all iterations of the same one fundamental technological change

Lots of food for thought in this interview with sff authors Ada Palmer and Ken Liu at Asterisk. Palmer’s answers in particular are of interest for me, which I suspect has a lot to do with them being informed by a historical (and historiographic) perspective that is utterly lacking in contemporary discussions of “technology”. (If you don’t already follow my “research journal” at Worldbuilding Agency, this recent essay on David Edgerton’s The Shock of the Old unpacks that problem somewhat. Palmer’s recent doorstep of a book on the (myth of the) Renaissance is well worth the read, also—though I found its style exhausting, to the extent that I nearly gave up on it a number of times.) Two clippings, then. First, an observation by Palmer about the framing of the “revolutionary” impact of Those Two Letters which makes a similar argument to the folk who talk about cycles or “waves” of sociotechnical change (e.g. Carlota Perez and disciples), albeit from a rather different direction: I think…