Technological Determinism
Technological determinism is a reductionist theory in assuming that a society's technology progresses by following its own internal logic of efficiency, while determining the development of the social structure and cultural values. The term is believed to have originated from Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929), an American sociologist and economist. The most radical technological determinist in the United States in the 20th century was most likely Clarence Ayres who was a follower of Thorstein Veblen as well as John Dewey. William Ogburn was also known for his radical technological determinism and his theory on cultural lag. Origin The origins of technological determinism as a formal concept are often traced to Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929), an influential American sociologist and economist. Veblen, known for his work on social and economic issues, introduced ideas that portrayed technology as a powerful, autonomous force capable of shaping societal norms and structures. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Reductionism
Reductionism is any of several related philosophical ideas regarding the associations between phenomena which can be described in terms of simpler or more fundamental phenomena. It is also described as an intellectual and philosophical position that interprets a complex system as the sum of its parts. Reductionism tends to focus on the small, predictable details of a system and is often associated with various philosophies like emergence, materialism, and determinism. Definitions ''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'' suggests that reductionism is "one of the most used and abused terms in the philosophical lexicon" and suggests a three-part division: # Ontological reductionism: a belief that the whole of reality consists of a minimal number of parts. # Methodological reductionism: the scientific attempt to provide an explanation in terms of ever-smaller entities. # Theory reductionism: the suggestion that a newer theory does not replace or absorb an older one, but reduces it ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Industrialisation
Industrialisation ( UK) or industrialization ( US) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive reorganisation of an economy for the purpose of manufacturing. Industrialisation is associated with increase of polluting industries heavily dependent on fossil fuels. With the increasing focus on sustainable development and green industrial policy practices, industrialisation increasingly includes technological leapfrogging, with direct investment in more advanced, cleaner technologies. The reorganisation of the economy has many unintended consequences both economically and socially. As industrial workers' incomes rise, markets for consumer goods and services of all kinds tend to expand and provide a further stimulus to industrial investment and economic growth. Moreover, family structures tend to shift as extended families tend to no longer live together in one hous ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lelia Green
Lelia Green is a professor at the School of Arts and Humanities at Edith Cowan University, Perth. Green is the author of ''Technoculture: From Alphabet to Cybersex'' and the editor of ''Framing Technology: Society, Choice and Change'', and also on the editorial board of the Australia Journal of Communication and Media International Australia Incorporating Culture and Policy. Major areas of work Lelia Green is the author of ''Technoculture: From Alphabet to Cybersex''. She defines "technoculture" as the integration of new communication technologies into a society, and in her book she explores the effects of the digital age on society, its structure, and policy creation. Green argues early in her book that the term "technoculture" is a word that should not be used lightly, as the concept itself is meant to refer closely and accurately to technologies that assist the communication through which culture is built. These technologies can refer to any means of communication in a concr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Rosalind H
Rosalind or Rosalinde may refer to: *Rosalind (given name) Astronomy * 900 Rosalinde, asteroid * Rosalind (moon), moon of Uranus Literature * Rosalind (''As You Like It''), a fictional character in William Shakespeare's play ''As You Like It'' *Rosalind, the object of Colin Clout's love in Edmund Spenser's poem ''The Shepheardes Calender'' *"Rosalind", a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson *''Rosalind'', a play by J. M. Barrie Other *Rosalind (education platform) Rosalind is an educational resource and web project for learning bioinformatics through problem solving and computer programming. Rosalind users learn bioinformatics concepts through a problem tree that builds up biological, algorithmic, and progr ..., a platform and web project for learning bioinformatics through problem solving * Rosalind (harness horse) (foaled 1933), 1936 Hambletonian winner * Rosalind, Alberta, Canada * Rosalind Bank, a completely submerged bank in the western Caribbean Sea * (1916–1926), a British R ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Merritt Roe Smith
Merritt Roe Smith (born 1940) is an American historian. He is the Leverett and William Cutten Professor of the History of Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Life Smith graduated from Georgetown University, and Pennsylvania State University with a Ph.D. His research focuses on the history of technological innovation and social change. He is currently writing a monograph on technology and the American Civil War. Smith is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he is past president of the Society for the History of Technology. In the 1970s, Smith made a large contribution to our understanding of how interchangeability of mechanical parts went from concept to realization. He did this by rescuing from obscurity the work of gunmaker John Hall at the Harpers Ferry Armory. During 1815–1834, Hall had assembled elements of standardization and combined it with new machine designs and effective team management to realize the long-desired goal of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Social Conservatism
