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Alvin Toffler writes about the fact that technology is advancing much faster today than ever before in history. The symbols of technology are no longer the factory smokestacks or assembly lines. As we headed into the future, the pace will quicken still further.
阿爾文·托夫勒寫道，今天技術(shù)的發(fā)展比歷史上任何時候都快得多。技術(shù)的象征已不再是工廠的大煙囪抑或流水裝配線了。在我們奔向未來時，發(fā)展的速度將會更快。
The Fantastic Spurt in Technology
工藝技術(shù)上不可思議的突飛猛進(jìn)
A.Toffler
A.托夫勒
To most people the term technology conjures up images of smoky steel mills or noisy machines. Perhaps the classic representation of technology is still the assembly line created by Henry Ford half a century ago and made into a social symbol by Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times. Thissymbol, however, has always been inadequate and misleading, for technology has always been more than factories and machines. The invention of the horse collar in the middle ages led to major changes in agricultural methods and was as much a technological advance as the invention of the Bessemer furnace centuries later. Moreover, technology includes techniques, or ways to do things, as well as the machines that may or may not be necessary to apply them. It includes ways to make chemical reactions occur, ways to breed fish, plant forests, light theaters, count votes or teach history.
對大多數(shù)人來說，“技術(shù)”這個詞往往使人聯(lián)想到濃煙滾滾的鋼鐵廠或是轟隆作響的機(jī)器。或許，技術(shù)的經(jīng)典代表仍然是半個世紀(jì)之前亨利·福特首創(chuàng)的流水裝配線。在電影《摩登時代》里，查理·卓別林則將流水裝配線變成現(xiàn)代社會的象征。然而，這一象征并不完善，且易引起誤解，因?yàn)榧夹g(shù)從來就不僅僅是工廠和機(jī)器。中世紀(jì)發(fā)明的馬軛導(dǎo)致了耕種方法的重大變革，它與幾世紀(jì)后發(fā)明的貝西默鼓風(fēng)爐一樣是重大的技術(shù)進(jìn)步。再者，除機(jī)器外，技術(shù)還包括技藝，即制作方法，而這些技藝、方法的運(yùn)用并不一定都要機(jī)器。技術(shù)包括促成化學(xué)反應(yīng)的方法，包括養(yǎng)魚、造林、劇院照明、選票統(tǒng)計(jì)以及歷史教學(xué)的方法等等。
