Technology As Comfort
How Our Faith in Innovation Becomes a Barrier to Real Adaptation
TL;DR
Technological innovation has long been treated as humanity’s superpower, credited with overcoming scarcity, extending life, and enabling modern comfort. But the nature of today’s interconnected, resource-intensive, and globally scaled technologies means their impacts are harder to predict, control, or reverse. Many now generate new problems faster than they solve old ones. From antibiotic resistance to AI-driven energy demand, the costs and dependencies accumulate quietly. However, faith in progress persists not because it reflects reality, but because it offers psychological refuge in a time of accelerating complexity. What once liberated us now locks us in.
Imagine what it was like in Europe of the Middle Ages from the 5th to the late 15th century, when humans were immersed in feudalism and religious dominance. Our fantasy images of castles, lords, knights, and their squires saving tassels princesses allow us to forget the peasantry struggling on the land. Real people carried water, tilled the fields and could die from an infected scratch. That is about as far as we want to take it.
But people were not without technology back then. The heavy plough had just been invented, particularly the mouldboard, which enabled the cultivation of the dense, clay-rich soils of Northern Europe. This innovation expanded arable land, increased agricultural yields, and supported population growth and urbanisation. Paired with the three-field crop rotation system and the horse collar, which allowed horses to replace oxen for ploughing as they could push against the collar, medieval agriculture became far more efficient and productive than in Roman times.
The mechanical ingenuity wasn’t confined to agriculture. Watermills ground grain, and windmills powered cloth fulling and metallurgy. Machines that represented a major shift toward mechanised labour. Meanwhile, mechanical clocks, emerging in the 13th century, introduced precise timekeeping, revolutionising daily life in towns. Clocks embodied both engineering sophistication and the growing importance of regulated time in social and religious life.
Late in the Middle Ages, gunpowder arrived in Europe from China and was adapted for use in cannons and firearms, transforming military tactics and the structure of warfare. The printing press, invented by Johannes Gutenberg around 1440, was perhaps the most consequential innovation of all. By making books far more affordable and accessible, it broke the monopoly of manuscript culture, empowered vernacular literacy, and laid the groundwork for the Reformation, scientific revolution, and the spread of Renaissance humanism.
Obviously, there was little healthcare, no latex, no antibiotics or X-ray machines, and people died early and often. But far from being technologically stagnant, the Middle Ages were a period of critical innovation that set the stage for modern Europe.
And what was that like?
When I was a kid in the 1970s, my parents rented a colour television. It had a tiny screen in a huge box that stood on a stand in the corner of the living room for decades. I can’t imagine how many times they paid the purchase price for that piece of technology, ten, twenty, but the same unit provided the colour images for most of my childhood.
I don't know what this says about my parents' weird frugality, the durability of early televisions, or the fact that a signal passed through the air can create a moving picture with sound in a million living rooms. A great deal about them all, I suspect. And what does it say today when my television is paper-thin with a screen an order of magnitude larger that streams across an internet that holds most of human knowledge, much of it accessible with a verbal query of the TV.
Technology now gives many access to an unimaginable volume and variety of resources. And it brings me to the initial premise in the myth of technological salvation…
Historically, technological innovation has alleviated many resource constraints, reinforcing a cultural faith in progress through invention.
Inventing and wielding technology have been the Homo sapien superpowers for a long time.
From the taming of fire onwards, people invented and used technology to find and develop resources. Ploughs and irrigation systems increased food production; the industrial revolution’s mechanisation expanded manufacturing capacity; and the Green Revolution’s hybrid crops and fertilisers alleviated famine pressures almost everywhere. These innovations and thousands of others solved scarcity and allowed populations to grow and economies to evolve.
Humanity levelled up on those superpowers and began to believe. Societies, especially those in industrialised nations, came to view technological progress as a dependable and even inevitable solution to material problems. We can and have fixed it.
This faith is not merely practical but also cultural, embedded in narratives of human ingenuity and reinforced by education, media, and policy. The widespread belief that science and technology will continue to outpace any emerging limits is now deeply ingrained in collective thinking. It’s not just the techno-optimists who believe in the power of technology. Many of us have this faith baked in.
Belief in progress through technological innovation is strong enough to obscure the inevitable trade-offs and to push aside the fact that past success does not guarantee future applicability. We've done it before, so why not do it again?
