Website review: A Theory of Power, Jeff Vails Criti...
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•jeffvail.net/2006/11/elegant-technology.html
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laodan discovered 21 months ago- Elegant Technology in Theory of Power by Jeff Vail These three characteristics of elegant technologies: "vernacular, general, and contained" are broad and subjective, but provide a framework for evaluating technologies. To put it as plainly as possible, such evaluation is critical because technologies that are elegant are part of the solution to the problems facing human society. Problems that are not elegant are part of the problem. Elegance is a solution to the problems of hierarchy. Because elegance is, by this definition, contained, it will foster localized, self-sufficient, and independent societies. Elegance is the feedstock of rhizome. And elegance is a concept that, if we set it as our goal, can steer the vast potential of human innovation to a positive, sustainable end that is compatible with human ontogeny. Elegant Technology
This concept of elegance has the merit to demystify the technophile argument without appearing to be technophobe. Some technologies are indeed part of our problem while other technologies are in essence liberating. Elegance, for "elegant simplicity", is thus certainly a welcomed tool in the intellectual debate about the direction humanity ought to follow in the future.
- Elegant Technology in Theory of Power by Jeff Vail These three characteristics of elegant technologies: "vernacular, general, and contained" are broad and subjective, but provide a framework for evaluating technologies. To put it as plainly as possible, such evaluation is critical because technologies that are elegant are part of the solution to the problems facing human society. Problems that are not elegant are part of the problem. Elegance is a solution to the problems of hierarchy. Because elegance is, by this definition, contained, it will foster localized, self-sufficient, and independent societies. Elegance is the feedstock of rhizome. And elegance is a concept that, if we set it as our goal, can steer the vast potential of human innovation to a positive, sustainable end that is compatible with human ontogeny. Elegant Technology
