What modernity is built from technology?

The history of humanity has been intrinsically linked to the development of technology, how we apply different devices to our daily life is essential to speak of "progress"; We should not automatically refer to the description of our present or the desire for our future, the historical or even geographical context, are variables that subordinate the conception of "technology". Primitive society depended on the success of its tools when hunting, just as modern society depends on its computers to work and communicate; Thus, in one way or another, there is a relationship between the purposes of each object, because they build and allow describing a society, and even condition the way in which it develops with its environment, without forgetting the purpose of each one of them. : Obtaining food or obtaining money (for the indicated examples).

If we refer to the semantic aspect of the word "technology", the Royal Spanish Academy gives it different meanings, one of them: "set of industrial instruments and procedures of a certain sector or product"[1]. At this level of meaning, the Royal Academy sees technology as a whole, in addition to the fact that the level of analysis remains in the material aspect, it is not interrelated with the another meaning that it gives as the “language proper to a science or an art”[2]; the same meaning seems to generate a dichotomy, on the one hand we are told about the technique, that is, the instruments and procedures, while on the other, we are referred to the inclusion of one more variable: science.

However, there is another connotation that is given to this word, which breaks with this false dichotomy by combining both properties (the technical and the scientific), to understand it as the "set of theories and techniques that allow the practical use of scientific knowledge." ”[3]; Because of this, we can then elucidate some features that will be essential to answer our initial question, which are: science, technique, scientific knowledge, industrial products and procedures.

Laboratory tests on the resistance of materials.

All material goods are the product of an industrial process; Every industrial process is the product of the technical application of scientific knowledge. This knowledge employs the exact sciences, that is, chemistry, physics, mathematics or any other "formal" scientific knowledge. Therefore, we must understand the entire framework that exists behind any processed material good, since it is the result of the "progress" of humanity and, in turn, as I indicated at the beginning, conditions its development, since the degree of scientific knowledge that is applied is increasingly sophisticated, not only that, the international political economy is also another variable, so what do we have?

The science behind power structures

What we obtain is scientific knowledge materialized in industries that, thanks to the international economic structure, are established in strategic nations, which take advantage of the characteristics of States, such as political and commercial protection or, in the worst case scenario, gaps. laws that allow them easy access to the natural resources with which their goods will be manufactured. This is how the longed for "progress" is only lived in the poles endowed with a historical privilege; those societies that were able to consolidate their scientific communities and that thanks to their wealthier social classes were able to build large monopolies over essential resources. It was with the Netherlands and the case of the consolidation of the Dutch East India Company on cloth, as well as spices; also the United Kingdom and the companies that emerged thanks to the Industrial Revolution that not only enjoyed technological innovation applied to industrial processes but also applied to means of transport, which brought with it a strong dependence on energy resources, starting with coal .

The British Pound continues to enjoy solid monetary stability.

As can be seen, talking about technology is not easy, the variables are so many that we can choose just one to analyze it and draw conclusions, however, scientific innovation is not only present in the exact sciences, the social sciences have observed for years carefully the development of each of these variables generating multiple theories to be able to anticipate decisions at the political level and, more recently, at the transnational level. One of them is the analysis of complex systems, where the variables come to be defined as elements of a system with exclusive properties that are not the simple addition of the properties of the elements; This system has a structure determined by the set of relations of the elements and not by the elements themselves; In addition to the fact that the relationships that characterize the structure constitute ties that are dynamic and that fluctuate permanently, at some point their fluctuation can be such that they can lead to a new structure[4].

What the previous conception of the world tells us, in simple words, is that: not only are there variables, but there are relationships between them, which give rise to a unique context in constant change and that at a certain point, the complexity of they can be such that they give rise to a new reality of power relations, economic relations or any type of relationship. This theory is characterized by using the social sciences and the exact sciences to study its unit of analysis: complex systems. However, neo-Marxist conceptions also provide us with a great background to study technology and modern society; the relations of force seen as social classes and their relationship with the structure coincide in the vision of complex systems when analyzing power and the historical context.

The multiplicity of variables is not only visible in the number of industries, products, raw materials, economies or regions, but also in science. What theory or school of thought is indicated to study the phenomenon of technology? What theory can be the most accurate in describing this phenomenon?

The theoretical abstraction of reality makes it possible to provide a language to international phenomena

For now, for the immediate purposes of this study, we will make some notes between the ideas of the World-System and also of Interdependence. The first meaning was a pioneer in describing the technological development that the Netherlands had in Europe in the 16th-17th centuries, it adopted the concept of "hegemony" to describe the phenomenon of superimposing the interests of one nation over others, thanks to its resources. of power and its economic bonanza. Subsequently, this characteristic (that of hegemony) was granted to two other nations: the United Kingdom and, later, United States. This transfer of power between one nation and another is caused, among many other factors, by the industrial monopoly of cutting-edge technologies and the availability of certain raw materials[5].

