Unit 5 Assessment: Kranzberg’s Six Laws of Technology

After reading through Kranzberg’s six laws, the law that applies the most is the sixth law, which explains that we determine what the technology we create does. How we decide to use technology is a running theme throughout technology itself, so it has also been a running theme in the entirety of this course, like in unit three, where we talked about ethics, which applies to how technology which is created with either good or bad intention, but may serve the opposite purpose when someone else is using it. Next, I believe that the fourth law applies the second most, which explains how technology needs motivation outside of technology to be created, followed by the first law with the third most significance, which states how all technology is both good and bad at the same time, with things like your geographic and cultural context affecting whether things are good or bad. After that, the second law has the third least significance, as it states that technical innovations will not reach their maximum potential until new technical advances are made, and following that up, I believe that the third law applies the second least, as it states that each part of a technological package has requirements and dependencies from the other parts of the same package, which I feel is a weaker and more specific version of the sixth law. Finally, the law I feel applies the least is the fifth law, as it just says that history is more relevant for the history of technology compared to all other forms of history. History was the main focus of Unit one in this course, and we learned a lot about the history of technology through the second section, which was called “Historical Revolutions Lecture,” which went over the largest technological revolutions to date. I feel this is least applicable, as computer science and technology is a rapidly advancing subject, and while it may have an important history, very little of it is useful as better and cheaper options have left these old inventions behind.