Intro/Outro (00:06)
From the Bill of Rights Institute, Fabric of History weaves together US history founding principles and what all of this means to us today. Join us as we pull back the curtains of the past to see what’s inside.

Haley (00:20)
In a world of Zoom, Netflix, and automation, technology is all around us. This week, Mary, Gary, and Eryn take a look at the most significant technological changes across history, from the wheel to the .com era. To understand human reaction to change. Does technological change always equal progress? Or does it present new challenges? What happens to those who don’t want to adapt?

Mary (00:51)
I think that 2020 will go down in the books as the year of the pivot, capital P. Thanks to this covid moment, technology is front and center in our minds. I know here at BRI, like most of you, we’ve had to make adjustments in terms of how we use and respond to technology. And this made me think of a sign that I used to have hanging at the front of my history classroom, which read if you don’t change with the times, are you left in the dust? And it’s a rhetorical question meant to guide hundreds and thousands, in some cases years of teaching the history of the United States and the world. But I think it’s also a really great question for us to talk about now, just because of the situation that we are all in together. Is technological change inevitable? And there’s this chicken egg element of it as well. Does technology drive change or does change drive technology? And then the eternal question of how do we respond to change? I think these are questions you could ask in a classroom, but these are questions I think you could ask yourself anytime, really, if you wanted to be that sort of person, but especially now in this covid moment. So, Gary, Eryn, what do you think about this moment that we’re in and how it’s pushing technology right into our face?

Gary (02:22)
I am tickled by your big questions. The idea that you have these questions on your wall means that these are ongoing questions, right? You’re not just throwing them up there when there is some kind of change. Is technology something that is just always driving and always moving in some kind of forward direction? You can partake in it, but it’s going to be happening anyway. And even in our own lifetimes, we’ve seen technology change so much over time that it makes you think, well, it must always be moving. But that is a good question. I don’t know. And I want to ask Eryn the same thing, like, is it always moving? Is it always inevitable? Does it always develop or does it take kind of starts and stops?

Eryn (03:06)
I think this year has definitely made me realize that technology may be inevitable. I think, especially right now. In full disclosure, the way that we are recording this podcast is remotely. We are using Zoom, we’re using our own microphones.

Gary (03:29)
I love it. I know it’s a big spoiler. I actually heard from a listener who didn’t realize that the three of us are in three completely different locations when we record this. And I think that comes from what you were just saying, Eryn, in terms of there’s a need. Right. This idea of technology meeting needs, I think of the phrase necessity is the mother of invention. Right. There’s a need for us in this case to communicate. There’s a need for classes to happen. There’s a need for learning to happen. But how that happens, technology can either serve that purpose or possibly get in the way. In meeting those needs, there are often perhaps unexpected consequences that can be negative, sometimes positive. But I think that’s a really good part. Right. So you’ve got this idea that you were just saying that the technology to communicate has existed, but now it’s perhaps been enhanced. Maybe we’re doing it slightly differently, but we’re still doing it because it’s meeting a need that we have. Maybe it’s about reaching a greater number of people. Maybe it’s about quality, but then what is gained and what is lost from that? I think it is a really good question to ask.

Eryn (04:37)
And I think also sometimes we’re talking about inevitability when it meets a need, but also kind of I’m thinking back like, oh, well, Zoom was being used before this. We had these technologies that were available to us before the need was as great as it was. Yeah. So it’s very interesting. We have lots of fun to unpack.

Gary (05:01)
Looking at the way technology is now is sometimes difficult only because it’s surrounding us now. We don’t know what the long-term impacts are going to be. So as big history fans as you’re talking about a technology meeting a need and then those impacts, I like to think about going further. Can you all indulge me? Because one of the things that I taught about that I was fascinated by in technology and teaching was the textiles of the industrial revolution, like the machines for that. Because I think that is like what you’re talking about. Right. We like clothing. It does get chilly. Generally, clothing is popular among human beings. Right. We were making clothing. It’s not like we just invented clothing out of the blue. And yet there was a need maybe for more or just less expensive clothing, whatever. And so machines from the textile era start evolving. All right. If by hand we can make thread a certain thickness or do it so frequently, what about if we can get a machine to do it and really brilliant designs from these machines early on, spinning jenny and cotton gin and all the classic inventions from there.

