Dutch artist, philosopher and scientist Koert van Mensvoort (of Next Nature) presents the Pyramid of Technology at TED Talk Ghent.
Inspired by Maslow’s hierarchy of need Van Mensvoort illustrates how technologies – from time machines to the alphabet – must go through seven phases to become as natural as nature.
How Technology Becomes Nature in Seven Steps:
1) Envision: The idea stage (e.g. the time machine – still not invented or even a prototype)
2) Operational: Experimental stage – things that work in labs.
3) Applied: Transitional stage between invention and acceptance (e.g. Google Glass anno 2013/14)
4) Accepted: Technologies that reach a significant level of familiarity within society (cars, phones, microwave ovens)
5) Vital: Hard to live without (sewage systems, electric lighting, the internet)
6) Invisible: Technologies that are no longer considered technologies (the alphabet, the clock)
7) Natural: Technologies that have become as natural as nature itself (agriculture, cooking)