While the premise accurately reflects historical trends and the resulting cultural mindset, the nature of today’s challenges, particularly those related to planetary boundaries and systemic risks to 8 billion humans, suggests that not all lines trend upward indefinitely. Not all dangers can be neutralised, no matter the colour of the tech bros superhero cape.
When there are 8 billion people with a daily demand of 23 trillion kilocalories of energy from food, and 40% of global soils are degraded, you are going to need some powerful technology.
The second premise reflects these changing parameters…
Contemporary technological trajectories differ fundamentally from historical trends in scale, complexity, and ecological impact.
Unlike a mouldboard plough that was a local solution, many contemporary technologies operate on a planetary scale. Digital infrastructure, biotechnology, and global supply chains are interconnected, making their impacts far-reaching and difficult to contain. The speed and scale of deployment of artificial intelligence, geoengineering, or data surveillance, and a host of other examples, create ripple effects across societies and ecosystems that were rare in earlier eras. Such planetary-scale technologies behave less like isolated tools and more like complex adaptive systems that are interconnected, path-dependent, and prone to cascading failures when stressed. What once solved a problem locally now risks amplifying disorder globally if not carefully integrated.
A handy new device for tilling clay-rich soil was useful and spread to where such soils could be cultivated. Adoption was slow, and impacts were relatively gentle. Modern technologies are embedded in complex systems, making their outcomes less predictable and more challenging to manage. For example, integrating renewable energy into national power grids involves not just new hardware and transmission infrastructure but also shifts in economic models, social behaviour, and international cooperation. And compared to the ambling pace of the Middle Ages, today’s tech comes alive in an instant.
The biggest difference is in the ecological impacts of today’s technologies, which are unprecedented in both intensity and scope. For electronics alone, e-waste, carbon emissions from data centres, and rare earth mineral extraction are effects that extend beyond immediate human use and into long-term planetary health. In 2022, the world generated a record 62 million tonnes of electronic waste (a rise of 82% since 2010), with only around 22% documented as properly recycled. Globally, data centres currently consume around 460 terawatt‑hours of electricity, which is about 3% of the world’s carbon footprint, on par with aviation. The global rare‑earth oxide (REO) mining volume reached approximately 390,000 metric tonnes in 2024. These volumes are staggering compared to the more contained environmental footprints of earlier technologies. This shift alone justifies the premise that current trajectories are qualitatively different from past ones.
In thermodynamic terms, these impacts are features where higher energy throughput inevitably accelerates entropy across the system. Modern technology accelerates the metabolic rate of civilisation, consuming energy to maintain function.
Then there is what we didn’t see coming.
Many technologies solve one problem while quietly engineering the next. For example, antibiotics revolutionised medicine by making it possible to treat previously deadly bacterial infections, dramatically reducing mortality and enabling complex surgeries and cancer therapies. We won the war on infection. But the war evolved because the biological effectiveness of antibiotics also exerts selective pressure on bacteria, encouraging the survival and proliferation of resistant strains. When antibiotics are used excessively or inappropriately for viral infections or when patients do not complete prescribed courses, this evolutionary process is accelerated. Resistant genes can spread across bacterial species through horizontal gene transfer, making the emergence of ‘superbugs’ not only more likely but also more difficult to contain. In healthcare, resistance has become a frontline crisis. According to the World Health Organisation, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is among the top ten global public health threats, with over 1.2 million deaths directly attributable to antibiotic-resistant infections in 2019. A 2024 study from the Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance (GRAM) project predicted a significant increase in deaths if current trends continue, forecasting that bacterial AMR will cause 39 million deaths between 2025 and 2050, which equates to three deaths every minute.
In many countries, antibiotics are used not just to treat sick animals but as growth promoters and preventive measures in livestock, often with little oversight. This non-therapeutic use creates vast environmental reservoirs of resistance genes, which can transfer from animals to humans through food, water, and soil. A joint FAO/OIE/WHO report estimates that two-thirds of global antibiotic use is in agriculture.
Antimicrobial resistance was not anticipated when antibiotics were first celebrated as miracle cures, and the dependency on antibiotics has also discouraged investment in alternative treatments. Antimicrobial resistance spreads more slowly and often imperceptibly compared to an airborne virus like COVID-19; however, AMR’s threat is cumulative and potentially just as catastrophic.
