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Technology Videos 160 videos

History of Technology 1: Windmills
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History of Technology 1: The Big Picture 183 Views


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Description:

When it comes to the history of human technology, it helps to look at the big picture. Especially if you have cataracts, and looking at the small picture hurts your eyes.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:03

The history of human technology is nifty but we can't just dive right

00:10

into the nitty gritty details of inventions and gadgets first we have to [Man tries to dive into a book and hurts his head]

00:15

back up a few hundred steps and look at the big picture and the big picture is

00:19

is so big that it should be called the gigantic picture the colossal picture [Girl runs away from a large picture]

00:25

the titanic, well you get the point. What we're getting at is

00:30

that technology didn't pop out of nowhere it's not like that pop tart [Drone flying round a lab]

00:33

we forgot in the toaster it was the result of humanity's best minds wrestling with [Toast pops out of toaster]

00:37

observations about the world around them for thousands of years that means that

00:42

in order to really get the history of Technology that well we have to think

00:46

like real historians and there's more to it than wearing leather elbow patches [Man putting on a wig]

00:50

although that'd be kinda cool, besides learning about printing press and penicillin

00:53

we'll also be pondering how exactly one goes about learning and doing history at [Pictures of past events]

00:58

the same time we'll need to identify the metaphorical brick walls historians run

01:02

into and figure out how to avoid them we'll also need to avoid running into [Bunch of historians walk into a wall]

01:07

real brick walls first all right so today we'll introduce some of the

01:11

thorniest problems in technology history these are the ones that made guys like [Train that has gone through a wall and fallen into the street]

01:15

Smarty McSmarty-pants scratch his head for decades it's caused a lot of hair [Man scatches his head and hair falls out]

01:20

loss in the end well here are just a few of the enormous historical problems

01:24

we'll touch on first thing to avoid is Eurocentrism nothing like some good old [Picture of planet Earth]

01:31

western pride to start a day off right all part of a world conquering balanced [People with knives and forks cutting away at the world]

01:35

breakfast but for real there was a lot going on in the world and it wasn't all

01:39

just happening in Europe second thing to avoid it the great man model well

01:44

contrary to popular opinion a few smart old white men weren't responsible for [Man looks unhappy]

01:49

every technological innovation in history Edison we like you bro but we

01:54

like other people do you're smothering us and for number three we have over

01:58

simplification well we here as Shmoop like keeping things short and sweet but history

02:03

isn't always so simple actually it's one of the most complicated things ever [Book growing in size]

02:07

right after astrophysics and opening potato chip bags without spilling them [Picture of space and Carl Sagan tries to open a bag of chips and spills them]

02:11

everywhere yeah we'll do our best to add in some complex flavor...

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