Gary (06:15)
And it did, I think, meet a need. Right. You had more clothing. You have the thing you were going for. But then that wasn’t the end of the story. When you talk about need, I think things almost changed. I don’t know if you’d agree with that. Can technology create things we didn’t know we needed? Like denim, like jeans. Did we need jeans, or have we just come to need jeans?

Mary (06:41)
I think that makes any sense. Well, first of all, I think defining what is a need and what is a want, I think that’s a whole conversation in and of itself. And I think defining a technology. I think today when we say technology, at least I think of a computer or a phone or something like that. But I think at its most basic and again, world history teacher coming at you here, technology is a tool. So whether that tool is language, whether that tool is writing, it helps you do something easier. Like you said, it fulfills the need to keep records, to communicate more effectively with people. And you just fast forward. So I went way back. I went back thousands of years. So I’m going to come back to the textile revolution. And I think that human beings were problem solvers. We have these large brains, and we like to create things. And that capacity, that rate of change at which we are making new things or adapting to things is just accelerating faster and faster. And I think it starts to pick up in that early Industrial revolution, which starts in the textile industry.

Mary (07:55)
Oh, my gosh, I feel I’m having such a moment of stand. This is one of my favorite things to teach in world history was the Industrial Revolution and all those inventions. We always made up these ridiculous rhymes like Hargreaves weaves to remember James Hargreaves Mason’s spinning jenny, all these machines. But it’s not that you need denim. We survived for thousands of years without it, but it’s just that things are changing so fast because humans have this really endless capacity to make things and create things. And like you said, that’s going to lead to problems. Like, what if you were someone who used to work at home and make cloth and now you’re out of a job because the machine can do it faster and more efficiently? So there’s always a mixed bag. But I think that need and want things. And again, if we’re talking about this acceleration of change, perhaps we are accelerating our wants and needs. I don’t need a new phone, but a lot of people think they do.

Eryn (08:55)
I think they really all drive each other. Someone decides, well, I can do this. I can find a way to do this faster. I can find a way to do this that will therefore yield a greater profit, and that increases the supply of things. And then we have greater access to something, and then the greater access we have to it. The more we use it, the more we like it, the more we want it. And it just really, it almost seems cyclical to me and kind of drives that whole idea of technology forward. Right. If that’s always the cycle we’re in, we’re always going to be finding a way to do something smarter, better, faster, cheaper.

Gary (09:39)
So that’s sounding a lot like to me, that Mary’s first question about inevitability is one that we’re saying that there’s just something in us that wants to say, what if I tried this or there is a need? How can I address that? Or even let me just see if this is possible? And maybe when something’s created, you don’t know necessarily what’s going to happen. We can certainly get into the effects of the cotton gin on slavery in the United States, but also what happens with the accessibility to be able to have the clothing and leading to factories and whole new systems of doing things. But it definitely strikes me like we’re saying, yeah, there definitely seems to be a drive forward. But then I love this other question about the what causes what like, is the drive forward happening because of the creation or is the creation happening because of the needs and the drive forward and the way things are going? And I think that is something to contemplate, at a break,

Mary (10:39)
Have you checked out our free digital textbook, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness? This fully adaptive resource lets you dive into US history with compelling stories and diverse voices from nearly 100 scholars. And because it’s entirely online, you can access features like text to speech, online note-taking, and more. Sign up@mybri.org.

Gary (11:06)
And we are back! We were talking about there’s so many different elements of technology, and we define that as inventions, but also skills. Mary mentioned language techniques, ways of doing things, and we acknowledge that they often come from some sort of clear need. But sometimes it’s not always clear that chicken and egg approach of the did the new technology drive some kind of new actions, new ways of being, or is the need for new ways of being solely being met by some new technology that’s being created? I don’t know that the answer is one or the other, but I think that’s a reasonable question to ask. What drives what does technology drive change or does change drive technology?

Mary (11:50)
Oh, man. I mean, Gary’s questions always. I feel like if Gary were my teacher, I would be sitting there, don’t call on me. Don’t call me, don’t call me.

