Modularity is the second design principle for an Ecological Age. With separate connected devices for separate functions, like a pen for writing, a watch for monitoring, and even clothing for communication, screen-free technology is automatically modular. Decentralized functions are easier to understand, but harder to standardize. They need different knowledge and materials.
Different information, from different outputs of that knowledge and those materials, encourages control of the many over technology they can understand, rather than the control of the many by the few through standardized technology that everybody “needs” but no one completely understands. This means more chance of mindful peer-to-peer decentralized automation of individual wants and needs, rather than standardized automation for all society that leaves workers jobless.
If more people understand technology because they are motivated by personal meaning to use it either to save labor or to take pride in work, then they will be motivated to understand other technologies and why those technologies matter. This could lower barriers to invention and manufacturing for the small crafter.
This kind of future would also demand that people think about what else matters to them: hobbies, interests, family. As a result, we could think together about what is right or wrong, noble or demeaning, to do with our time.
Modularity and Meaning
