If you’ve read much of anything of mine, you know that I’m interested in technological continuity as a counterpoint to what I consider to be an excessive bias toward innovation in our appreciation of the history of technology in general. I want to separate technological conservatism from the blanket charge of its critics: that it is always indicative of a narrow, closed-minded, hidebound, and irrational refusal to adapt to changing circumstances. I argue that it can actually be a completely rational response to changing circumstances; that continuity can be an “adaptation” just as much as innovation. I thought it would be useful to lay out some examples of that here, if I could. Clearly (to me, anyway), it’s worth a book—but you’ve got to start somewhere.
In published work, I’ve made that case for the merchant ship in the early modern British Atlantic, a world that was changing quite a bit over the period, but which was served well by ship technology that underwent only incremental change; the basic formula remained the same.
The internal combustion gasoline engine (I have no particular chronological order here, obviously) would be another good example, if it weren’t for an overarching need to move away from the mass consumption of fossil fuels, for reasons that transcend the usual considerations of technology—cost/benefit, familiarity/acceptance, thorough diffusion already accomplished, full mastery of manufacture achieved. Engineers have taken the basic formula of that technology and refined it for almost 150 years, extracting more output for less input again and again. Even in my lifetime (56 years), the gains in that area have been dramatic. When I was a kid, U.S. automakers were putting out V8 engines that could only manage just over 100 horsepower or so—and putting them in heavy, unwieldy cars; fuel consumption was high, power was low. Turbocharged gasoline engines were only to be found on the most advanced, and expensive, high-performance cars; to some extent, that carried through the 1980s and into the 1990s. Now, cars selling in the lower- to mid-range price bracket come with small turbocharged four-cylinder engines making 200 or even 300 horsepower—in a much lighter, but much safer, vehicle. Fuel economy of these powerplants is at a level previously only found in turbodiesels and hybrids (which is one reason why turbodiesel cars have almost disappeared from the U.S. market). Yes, much of automotive development is carried out under very heavy regulatory pressure, but still, this is a remarkable long-term accomplishment.
The way we build almost all new houses and most other smaller buildings, such as stores and apartments, employs balloon-frame construction, in which the 2” x 4” softwood stud is the primary element, and these are nailed together with top and bottom 2x4s as horizontal frame pieces. Larger lumber plays a reinforcing role around openings, and as floor joists, for strength and load-bearing, but its use (and thus cost) is minimized. 2x4s are relatively inexpensive, lightweight and thus easy to handle by humans, and nailed fastening takes much less time, and much less skill, than any sort of joinery, in which timbers are fastened together by cutting corresponding keys and notches in them. Balloon-frame construction has been predominant for well over a century now, and I’m not aware of any movement away from it. So much of the construction industry, and the hardware and tool industries that go with it, are set up to serve the 2x4-based method.
I worked on house-framing crews in the summers from 1986 to 1989. Since my last stint, I have noticed precisely zero changes in how it’s done. (During my time, I witnessed the shift from hammers to nail guns, and from blackboard sheathing to foilboard and Tyvek.)
The pine trees from which construction lumber are harvested grow relatively quickly and are grown in vast numbers in North America and Europe (especially Eastern Europe). You don’t need any old-growth lumber at all to build a modern house.
Whatever changes have occurred in the economic, social, cultural, and political spheres over the past 100+ years, balloon-frame construction has clearly proven to be a successful “adaptation” to those changes.
Rubber condoms were widely available by 1860, at least in the U.S. They are still the go-to for STI prevention, and still one of the top choices out there for contraception. (The concept goes back to the ancient world.) We can write and discuss interesting stuff about the culture of the condom, and how that has changed, but the technology itself has changed very little, really. So, it has proved a highly-successful “adaptation” to huge changes in the world since its introduction in modern form.
I’m sitting in a chair. Yes, it’s made of plastic and synthetic fabric instead of wood and wool or some other naturally-occurring fiber, but it’s the same concept. The ones in my dining room are leather on a steel frame. Steel has been mass-produced since around 1890. Leather, while not mass-produced, is prehistoric.
Speaking of leather: it’s a great entrée into the aesthetic aspect of technological choice. For most aspects of function, we can produce materials that outperform leather. But we love the way it feels, the way it smells, and, perhaps mostly, we love all the ways in which it isn’t plastic. There’s a lot of interesting stuff wrapped up in that. The close association of leather with luxury in our world does not necessarily convey into other cultures. In Japan, the most luxurious automobile upholstery is considered fine wool, not leather. That doesn’t work outside the Japanese market, so they don’t export luxury cars with wool interiors. (Lexus did offer an optional interior trim on their flagship sedan recently—perhaps they still do—which includes a hand-folded wool door card with Japanese cut glass where wood would normally go—but the seats are still soft leather, as the Western luxury market demands.)
The only sign I’ve seen of leather’s displacement as luxury upholstery in my world is in the “green” market, such as EVs, where manufacturers think that the sensibilities of this niche clientele would prefer a material that does not come from cattle. That niche still, though, prefers a “natural” over a synthetic material.
How long have bricks been ubiquitous for buildings? Since the 18th century, at least. And they’re still the same thing—blocks of fired clay. Nothing that’s changed in our world since then has managed to render the brick obsolete.
This isn’t just about naming all the old technologies we still use. I’m thinking about how old technologies have continued to serve their roles acceptably even as external circumstances have changed considerably since their introduction. We all know we can’t think helpfully about how we use technology when we don’t adequately consider the context. (Well, that applies to everything…) To take this further, we’d need to identify specific changes in external circumstances, and then try to understand how a specific technology proved as suitable during and after those changes as it was before. That’s how we build a case that continuity, as well as innovation, can be an adaptation.