Gary (12:01)
They are the best.

Mary (12:04)
That’s such a hard question. I’m trying to think of. Well, if you’re talking about very in, very early the dawn of human history, and if we’re talking about simple, invent simple, it’s a huge deal. But inventions that we would now call simple, like the wheel, yeah. But I feel like that’s fair because, I mean, it’s not just you don’t just sit around like most of the wheel. Like it didn’t happen that way, I’m sure.

Eryn (12:36)
But I still don’t know how to create a pulley system.

Gary (12:41)
I think it’s more about that they become part of bigger things.

Mary (12:45)
Okay. Well, I meant before I went to that, what I was trying to say is I think that the need drives technology which creates change. But I also think and I said before that there’s this human capacity. I mean, that’s what separates us from all these other creatures is our brains and our ability to problem-solve. But I also think what separates us is our adaptability, and that also is related to the brain like no other animal has thrived anywhere. You put it anywhere in the world. And why is that? Because we can adapt. So I think when you have a technology that creates a change, I guess it’s sort of both things. I feel like I need a specific example.

Gary (13:34)
Can we think of a time when technology itself made changes?

Mary (13:40)
Okay. I would say the railroads. I think you could consider the railroads, the Internet of their time. Right. So after the Civil War, you have this boom in railroad construction in the United States and it literally binds the country together with iron and steel. Side note, Cornelius Vanderbilt, who we featured on an earlier shout-out to Cornelius the Commodore. He switched over to steel on his New York line and then other people followed suit. And of course, steel is stronger than iron, but there’s this literal web backbone of steel uniting the country together. So that drives movement. You have more people coming to work on the railroads. You have people moving across the country. So that’s going to open up questions with settlements of the west and relationships with Native Americans. And then it’s easier to move stuff. It’s easier to move goods. It’s easier to move the cattle, to feed people out in the west. It’s easier to move clothes or, you know, consumer goods out to people that are settling from the east out to people setting out west. So I think that’s a really good example of the complicated chicken egg technology and time itself because we need all of the railroads to be on the same schedule.

Mary (15:01)
So you have this creation of standard time. We’re all going to follow by the trains. So I think that it really bound people together, literally and also figuratively. And then it had all of these offshoot changes that people had to adapt to. So now you have people that you can communicate or be in touch with people all the way across this massive country. And I am always struck by just how big the country is. When you fly across the country. It’s enormous and it’s so huge and varied and I think we sometimes lose sight of that. I taught in the suburbs of DC and a lot of kids had never done that. It’s such a huge it’s so vast and there are so many people to be connected like that. It almost is like an Internet, the OG Internet, if you will.

Gary (15:54)
No, that’s great. I think following what we were saying earlier, people did travel, right. And people did move cattle, but not like that, right. If I learned anything from Back to the Future 3, nothing goes as fast as the train but carrying things. I think that’s an amazing example because, again, it’s hard to I don’t know, it would have been possible to know what kind of effects that would have. I mean, inventing the new measurements of time is an incredible concept.

Mary (16:27)
Yeah. But I think the other thing that I think that’s interesting about the trains and the railroad is that they’re still around and they’re still like freight rail is still a huge part of our economy. We just don’t think about it. A lot of people don’t realize how many goods and things are moved by train to this day. So a lot of people think, oh, who rides the train? Like, where do you see a train anymore?

Gary (16:49)
Everywhere.

Mary (16:49)
They’re still there. So I think that’s also kind of analogous. Again, speaking from where I sit in my life, where the Internet is, I’ve always had the Internet is I just don’t think about it. It’s always there. So it doesn’t seem like a big deal anymore. So I think that the analogy kind of extends there as well. So that would be my answer.

Gary (17:12)
So I like this analogy between the trains and the Internet itself because, again, you’re right. We do sort of take for granted this Internet. Again, we’re able to do this because of it and get it out there to people because of it. The train answer seemed to be that this invention caused major change. Is the Internet the same? Was it the creation of the Internet, something that caused change, or was it the result of changes that were happening? What’s the deal with the Internet? What is this old Internet thing? What are your experiences with the Internet and your early use of it and what it became? Did you foresee that? Could you see all that coming?