And then came technological dependency. This was not a deliberate choice, but as an accretion of convenience, connectivity, and commercial design. Modern society, from individuals and families to corporations, institutions, and entire governments, has become deeply reliant on digital infrastructure. Everything from healthcare, energy, food distribution, and finance to education and democracy itself now flows through a web of interconnected technologies. While this integration brings undeniable efficiencies and capabilities, it also embeds profound risks. The complexity and opacity of these systems mean that most people, including those in power, do not fully understand how they work, how decisions are made within them, or what vulnerabilities lie beneath the surface.
The core problem is that these technologies are not neutral tools. They are shaped by business models, incentives, and ideologies that rarely prioritise public welfare. Surveillance capitalism, for instance, drives platforms to maximise attention, not wellbeing. Algorithmic optimisation prioritises engagement, not truth or human flourishing. The result is a digital ecosystem where addictive design, behavioural nudging, and data extraction have become standard. A seemingly innocent and inescapable act of watching a cute cat video masks a deeper transaction. Your attention has been captured, your preference logged, and, in a blink, the ads are on their way to you. Our compulsions are not just quirks of habit; they are engineered outcomes.
Cute cats might not bring down society, but we know that governments rely on digital platforms for public communication, yet often cede regulatory control to the same private entities. Institutions outsource decision-making to algorithms, sometimes without clear accountability. Individuals find their daily routines, choices, and social lives mediated through technologies that offer convenience at the cost of agency. The more deeply these systems are woven into our lives, the harder it becomes to act freely within them. So much of modern society, from individuals, institutions, and governments to geopolitics, increasingly relies on opaque systems whose design priorities may not align with public welfare.
But the deeper challenge is not the examples. There are dozens of them. The problem is that their effects are increasingly illegible.
A single John Deere 1025R tractor can do way more to the soil than a whole herd of Shire horses. All the speed and intensity also created greenhouse gas emissions and land clearing that are now destabilising Earth’s climate, but to what extent?
Smartphones have dramatically improved communication, access to information, and convenience in daily life. We lived without them for thousands of generations, but now we are dependent. Their rapid adoption has led to unanticipated vulnerabilities from erosion of attention spans and mental health impacts to mass surveillance, algorithmic manipulation, and privacy loss.
AI will be power hungry and drive any amount of material and process innovation, especially once quantum computers come online, but how, where and with what speed is speculation. We know it’s a disruptor of society, but we only have speculation to guide us on how controlling it will become, either by design or as a byproduct of its proliferation.
Uncertainty like this brings on the next premise…
Technological solutions often generate new, unforeseen problems and dependencies that can offset or undermine their intended benefits.
We know, but rarely admit, that many technologies come with externalities and issues that were not anticipated at the time of their adoption. For example, the widespread use of automobiles solved mobility challenges but led to urban sprawl, air pollution, traffic congestion, and high carbon emissions.
Similarly, adopting synthetic fertilisers boosted agricultural yields but contributed to soil degradation, water pollution, and ecosystem disruption through runoff and nutrient loading. Oh, yes, and a population explosion. This one is a huge problem that is ignored by just about everyone.
As I write this section, there is a power outage at my house. This is irritatingly common where I live in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, where winds and storms tend to trip the local grid. I have set my Google Docs to offline and can keep writing while the laptop battery holds a charge, but until the power comes back, all else is lost, including the speltchecker. Digital infrastructure, while enabling global communication and commerce, has led to growing dependence on electricity, data storage, cybersecurity, and software updates. Each layer of digital functionality demands a steady stream of low-entropy energy inputs just to sustain what appears stable. When the flow falters, disorder floods back in as a thermodynamic inevitability masked by the illusion of digital permanence.
All this makes systems fragile in the face of outages, cyberattacks, or obsolescence. And the consequences are so huge, we prefer not to think about them. For example, what happens to the global finance system when quantum computers can crack end-to-end encryption?
The dependency problem is inevitable. Once adopted, technologies reshape institutions, expectations, and behaviours in ways that make withdrawal or reversal difficult. We get used to what is on offer, and our baselines shift along with our expectations. And this all happens fast when the benefits are immediate.
