand new ones.