Mary (17:59)
I know I certainly couldn’t. I mean, I remember we had AOL and I got my first screening when I was in middle school, and then we would just use it to instant message or chat with people. And then I guess it became, I guess when we started to have the high school librarian presentation on how to use ABC-CLIO and other online databases for research. But we were still expected we had to have mostly books. So there’s no way I could have received I should also say I work at a place called the Bill of Rights Institute, so I was never someone who was using computers for engineering or math or anything like that. So I can’t speak to what technology and computers can do in those fields. But it is so much it’s easier now. You have all this information at your fingertips, but now it’s the question of the validity of the information, or can you corroborate that information or checking your sources and just being a critical consumer of information? It’s not that that wasn’t important before, but it’s just become more important as the access to the information. It’s just sort of unprecedented in human history.

Mary (19:18)
We used to show this video to my kids. It was called shift, shift with a T happens. And it was just all of these facts about how much we’re changing in this digital revolution. And there was one that’s like a week’s worth of New York Times was more information than an average person would come across in their lifetime in the 1800s. And how many searches are on Google each day? And I don’t know, millions, billions. And who did you ask these questions before there was a Google? It’s hard to I don’t know, hard to see. I don’t know if I’m just uncurious about as a middle school or high school or about what technology would be looking forward, but it was just sort of I don’t know that it satisfied a need because I had friends and we communicated before there was instant messenger, but it was just something that I adapted to. And then it just sort of became habit.

Eryn (20:15)
You know, Mary, you were talking about to answer Gary’s question about could we have foreseen any of this? And I’m thinking I’m constantly still surprised by the technology that is invented and the new things that come out. I think it’s really interesting to kind of also have like one foot in the beginning of this.com era. And then I have grown up to see back when you couldn’t get on the phone if someone was using the Internet because dial-up. But to constantly see how this is changing and continues to change I think since the invention of the Internet, everyone is just trying to be a part of innovation and the invention. And it is this race for newer, better technology. And I think we’re just going to honestly, I don’t really know if there’s like a turning back point. I do think we have things like a nostalgia perhaps for old things like records. Right. There’s a new resurgence and love of collecting records now. But I do think we’re going to continue to have this drive forward. And I’m still constantly amazed. I was sharing earlier the story about it seems so obvious to me how to work a laptop and a keyboard and a mouse.

Eryn (21:46)
And I grew up being taught how to do that. We had a technology class in elementary and middle school, go to the computer lab. In my years as a teacher, I taught young kids and we have some laptops in the classroom with mouses and screens and keyboards. And they would just sit there and tap the screen. Their hands didn’t know how to use a mouse. They never tried to type on the keyboard. They were just so used to the touchscreen because that was all they have learned and been exposed to. Whereas I’m like what how you don’t know what this is, but obviously right. It’s changing so quickly, and I think we’ll continue to be surprised by what the future holds.

Gary (22:30)
Everything you’re mentioning makes me think of how much this theme really. I mean, again, bringing it to how we think about in classrooms and really throughout history. Is there’s a continuum? Right. Unlike a lot of things, there’s a continuum with these really interesting blips that are significant milestones in it. But I think building on what we’re just talking about, it’s hard when you’re in the middle of it to see you can see what has happened, and that’s the fun of doing history. But then what is going to happen, I think, is the realm of kind of dreaming and inspiration. And along the way, this continuum is fascinating. When you were telling your story, Eryn, I was thinking similarly in my classroom, I went through moving classrooms, and for some reason, I had acquired a lot of strange machinery, and among them were a typewriter. And having to explain a typewriter to someone is a fascinating subject because on the one side it makes sense. It fulfills that need. My handwriting is not nearly as good as a typewriter. Can I write physically faster than I can type? There’s an interesting question. I bet a really good typist can type a lot faster than I could write, which then asks the question about how quickly you’re thinking to get words out there. Is it faster with a typewriter? For some people, it is than it is writing. That’s interesting. But then there’s also how is it serving that need and to explain to a student, oh, well, you press the buttons like you would on a keyboard, and then this little hammer goes up and it hits this piece of fabric that has kind of ink on it. And they very logically were asking me like, well, doesn’t it all kind of hit? Like, doesn’t it just make a jumble because all the Hammers are hitting the same place? And that would make sense. Except there’s another piece that is moving at a certain place to the left, and they’re like, what happens when it hits the end? Oh, well, it makes a little dingy noise and then you push it over. To me, it’s very logical. And yet, to someone to whom it is unfamiliar, a technology like this doesn’t make sense in some ways. Yeah, it’s super cool. And it is better than my writing was. But at the same time, it is part of this continuum where it’s going to get better. And it has the way people create things is getting better, again, than my handwriting can be. But I think that brings up an interesting point that it’s hard to tell when you’re in the middle of it.

