Efficiency is an objective measure that we can there are all sorts of ways we can measure efficiency, but they're not universal. I would say that efficiency is just another social value judgment. There are a lot of things that we just assume because they're our culture. As the things that look efficient aren't necessary. The things that we see, maybe it's efficient because i'm because it's made by the right person and works better.
Catherine Frieman, an associate professor of European Archaeology at the School of Archaeology, talks about her recent book, An Archaeology of Innovation: Approaching Social and Technological Change in Human Society, with Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel. Her book offers a long-term perspective on innovation that only archaeology can offer and draws on case studies from across human history, from our earliest hominin ancestors to the present. The book makes several different arguments, but one of them is that our present narrow focus on pushing the adoption of technical innovations—especially so called “disruptive innovations”—ignores the complex social, technological, and environmental systems that undergirds successful societies.
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