Meanwhile, unintended effects often emerge over time, making it hard to assess the full cost-benefit balance at the point of introduction. Efficiency is persuasive. But it blinds us to what it costs.
The big one right now is soil degradation from all that intensive agriculture. Tractors, fertilisers and pesticides are literally strangling the life out of the soil, the very foundation of what makes plants grow. Soil is a complex living system that has evolved to buffer and recycle entropy slowly. Strip it of its microbial and structural diversity, and you collapse the very complexity that sustains fertility over time. And yet, with 8 billion people, their livestock and pets to feed, we are stuck with the imperative for lots of cheap food.
As always, these emergent dependencies are not evenly distributed. They often exacerbate existing inequalities and vulnerabilities. The billion or so in the global north still maintain economic or geopolitical advantage, much of it from the current and legacy access to technology. If you are the first country to build and operate a steam ship, it can take you wherever there are resources. You were also likely to be the country that already had some experience with ships.
Technology has always done this, but modern innovations have accelerated power imbalances. The following premise in the myth of technological salvation speaks to this problem when technology becomes global…
Global technology dissemination tends to reinforce and magnify existing social and geopolitical power imbalances.
It’s not just the ships. Wealthier countries and multinational corporations often control the design, ownership, and infrastructure of emerging technologies. This control gives them leverage over pricing, access, and standards, reinforcing their economic and strategic advantages. For instance, countries that dominate semiconductor production or the development of artificial intelligence gain not only financial rewards but also political influence and military edge.
In contrast, less wealthy regions often receive technologies in ways that create dependency rather than empowerment. Imported tools may be poorly suited to local conditions, and reliance on foreign maintenance, software updates, or proprietary systems can limit autonomy. Moreover, digital platforms introduced in developing economies may extract more value than they contribute in local capacity-building.
All this mirrors historical forms of unequal exchange, updated through technological infrastructure, but it is not always constraining. It doesn't have to be this way.
In Kenya's informal settlements, local entrepreneurs created internet infrastructure that major telecommunications companies had deemed unprofitable, serving communities that global tech giants had written off. Initiatives like Moja Wi-Fi, Mtaani Wi-Fi, and Poa Wi-Fi have emerged, offering affordable internet access to residents in areas such as Kibera and Mathare, where electricity and connectivity can be inconsistent. By leveraging mobile broadband networks from providers like Safaricom, Airtel, and Telkom, these entrepreneurs have created localised solutions that cater to the specific needs of their communities.
Economic analysis shows these locally-designed systems achieve better cost-effectiveness ratios while building economic stability through "strategies that use resources optimally and effectively", not least through reduced dependency on external maintenance and replacement cycles we are psychologically hooked into in the West.
Other entrepreneurs have focused on empowering micro-entrepreneurs through digital tools. For instance, Charles Juma developed DigiKua, a USSD and WhatsApp-based record-keeping tool that enables small business owners to manage their finances using basic mobile phones.
But I have to be honest. These examples are outliers.
More generally, the technological benefits accrue to more educated, urban, or affluent populations, leaving marginalised communities with limited access or with the burden of associated harms, especially from waste and environmental degradation. For the most part, global and local power imbalances are preserved and intensified through technological adoption and control patterns, confirming the premise.
There is still plenty of obfuscation, typically through the pervasive cultural narrative that frames technological advancement as inherently progressive and universally beneficial. This belief serves a deeper psychological function in times of disruption and uncertainty. Bizarrely, the phone grounds us.
We have entered a time when technology's psychological effects are as significant as its material benefits. This leads to the next premise…
Technological optimism frequently functions as a psychological coping mechanism, deflecting attention from the need for more profound systemic and behavioural change.
Confidence in innovative technology to resolve significant societal challenges is comforting. It provides reassurance in times of need and can even be applied to overwhelming problems such as climate change, biodiversity loss, or social inequality. It soothes and that’s the trick. It feels like action and reduces anxiety by offering control and continuity, especially when political or personal responses seem inadequate or difficult. In this way, it functions as a psychological buffer against fear, guilt, and uncertainty. Don’t worry, tech will fix it.