Eryn (24:46)
My dad wrote his senior thesis in College on a typewriter and him explaining the process of how to get the final version of a thesis on a typewriter, I was like, that doesn’t seem convenient at all. And God, how long did that take? You can’t just backspace. And he did. He went in and he would pull it out and you white it out. You put it back in, you go over and type over it again

Gary (25:15)
For our listeners, whiteout, what does that mean?

Eryn (25:21)
You paint over? Also, I remember it used to only be the paint white out, and then you got the tape white-out, right? Yeah. So basically the same colors of paper for our young listeners who don’t understand white out.

Gary (25:41)
So this is very meta. We’re talking about ourselves trying not to be left in the dust, even though you’re holding on to a technology that makes a lot of sense and you get really used to and gets the job done if you hold onto it, that’s great in some ways. But are there downsides?

Mary (25:59)
There’s always a downside. So maybe we should take a quick break and we can consider the question of what do you lose when you gain something new, like paper tape whiteout over the little brush whiteout. So we’ll be right back.

Mary (26:30)
Before break, we were talking about this idea that technology and the change that accompanies a new technology is kind of a mixed bag. And a lot of it has to do with how you respond to that change. And there’s lots of examples of changes, big and small coming and different groups or different people having different reactions to them. But I think one of the classic story is, of course, of the Luddites. And as a Luddite myself, I appreciated learning the origins of the Luddites, the OG Luddites. So, Gary, you are Mr. Textiles.

Gary (27:12)
I do love textiles. I use them on a daily basis.

Mary (27:17)
Perhaps you can, I think. But the Luddites are such a great example, though, of how people respond to a change.

Gary (27:25)
No, absolutely. I think it’s part of what we’ve been talking about in terms of a continuum. Right. When studying history, technology is not like it happened once, and then there was a change. It is this continuous thing. There are rises and falls in big leaps that happen. And yet accompanying this continuum of technology developing, as you were saying. And that was kind of your third big question. How do people respond to it? And like I said, it’s not all good or all bad. It’s not all predictable. It’s not all necessarily positive or negative, but Unsurprisingly. There’s often going to be people who are not into this change that’s happening. And use the phrase for yourself. But it’s the idea of Luddites, and I think it’s come to mean someone who doesn’t want this new technology happening. And it could be for various reasons. It could be just change in general can be just real difficult. It could be something that threatens your livelihood. You are right. The term does come from a group that did name itself. It was British at first but really came to mean people in the case of the British Luddites, who were actively hammering and destroying machinery. But it’s come to mean people who are at the lowest level, I would say, raising concerns at the highest level, actively trying to halt this development of technology for various reasons. I think that highlights that it is a very gray area, that there are often reasons to have a pause when it comes to new technologies, but also reasons to say it’s one’s, it’s out there, it’s out there. It’s like getting the toothpaste back in the tube, which again, before that technology, I don’t know. You just have bags of toothpaste. I have no idea. But I think that raises another point and question coming from the Luddites, coming from those who said there were genuine concerns about their future of their livelihood and really the future of society in their case, taking some kind of violence against the machinery. But even today, saying that this technology hurts more than it helps. We’ve used a couple of good examples, from railroads to textiles to whiteout. But it makes me think of, let’s take the example of the technology of social media and those who have problems with it. What are some of the problems people have? What are some of the reasons why people would not be in favor of the progress of social media?

