What the heck is "High Tech"?

A little question worth considering.

Increasingly more people are coming to despise “High Tech”. Why? This term seems to point at something, such that we use it without really questioning what it means. Let’s look at a few attributes this term is pointing at:

Newness & Novelty

This is the most obvious attribute we see but perhaps the least profound. Higher or advanced technology is that which came out later; a car from 2023 is higher tech than one from 2020, though they’re basically the same device.

Complexity

Higher-tech things have more component parts.

A car has wheels, bearings, axles, a frame, doors, seats, glass… a motorcycle has fewer parts, and a bicycle fewer yet. This has the consequence that while the bicycle is more or less transparent, showing all of its workings on the outside, the car is more opaque and needs to be opened up or even taken apart to be understand fully. A bicycle does not have many ‘inner workings’ unlike a car.

Complexity makes it difficult to understand and contemplate things, although it does certainly yield more content for contemplation. This can sometimes lead to idolatry; worshipping a car because it is so sophisticated and intricate, a marvel in itself, rather than pointing towards something else - which is why it is important to consider technologies in their contexts, their beginnings and ends.

Dependency

Higher-tech things have more dependencies.

A car of 2023 needs someone to procure raw material for steel, rubber, paint, glass, silicon, cloth or leather, plastic, and more. Then a plethora of components must be made, and assembled - including many microchips. The bicycle does not depend on these microchips for its composition (unless it’s an e-bike); it requires a few intricately machined components like chain and sprockets and bearings, but overall less than a car.

This dependency extends not only from conception but to ongoing sustenance and maintenance. A car taken to a world without gasoline is only a cumbersome shelter on wheels. A bicycle taken to a world without gasoline is unaffected. The bicycle has a much better time being repaired in a poor or small village than would a car.

This runs counter to the principle of subsidiarity (that issues should be dealt with at the most immediate or local level). Higher-tech equipment necessitates increased involvement of higher or larger levels of society rather than the small ones. We should place favor on forms of technology which depend upon fewer things to generate and sustain their existence. This doesn’t mean we should always pick the lowest-tech solution, but it does mean that we should place real weight on the negative effects that increasing the dependency tree of something produces.