However, this feel-good factor is a coping mechanism at best. It is not really a solution, especially if it inhibits more necessary and transformative responses. Belief in future technologies such as carbon capture, geoengineering, or AI governance makes us feel good partly because they delay the urgent need for shifts in consumption, governance, economic models, and social norms. But entropy never waits. Delaying action under the guise of future fixes simply allows disorder to accumulate quietly, until the energetic cost of recovery exceeds what’s available. But the promise of imminent breakthroughs is powerful enough to justify inaction or business-as-usual behaviour in the present. In other words, no change needed… carry on, as you were.
This is a disaster about to happen.
Reliance on future fixes can be especially problematic when technologies are speculative or carry unknown risks. It allows difficult political decisions, such as phasing out fossil fuels or redesigning food systems, to be postponed. In this way, technological optimism deflects attention from the cultural, institutional, and ethical work required to build a truly sustainable and just society, confirming the psychological and social validity of the premise.
When, to my surprise, I found myself using my ecological and soil biology skills in the nascent carbon markets, the enthusiasm was palpable. I was tasked with designing carbon accounting methodologies for agriculture and forestry, as well as advising on some of the first AFOLU offset projects (Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use). I saw boardroom execs facing mounting pressure about their company’s carbon footprints lean forward with genuine interest when I mentioned soil carbon or extended rotation forest management. But then they would ask about emerging technologies like carbon capture or fusion energy. The easier the fix, the better. But you know what happened if the conversation turned to reducing energy consumption, redesigning supply chains, or shifting business models. The same execs would glance at their phones and make their excuses to leave for other commitments.
Two behavioural mechanisms are happening here that researchers have labelled techno-fix attitudes and moral licensing. A 2024 Swiss study found that individuals who trust that future technologies will solve environmental problems are significantly less likely to engage in pro-environmental behaviours. This relationship is partly explained by a lower concern about climate change, suggesting that technological optimism can dampen motivation for immediate action. Psychological studies on moral licensing show that when people anticipate future solutions or even imagine taking positive action, they are more likely to justify inaction in the present. In environmental contexts, this manifests as a weakened link between pro-environmental intentions and actual behaviour, with the expectation of future fixes acting as a form of moral credit. Together, these findings illustrate how hope in technological salvation can actively inhibit the behavioural change needed to address pressing ecological challenges. In other words, the psychology behind this deflection runs deeper than simple procrastination.
When facing existential challenges like climate breakdown or biodiversity collapse, our minds naturally seek ways to manage overwhelming anxiety. Technological optimism serves as what researchers describe as a "psychological buffer against fear, guilt, and uncertainty," allowing us to maintain a sense of agency and control when personal or political responses seem inadequate.
On a personal level, this is sound and logical, but it becomes dangerous when it systematically displaces action with anticipation. Studies of climate policy reveal how technological optimism enables what researchers call technowashing, which uses promises of future solutions to postpone making essential and important decisions while maintaining the illusion of progress.
Think of the countless climate summits where delegates enthusiastically discussed geoengineering possibilities while failing to commit to immediate emissions reductions. The pattern repeats across scales, with individuals buying carbon offsets that I was so eager to show them, instead of reducing consumption. Meanwhile, governments fund speculative technologies while delaying policy changes, and corporations announce net-zero targets decades in the future while expanding fossil fuel operations today.
Jevon’s paradox kicks in, too.
In short, techno-optimism can undermine the very outcomes it claims to support. What appears as hope for the future often functions as resistance to present change. The more convinced we become that technology will save us, the less motivated we are to save ourselves.
But not all technology is built by the bros in Silicon Valley ready to be leveraged by business and government. There are appropriate technology frameworks that offer a compelling alternative to the salvation myths that keep us waiting for rescue instead of building resilience.
So let’s honour them with this premise…
In contrast, context-sensitive and socially just approaches, such as appropriate technology frameworks, offer more resilient and equitable pathways for adaptation.
Appropriate technology refers to solutions designed for local needs, resources, and cultural conditions that are typically low-cost, accessible, and environmentally responsible. Unlike large-scale, centralised systems, they encourage participation, empower communities, and build local capacity. Examples include solar cookers, small-scale irrigation systems, and modular housing that address immediate needs without fostering dependence on distant suppliers or complex infrastructure.
Research evidence reveals a pattern that should humble those trained in conventional development thinking. When communities design their technological solutions, the results consistently exceed what external experts achieve through imposing "superior" alternatives.
