A Post Mortem Technology Assessment of the Spinning Wheel: The Last Thousand Years

Marchetti, C. (1977). A Post Mortem Technology Assessment of the Spinning Wheel: The Last Thousand Years. IIASA Professional Paper. IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria: PP-77-012

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Abstract

Technology Assessment, as a forecasting game of the secondary and tertiary consequence of the introduction of new technologies, has enjoyed considerable popularity in the last decade, perhaps because it is a convenient tool to qualify bad conscience toward technological innovation. In long-range forecasting, however, technology assessment has strong limits. They are described here by the example of the spinning wheel, a supremely modest implement which has had a major influence upon the history of Western countries. These limits may be intrinsic. Some hints are given for a strategy to define them.

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