Eryn (29:59)
People actually feel more isolated now that social media exists than before it did. And I hear my friends talking all the time about so and so is doing this. So and so has this. So and so is doing that. And we are constantly comparing ourselves. I think we’ve always done that. Right. But it’s being done to such a greater extent because information technology, we have people’s lives at our fingertips. And sometimes we hear about big events through Instagram or TikTok or whatever people use these days before that person were to tell us ourselves. And it also feels, that jealousy, that comparison game, and feeling like you don’t have enough or you are alone because no one is personally sharing that information and you only get it through like the secondary source. And I really think those playing with each other, and it’s really a balance of how can this still be a positive force and how can we still maintain real-life communication with people? That’s my big thing. I still like talking on the phone.

Gary (31:17)
You’re right. A letter and suddenly you’re getting the title Luddite, right.

Eryn (31:21)
I grew up being taught to always send handwritten thank you notes for things.  That communication and connection with people. We need to figure out a way to maintain that even as we push forward with all these new technologies.

Gary (31:35)
It’s a Luddite approach. You can’t take a hammer to social media, right? You can’t just bust in and stop the Internet from happening with a tool.

Eryn (31:43)
Nor is that constructive.

Gary (31:44)
Right. So then people are left with, all right, what about removing myself then? If I can’t stop this technology, if it’s all out of Pandora’s box, as they say, well, what if I remove myself? And there are certainly people who are like, well, I’m just going to take a break. I’m going to do a cleanse. I’m not going to be on social media anymore. But does that lead them full circle to help you started this of people who are going to be then, as Mary would say, left in the dust, can you remove yourself from technology?

Mary (32:11)
I personally think as someone who personally has major qualms about social media, it’s just a mixed bag. There’s the Privacy issue and then there’s especially for young people because people are basically curating their lives online. They show you what they want you to see. So they’re not going to take a picture of themselves, like eating a bag of M&Ms and sweatpants thinking about what is the point of it all?

Eryn (32:38)
That kind of sounds nice to meet some M&Ms. I don’t know.

Mary (32:42)
Yeah. I mean, that sounds great to me. But it’s also an opportunity to keep in touch with family and friends that you can’t see in person, whether it’s distance or whether there’s extenuating circumstances like a pandemic or something like that. So I think it comes down to self-governance, which is what we are all about here at the Bill of Rights Institute and how you choose to conduct yourself. So is it throwing out everything and saying, I’m not going to be a part of this, or is it just using it judiciously? Or we’re looking at information critically and saying, okay, there is good and there is bad, I’m going to use it for good, or I’m going to try to think of a better way to do this. And I think that’s been an underlying thread of this conversation with the idea of technology and change is that it brings good and it brings bad. It doesn’t help everyone. It doesn’t affect everyone in the same way. But that’s the human way. Again, I sound like I’m very pro-human. We’re problem solvers, we’re adaptable, and there is going to be nothing is all good or all bad. I think it’s kind of silly and naive to think that anything would be that way. Everything is complex. There’s lots of nuance when you talk about these things. But if you choose to look at it and sort of take from it what’s useful and not disregard what isn’t useful, what isn’t helpful, or what’s only adding to the problem, then I think we would be in a good place.

Gary (34:19)
I want to highlight the irony, but also what you said about using things judiciously and invite people to say, yes, we are telling you this via a digital podcast, and we would love an email from you. So the great irony is we want you to reach out and we want you to ask us a question here or even a comment at comments@fabricofhistory.org. So I think you’re right. It is both good and bad and we encourage people to communicate absolutely.

Mary (34:54)
We’d love to hear from you. And this crazy moment we’re living in right now, I think it’s definitely changing things, but I do think that there will be some good that will come out of it. So let us know your thoughts. Do you have a typewriter? Do you still have whiteout? Can you connect us with someone who does hit us up? Commentsofabricofhistory.org

Intro/Outro (35:26)
The Bill of Rights Institute engages, educates, and empowers individuals with a passion for the freedom and opportunity that exists in a free society. Check out our educational resources and programs on our website mybri.org. Any questions or suggestions for future episodes? We’d love to hear from you. Just email us at comments@fabricofhistory.org and don’t forget to visit us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram to stay connected and informed about future episodes. Thank you for listening.