Multi-country reviews of community empowerment show that the most effective initiatives are those that build local capacities, embed community participation in design, and measure success by increased autonomy. These programs emphasise capacity building, community control, engagement, and the integration of local knowledge and values as pivotal to sustainability. For example, the PROLINNOVA network, operating across 19 countries, leverages indigenous knowledge and enhances farmers' capacities to co-design locally appropriate systems. These self-determined solutions outlast centralised high-tech solutions, which frequently falter due to maintenance and contextual misalignment. This is a familiar story to me from my time in Africa in the 1990s.
When Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico's centralised electrical grid, community-managed microgrids restored power fastest and proved most resilient to future disruptions, not because they were primitive, but because local operators understood their systems intimately. Studies tracking appropriate technology implementations over decades show that these systems develop what researchers call "adaptive capacity", the ability to respond to changing conditions without external intervention.
Only a billion or so people have regular electricity, internet and three Apple products to hand. High technology requires sophisticated systems developed in industrial settings and exported globally. In most communities, low-cost, locally sourced, and user-friendly tech seems, and usually is, more appropriate.
But here’s the thing.
Despite their differences in scale, complexity, and intention, both types of technology can fail due to similar human and psychological factors. Chief among these are unrealistic expectations, resistance to change, and a lack of genuine community involvement in the design and deployment process. Whether it's a solar cooker in a rural village or a smart grid in a city, technology introduced without understanding user needs and motivations is prone to underuse or abandonment.
Psychological dynamics like status-seeking, fear of obsolescence, or lack of perceived agency will hinder adoption. For instance, people may reject appropriate technology if it appears to be “second-best” or associated with poverty, even when it suits their needs perfectly. Conversely, high-tech solutions may be embraced initially for their novelty or prestige, only to fail due to complexity, maintenance demands, or a mismatch with local infrastructure. In both cases, the problem lies not with the technology itself, but with how people relate emotionally, socially, and cognitively.
High technology often overlooks the importance of narrative and social legitimacy. A hand pump or compost toilet may be technically superior and sustainable, but without local champions or integration into cultural routines, it’s likely to be dismissed. Similarly, high-tech gadgets may be seen as alien or irrelevant if they don't resonate with user values. This shared psychological terrain explains why such different technologies can fail in surprisingly similar ways.
One consequence of this is that the appropriate technology movement has its own blind spots. Community-led solutions can reinforce local power structures, exclude marginalised voices, and create insularity that prevents beneficial outside learning. Sometimes the local expert is the village patriarch who benefits from keeping women out of decision-making. In many rural development projects, participatory design becomes code for "whatever the loudest community members want." The resulting solutions worked for some but systematically excluded others.
We might even be bold enough to say that the celebration of traditional knowledge sometimes becomes a form of technological romanticism, which assumes that because something is local and low-tech, it must be more sustainable or equitable. This can prevent communities from accessing genuinely beneficial innovations.
The tech bros have a point. We are, for the most part, better off with modern technologies.
The appropriate technology advocates have a point, too, not least because inequity persists in part because of high tech.
And then the myth of technological salvation persists because it offers something psychologically irresistible. It promises to solve complex problems without changing how we live.
Now that there are 8 billion souls alive, with most of them aspiring to more than they currently have, it will take some wild innovations that will make the plough, watermills, bellows and gunpowder look like kids' toys. Meanwhile, the pessimist, still worried about the inequity, doesn’t believe it is possible.
The problem is that technological pessimism may be as psychologically motivated as technological optimism. Many of us who critique tech solutionism get the same dopamine hit from being contrarian that tech optimists get from believing in progress. We enjoy feeling intellectually superior to the "naive" masses who think apps will save the world.
I've caught myself doing this often, rolling my eyes at corporate presentations about AI-powered carbon tracking while feeling smugly superior. But my mindful sceptic chimes in with an uncomfortable question. Am I rejecting these solutions because the evidence doesn't support them, or because accepting them would threaten my identity as someone who "sees through" technological hype?
If technological optimism serves as a psychological deflection, technological pessimism might serve as a psychological elevation. Either way, we feel wiser and more real than others. Research on motivated reasoning suggests we're remarkably good at finding evidence for positions that make us feel good about ourselves.