Social conservatism is a political philosophy and a variety of conservatism which places emphasis on Tradition#In political and religious discourse, traditional social structures over Cultural pluralism, social pluralism. Social conservatives Political campaign, organize in favor of duty, traditional values and Institution, social institutions, such as traditional Familialism, family structures, Gender roles#Political ideologies, gender roles, sexual relations, Patriotism#Cultural aspects, national patriotism, and Religion#Impact, religious traditions. Social conservatism is usually skeptical of social change, instead tending to support the status quo concerning social issues. Social conservatives also value the rights of religious institutions to participate in the public sphere, thus often supporting accommodationism, government-religious endorsement and opposing state atheism, and in some cases opposing secularism. Social conservatism, as a movement, is largely an outgrowth ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Caste
A caste is a Essentialism, fixed social group into which an individual is born within a particular system of social stratification: a caste system. Within such a system, individuals are expected to marry exclusively within the same caste (endogamy), follow lifestyles often linked to a particular occupation, hold a ritual status observed within a hierarchy, and interact with others based on cultural notions of social exclusion, exclusion, with certain castes considered as either more pure or more polluted than others. The term "caste" is also applied to morphological groupings in eusocial insects such as ants, bees, and termites#caste, termites. The paradigmatic ethnographic example of caste is the division of India's Hinduism, Hindu society into rigid social groups. Its roots lie in South Asia's ancient history and it still exists; however, the economic significance of the caste system in India seems to be declining as a result of urbanisation and affirmative action programs. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Colonial India
Colonial India was the part of the Indian subcontinent that was occupied by European colonial powers during and after the Age of Discovery. European power was exerted both by conquest and trade, especially in spice trade, spices. The search for the wealth and prosperity of India led to the colonisation of the Americas after Christopher Columbus went to the Americas in 1492. Only a few years later, near the end of the 15th century, Portuguese sailor Vasco da Gama became the first European to re-establish direct trade links with India by being the first to arrive by circumnavigating Africa (). Having arrived in History of Kozhikode, Calicut, which by then was one of the major trading ports of the eastern world, he obtained permission to trade in the city from the Saamoothiri, Saamoothiris (Zamorins). The next to arrive Dutch India, were the Dutch, with their main base in Ceylon. Their expansion into India was halted after their defeat in the Battle of Colachel to the Travancore, Ki ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Karl Marx
Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels), and his three-volume (1867–1894), a critique of classical political economy which employs his theory of historical materialism in an analysis of capitalism, in the culmination of his life's work. Marx's ideas and their subsequent development, collectively known as Marxism, have had enormous influence. Born in Trier in the Kingdom of Prussia, Marx studied at the universities of Bonn and Berlin, and received a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Jena in 1841. A Young Hegelian, he was influenced by the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and both critiqued and developed Hegel's ideas in works such as '' The German Ideology'' (written 1846) and the '' Grundrisse'' (written 1857–1858). While in Paris, Marx wrote ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sociocultural Evolution
Sociocultural evolution, sociocultural evolutionism or social evolution are theories of sociobiology and cultural evolution that describe how Society, societies and culture change over time. Whereas sociocultural development traces processes that tend to increase the complexity of a society or culture, sociocultural evolution also considers process that can lead to decreases in complexity (Social degeneration, degeneration) or that can produce variation or proliferation without any seemingly significant changes in complexity (cladogenesis). Sociocultural evolution is "the process by which structural reorganization is affected through time, eventually producing a form or structure that is qualitatively different from the ancestral form". Most of the 19th-century and some 20th-century approaches to socioculture aimed to provide models for the evolution of humankind as a whole, arguing that different societies have reached different stages of Social change, social development. The ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Rail Transport
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of land transport, next to road transport. It is used for about 8% of passenger and rail freight transport, freight transport globally, thanks to its Energy efficiency in transport, energy efficiency and potentially high-speed rail, high speed.Rolling stock on rails generally encounters lower friction, frictional resistance than rubber-tyred road vehicles, allowing rail cars to be coupled into longer trains. Power is usually provided by Diesel locomotive, diesel or Electric locomotive, electric locomotives. While railway transport is capital intensity, capital-intensive and less flexible than road transport, it can carry heavy loads of passengers and cargo with greater energy efficiency and safety. Precursors of railways driven by human or an ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Assembly Line
An assembly line, often called ''progressive assembly'', is a manufacturing process where the unfinished product moves in a direct line from workstation to workstation, with parts added in sequence until the final product is completed. By mechanically moving parts to workstations and transferring the unfinished product from one workstation to another, a finished product can be assembled faster and with less labor than having workers carry parts to a stationary product. Assembly lines are common methods of assembling complex items such as automobiles and other transportation equipment, household appliances and Consumer electronics, electronic goods. Workers in charge of the works of assembly line are called assemblers. Concepts Assembly lines are designed for the sequential organization of workers, tools or machines, and parts. The motion of workers is minimized to the extent possible. All parts or assemblies are handled either by conveyors or motorized vehicles such as forklif ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |