Few, if any, would contest this assertion — “technology has radically altered how we live.” Yet, it is worth analysing which aspects of our lives have changed and to what extent there have been truly radical shifts, and over what time-scale. Are recent changes as impactful as the move from the hunter-gatherer era to settled agriculture? Have recent technologies caused as seminal a shift as the one from cottage-scale production to mass manufacturing of goods?
The mechanisation of agriculture has resulted in a country like the US having just two percent of its population employed. . .