Perhaps instead of a tech miracle, there is hope grounded in human ingenuity, community resilience, and the power of appropriate innovation. This isn't about rejecting advanced technology or retreating to some romanticised past. Instead, it's about developing technological wisdom, the ability to evaluate innovations based on their technical capabilities and social and ecological impacts over time.
Either way, we will have to answer some tricky questions. Does this solution build local capacity or create dependency? Does it address root causes or merely symptoms? Who benefits, and who bears the costs?
The appropriate technology movement is gaining global traction as communities develop resilient, locally adapted solutions, from Kenyan entrepreneurs building community internet networks to regenerative farmers crafting climate-resilient practices. Scaling such innovations demands a shift away from top-down mega-projects toward community-led approaches, with education and policy frameworks that blend high-tech skills and traditional knowledge. This is not just a technological transition but a reimagining of how innovation is defined and delivered.
A mindful sceptic might be sympathetic to this narrative. However, the evidence is that corporations and their technology are rapacious. Where there is no market today, they see one tomorrow. And we know to question dominant narratives while remaining open to evidence from unexpected sources. In this, the solutions to our biggest challenges may not come from the R&D labs and corporate headquarters we typically look to, but from the communities and individuals who understand most intimately what it means to live within planetary limits. In part because they already are.
The most promising solutions may blend high-tech tools with appropriate technology principles to challenge the purists on both sides. For example, using satellite data and AI to support smallholder farming may seem too complex for appropriate tech advocates and too small-scale for tech enthusiasts, yet it could be precisely what's needed. Such hybrid approaches demand we move beyond ideological purity and ask hard questions like… When does technological sophistication truly serve local needs, and when is community control a means to better outcomes rather than just political symbolism?
Here's where I'd add some genuine intellectual humility. As someone who's spent decades in ecological research, I have a strong psychological investment in believing that careful, evidence-based analysis produces better outcomes than rapid technological deployment. But this belief might make me systematically undervalue the benefits of imperfect but immediate solutions. And all my mindful scepticism might blind me to the idea that the entire framework of technological optimism vs. appropriate technology is a false binary that prevents us from seeing more nuanced possibilities.
We do not lack technology. We lack the judgment to know when not to use it.
Tools are not neutral. Each one carries a logic, a tempo, and a boundary of imagination. The myth of technological salvation seduces us with its promise of progress untainted by consequence. But cleverness without context is delusion with circuitry.
The real task isn’t choosing between high-tech and low-tech. It’s learning to think in ecological time, where wisdom is measured by what doesn’t need fixing. Ecological time honours the slow churn of growth, collapse, and renewal. Resilience is all about patience and knowing when not to use a tool.
Sometimes the answer is a circuit with some code. Sometimes a shovel. But most often, it’s restraint.
What once saved us now ensures we won’t adapt. That’s not irony. That’s entropy.
As always an excellent read and food for thought. I picked up on this:
"The core problem is that these technologies are not neutral tools. They are shaped by business models, incentives, and ideologies that rarely prioritise public welfare."
And my first thought was - what we need is judicious use of technology, which you allude to later in the piece. From there the main question that arises for me is - why can't we achieve this - using the technology we have in ways that maximise benefit relative to input? The barriers are both internal and external. Externally, its the structures we live in - capitalism, profit seeking rather than how to maximise benefit, but also power structures, systems of expertise siloed with little understanding of "the big picture" and the way innovation is sold, both as an idea and as a saleable item - and that opens up a whole other discussion. Then there's the internal barriers, and these include comfort (which includes an unwillingness to change our thinking on how things are as much as giving up what we become comfortable with), our susceptibility to the marketing of new technologies (the bright and shiny stuff) and our willingness to incorporate them into our lives without question, without even weighing up whether they really benefit us. The more I think about it, the more I see.
Like you i do see answers in learning from those who live in poorer communities. Often these people are innovative, they will adapt, and repurpose technologies to provide what they or their communities need, but I also see a role for larger scale investment on a regional or national level - technology can have a significant positive impact on patient care in regional and remote communities for example. Both of these strategies are less about profit, and more about addressing real need. Things like AI could potentially also be used in this way, instead of being wasted to create fake videos for laughs, or to answer Google queries.
But all of this requires a change in thinking - it requires education and understanding and a willingness to ask difficult questions.