On the other hand, in "After Hegemony", an interdependence work, it is evaluated that hegemonic stability is possible if and only if a hegemony has full control over the sources of capital, exercises control over markets, has comparative advantages in the production of high value-added goods and also has access to and control over crucial raw materials[6]. The latter is essential, we already have two authors who speak to us about the importance of raw materials, and even more: crucial raw materials.

One more link: crucial raw materials

Many of the crucial raw materials are mined in the open air, causing further environmental pollution.

In 2006, the National Research Council of the United States introduced the term “critical raw materials” to refer to those essential elements for the US economy based on their availability and the importance of their applications[7]. With this, it was detected that there were elements capable of forming superalloys with other metals, which are used in industries, such as aeronautics, due to their ability to resist high temperatures, in addition to reducing corrosion and extending the useful life of the final products. There are not only potential economic advantages, but also environmental ones, since the use of certain elements with unique magnetic properties such as Neodymium, allows us to gradually abandon the use of fossil fuels, since their applications are aimed at creating batteries and motors in electrical automobiles.

However, we must remember availability, a variable that makes these raw materials "crucial", since by themselves they are not capable of functioning, that is, they need other inputs; For example: tungsten carbide needs cobalt to form cemented carbides, which are used by the mining industry as cutting tools, its properties are its extreme hardness and its resistance to compression[[8]](# _ftn8). After various scientific investigations, it was concluded that the only substitute for this superalloy is another, made up of boron and nitrogen, in its binary compound: boron nitride. Tungsten, cobalt, and boron are on the list of crucial raw materials and are distributed around the globe, with China being the largest exporter of tungsten, the United States of boron, and the Democratic Republic of Congo of cobalt. [9]. Availability falls on the slopes of: vulnerability to supply restriction caused by trade barriers or political instability, as well as whether or not there is any other substitute. A clear example of this was what happened in 1970 in Zaire (Democratic Republic of the Congo), the outbreak of the civil war caused a decrease in the availability of cobalt and in turn caused the General Electric Research Laboratories to seek alternatives to this element used in electric batteries, which led to the use of rhenium as the main substitute[10].

Reality is a reflection of our science, are we satisfied with what we have done?

It seems that humanity is in a loop; where its incessant consumer need leads it to acquire new products that are capable of increasing the dominance of its wealthier social classes against those less fortunate, it goes without saying that the technological applications of crucial raw materials range from medicine (in neurodegenerative and cancer), renewable energies to what is presumed as “progress”; it is partly true. The scientific communities around the globe have allowed us to once again yearn for a progressive future, to be ever closer to reducing the ravages of pollution and, with this, safeguarding lives or improving air quality. However, there is another, harsher reality, where transnational companies with their investigative capacity and economic resources are capable of breaking weak States. Where is the safeguard of the population, when the State is incapable of providing security?

We see it in Bolivia, where lithium, another crucial raw material, was a suspect in the overthrow of a left-wing government; in Mexico, where the capacity of the State is increasingly questioned due to its inability to stop the attacks of [drug trafficking] groups (https://cemeri.org/art/estados-unidos-guerra-contra-drogas-america- latina-half-century-failures/) in key states, where lithium was recently found; in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where its institutional weakness allows children to work in cobalt mines, or in China, where the irresponsible extraction of resources such as rare earths has allowed high levels of contamination. Modernity, like our structures and institutions, must be questioned, since scientific progress has improved the quality of life in certain cities, technological innovations have been accompanied by great successes, but also by great conflicts for power.

Cobalt mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The hegemony of a nation depends on its accessibility to natural resources and its innovation in cutting-edge technology industries, and social scientists talk about it, however, we must not forget where we stand, as a Mexican nation, our political context and social leads us towards certain ways of conceiving international reality, thanks to the technologies that we have within our reach, we have been allowed to see the world in a certain way, therefore, the future of this society, the Mexican one, is conditioned by the ties with its environment, the exploitation of natural resources within our reach and how busy society is in reflecting on its life, its modernity. The same applies to any other type of society, questioning: What modernity is built from technology?, should lead us to rethink our mode of production and take into account cultural and socioeconomic variables and the complexity of power relations of the nations where we live. Only in this way will we obtain collective or individual answers in a clear and correct way.