What do we mean by 'Technites' anyway?
Technités is Greek for those things we have made.
Both as someone who likes to make things with my own hands and as a technology history buff, I have found myself struggling for a positive word to describe the things we are proud to have made; the closest words, artifice and artificial, have such negative implications; I wanted a new more positive word. I went back to the Greek and found 'Technités' which seemed like a very apt word to adopt into English. But, of course, with the 'ite' ending it suggests people-associated-with 'Tech' -- How could I resist? So here I am hoping to coin a new word.
Let us then use 'Technites' to refer to people who love older technology; and let us distinguish ourselves from the modern 'Techie' who embraces data as technology, which is all fine and good, but what about taking pride in getting your hands greasy? And since I'm just making this up as I go, I picked, not-so-arbitrarily, the invention of solid-state electronics, particularly the transistor, as the marker to differentiate what I mean by "older" technology from newer.
For those wondering--yes, "Technites" is meant to be the semi-opposite of "Luddites." That said, many of us who love technology also keep a healthy fear and skepticism of loosing the very creativity, progress and em-betterment of society that inspired many of these great inventions, all as we get overwhelmed with an ever faster paced and face-less life, driven by technology.
If we can then, let us roll all of that up at once into the meaning of "Technites": People who promote the learning, creativity, inspiration and progress towards a better life fostered by human invention.
Or to give it our oversimplified motto -
Clockwork is Cool!
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