Low technology

Low technology (low tech; adjective forms: low-technology, low-tech, lo-tech) is simple

"Low-tech" has been more and more employed in the scientific writings, in particular in the analyzes of the work from some authors of the 1970s: see for example Hirsch ‐ Kreinsen,^[7] the book "High tech, low tech, no tech" ^[3] or Gordon.^[8]

More recently, the perspective of resource scarcity

Since 2007, the Belgian Kris de Decker has published (with his collaborators) some reflections on low-tech solutions, the problem of high-techs, and the updating of technologies supposedly "obsolete" via the "Low <-tech Magazine". The header is: "Doubts on progress and technology", and specifies that the lowtechs "refuse to assume that each problem has a high-tech solution",^[10] with a progressive translation of the articles in other languages since recently.

In 2014, the french engineer Philippe Bihouix published "L'âge des low tech" (The age of low-techs) where he presents how a european nation like France, with little mineral and energy resources, could become a "low-tech" nation (instead of a "start-up" nation) to better correspond to the sustainable development goals of such nation.^[11] He cites various examples of low-techs initiative and describe the low-tech philosophy and principles. In 2015, the Low-tech Lab project opened, consisting in a low-tech web platform for documentation and free sharing ('wiki' type) of inventions, and to put forward reflections on the low-tech philosophy.

Recently: retro-tech, wild tech, rebel-tech, small-tech, (s)low-tech, easy-tech, no-tech, lo-tek

Numerous new definitions have come to supplement or qualify the term "low-tech", intended to be more precise because they are restricted to a particular characteristic:

• retro-tech: more oriented toward old but smart inventions (not necessarily useful, durable and accessible), parallels can nevertheless be found with low-tech, because these innovations often are decentralized and simpler technologies (because manufactured by individuals) ".^[12]

• Wild-tech: beyond the
  high-tech / low-tech opposition, it intends to give "tools to better think these ways of manufacturing which escape any classification".^[13]
  The unclassifiable techs. Can also be linked to "tech rebel", a movement whose goal is to hack and to re-appropriate any type of technology.

• small-tech: opposed to "Big Tech", which includes the GAFAM. It thus referred to digital questions, "in the perspective of maintaining a high level of technological complexity but on the basis of the notions of commons, collaborative work and the principles of democracy and social justice"^[14]

• (s)lowtech, or slow-tech: uses the
  lifestyle.^[17]

• easy-tech: technology easy to implement, to use, and accessible to all.[18] At the heart of the commonly accepted definition of low-tech.

• no-tech: promotes a lifestyle avoiding the use of technology, when possible. It joins some technocritical writings on the negative and time-consuming aspect of most "modern" technologies. See for example no-tech magazine.^[19]

• Lo-Tek (or LoTek): name introduced by Julia Watson for her book "The Power of Lo — TEK - A global exploration of nature-based technology".^[20] The author brings together multigenerational knowledge and practices to "counter the idea that aboriginal innovation is primitive and exists isolated from technology. " TEK is the acronym for "Traditional Ecological Knowledge".

Many definitions

Binary definition

According to the Cambridge International Dictionary of English, the concept of low-tech is simply defined as a technique that is not recent, or using old

Low-tech is sometimes described as an "anti

From traditional practices (primary and secondary sectors)

Note: almost all of the entries in this section should be prefixed by the word traditional.

• basketry
  .
• hand
  coopering, and carpentry
  .
• the trade of the
  ship-wright
  .
• the trade of the wheel-wright.
• the trade of the wainwright: making wagons. (the Latin word for a two-wheeled wagon is carpentum, the maker of which was a carpenter.)

(Wright is the

• smithing
  and metal-crafts.
• acoustic instruments
  .
• mathematics (particularly, pure mathematics)
• organic farming and animal husbandry (i.e.; agriculture as practiced by all American farmers prior to World War II).
• saw-mill
  .
• fulling, felting, drop spindle spinning, hand knitting, crochet, & similar textile preparation.
• the production of
  Colonial America
  .
• glass-blowing
  .
• various subskills of food preservation:
  • smoking
  • salting
  • pickling
  • drying

Note: home canning is a counter example of a low technology since some of the supplies needed to pursue this skill rely on a global trade network and an existing manufacturing infrastructure.^{[citation needed]}

• the production of various alcoholic beverages:
  • wine: poorly preserved fruit juice.
  • beer: a way to preserve the calories of grain products from decay.
  • distilled
    ) form of beer.
• flint-knapping
• cathedrals, and root cellars
  .

(Non exhaustive) list of low-tech in a westerner's everyday life:

• Getting around by
  bike
  , and repairing it with second-hand materials
• Using a cargo bike to carry loads (rather than a gasoline vehicle)
• Drying
  clothesline or on a drying rack
• Washing clothes by hand, or in a human-powered washing machine
• Cooling one's home with a
  air conditioners
  )
• Using a bell as door bell
• A
  freezer
  )
• Long-distance
  sailing boat (rather than by plane
  )
• A wicker bag or a Tote bag (rather than a plastic bag) to carry things
• matches
  )
• A hand drill, instead of an electric one
• Lighting with sunlight or candles
• Hemp textiles
• To water plants with drip irrigation
• Paper sheets for note-taking
• To clean with a broom (rather than a vacuum cleaner)
• To find one's
  GPS
  )

Philosophy

Among the thinkers opposed to modern technologies,

Differences between green-tech and low-tech

This section is empty. You can help by adding to it. (April 2020)

Debate on the 'real' low-techs, and difference(s) with high tech

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Legal status of low-technology

By federal law in the United States, only those articles produced with little or no use of machinery or tools with complex mechanisms may be stamped with the designation "hand-wrought" or "hand-made". Lengthy court-battles are currently underway over the precise definition of the terms "organic" and "natural" as applied to

• Arts and Crafts Movement, popularized by Gustav Stickley
  in America around 1900.
• Bauhaus movement of Germany around the same time.
• Do-It-Yourself phenomenon arising in America following World War II
  .
• Back-to-the-land movement beginning in America during the 1960s.
• Luddites, whose activities date to the very beginning of the Industrial Revolution
  .
• Living history and open-air museums around the world, which strives to recreate bygone societies.
• Simple living adherents, such as the Amish and to a lesser extent some sects of the Mennonites, who specifically refuse some newer technologies to avoid undesirable effects on themselves or their societies.
• high-technology
  counterpart.

See also

• Obsolescence
• Do it yourself
• Anti-consumerism
• Degrowth
• Simple living
• Embodied energy
• Intermediate technology
  – sometimes used to mean technology between low and high technology
• Pre-industrial society

Sources

• Falk, William W.; Lyson, Thomas A. (1988). High tech, low tech, no tech: recent industrial and occupational change in the South. SUNY Press.
  ISBN 9780887067297
  .

• De Decker, Kris (2012). Low-tech magazine (tome 1 and 2). Low-tech Magazine.
  ISBN 9781794711525
  .

• Watson, Julia (2020). Lo—TEK. Design by Radical Indigenism. Taschen.
  ISBN 978-3836578189
  .

• Peter Ginn (2019). Slow Tech: The Perfect Antidote to Today's Digital World. Haynes UK.
  ISBN 9781785216169
  .