A steam turbine with the case opened. Such turbines produce most of the electricity used today. Electricity consumption and living standards are highly correlated.[1] Electrification is believed to be the most important engineering achievement of the 20th century.
Technology ("science of craft", from Greekτέχνη, techne, "art, skill, cunning of hand"; and-λογία, -logia[2]) is the collection oftechniques, skills, methods, and processesused in the production of goods or services or in the accomplishment of objectives, such asscientific investigation. Technology can be theknowledge of techniques, processes, and the like, or it can be embedded in machines to allow for operation without detailed knowledge of their workings.
The simplest form of technology is the development and use of basic tools. Theprehistoric discovery of how to control fireand the later Neolithic Revolution increased the available sources of food, and the invention of the wheel helped humans to travel in and control their environment. Developments in historic times, including theprinting press, the telephone, and the Internet, have lessened physical barriers tocommunication and allowed humans to interact freely on a global scale. The steady progress of military technology has broughtweapons of ever-increasing destructive power, from clubs to nuclear weapons.
Technology has many effects. It has helped develop more advanced economies (including today's global economy) and has allowed the rise of a leisure class. Many technological processes produce unwanted by-products known as pollution and deplete natural resources to the detriment of Earth'senvironment. Innovations have always influenced the values of a society and raised new questions of the ethics of technology. Examples include the rise of the notion ofefficiency in terms of human productivity, and the challenges of bioethics.
Philosophical debates have arisen over the use of technology, with disagreements over whether technology improves the human condition or worsens it. Neo-Luddism,anarcho-primitivism, and similar reactionarymovements criticize the pervasiveness of technology, arguing that it harms the environment and alienates people; proponents of ideologies such as transhumanism andtechno-progressivism view continued technological progress as beneficial to society and the human condition.
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