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What is Tech? Automation?


Technology & Automation aren't what you think.


They aren't new, and definitions today are only partly correct. So what are better definitions?


 


Technology is a non-living thing, modified to perform a task.


That's it. 


So, examples of technology are:

  • Your clothes 

  • A rock used to open a nut

  • Chairs

  • Ceramic plates and cups

  • Concrete


Technology is basically everything you own, use, or could. We tend to narrowly define technology as 'high-' or 'advanced-tech'. But, that's simply an advanced subset. So, no one is really against 'technology'. If they were, they'd give away everything they own, and go live naked in the wilderness.

Generally, if it's not alive or a raw material, it's technology. 

Humanity isn't the only species that modifies its environment, or creates technology. But we've done it the most, to the point that being without technology is 'inhuman'. Technology is everywhere, and defines us as a species.


Technology gets more interesting if you understand its ultimate value to life. This understanding opens tech up for major redesign and optimization.


 

Automation is when something is done, without someone do it. 


That's it.


So, examples of automation are:

  • Your breathing (autonomic biology)

  • Hiring someone else to do it (outsourcing)

  • Gravity (physics)

  • Beer bottles (liquid management tech)

  • Consumer products (various)


Biology, physics, and technology do most automation. Secondly, we outsourcing work to other individuals or organizations as a form of automation.


We tend do narrowly define automation incorrectly as 'high-tech automation'. But, that's simply an advanced subset. So, no one is really against 'automation'. Nor can they be. If it's understood, everyone is not only for it, but depends on it.


Generally, if something gets done, and a person doesn't have to do it, for them it's automated.


Retirement and Luxury are words we use to describe having the means to automate everything we don't want to do, and the means to spend our time exclusively on the things we do. 


Automation gets even more interesting, because so much is already fully or partly automated, and most of what is deliberately left un-automated is either:

  • Entertainment

  • Maintenance of existing work formats

We will always keep the first, and innovation is almost exclusively using technology to automate the second.

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