Elf Tech: Low Complexity and Low Energy

Fukuoka Seed Ball

People are blind to the sophistication of "low technology". Low technology generally means non-electronic, which means there's not a computer involved in the operation of a device. Even the most rudimentary kitchen appliances and power tools today incorporate microcontrollers and digital sensors. You're very hard pressed to find a coffee maker, for example, that doesn't include a microcontroller. Power tools that seem as simple as dirt, like a table saw, often have a motor controller computer and sensors that spin up and maintain blade speed by changing the power that's delivered to windings as the load changes.

We also tend to equate "high technology" with the myth of progress and linear history. There's an obsessive compulsive, religious belief in the need to advance computerized technology. (The computer needs to be sophisticated enough to house their god.) Millions of people are essentially digitized already. They barely exist in the real world at all.

High tech appears to me, more and more, like the Orc Technology. It's an attempt to realize the feeble inner symbol-dominated world of man in physical form. Man at war with nature is the Orc.

Giant Sloth Skeleton

If nature's really good already, then what can we add? What does the Elf tech even look like? It seems like an oxymoron to begin with. A natural farmer is really only able to expend his energy so the landscape grows more plants that humans can use. However, in so doing, he takes his local environment out of its native state, which might have supported more life, and maybe even more people, overall; without man in the ice age, nature supported diverse mammals including megafauna like the giant sloth.

The Fukuoka seed ball approximates the elf tech. It's not complex, but it embodies a sophisticated strategy and understanding.