Kevin Kelly, an editor for Wired and Cool Tools, points out something that is both simple and profound. No piece of technology, once it becomes widely used, ever goes extinct. It doesn't matter if that technology has become obsolete. There are and always will be people who will continue to produce it. Robert Krulwich of NPR reports:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2011/02/01/133188723/tools-never-die-waddaya-mean-never and http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2011/02/01/133211209/am-i-extinct via GearFuse | Photo: Archaeology.org
Nothing? I asked. Brass helmets? Detachable shirt collars? Chariot wheels?
Nothing, he said.
Can't be, I told him. Tools do hang around, but some must go extinct.
If only because of the hubris — the absolute nature of the claim — I told him it would take me a half hour to find a tool, an invention that is no longer being made anywhere by anybody.
Go ahead, he said. Try.
If you listen to our Morning Edition debate, I tried carbon paper (still being made), steam powered car engine parts (still being made), Paleolithic hammers (still being made), 6 pages of agricultural tools from an 1895 Montgomery Ward & Co. Catalogue (every one of them still being made), and to my utter astonishment, I couldn't find a provable example of an technology that has disappeared completely.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2011/02/01/133188723/tools-never-die-waddaya-mean-never and http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2011/02/01/133211209/am-i-extinct via GearFuse | Photo: Archaeology.org
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8231540/Last-remaining-mud-horse-fisherman-fears-art-will-die-with-him.html
His sons don't want to do it so once he's dead, it's dead.
How about betamax? 8 Track tapes? zip drives? 8" floppy disks? tape drives?
Rabbit-ear TV's. I live in the Philippines and I just bought one. Betamax is Sony's version of the VHS tape. Also Betacam and Digibeta, the industrial version of the Betamax, is still being made. Remote controls are still being made. As are 8 tracks and floppy discs. The latter two can be easily found in Shenzhen. And Hong Kong. I think a lot of you are confused by the statement. He is not saying all things ever made are still being made. He is saying that the TECHNOLOGY is still being made.
It was a technology for gilding bronze by painting artefacts with an amalgam of gold and mercury, then burning off the mercury. It tended to kill off the artisans.
It has not been used anywhere in the world since it was banned in France around 1830. The quality of the finish is said to be superior to any attempts to replicate it through other methods.
What's my prize?
@matt: sme theorize thats its actually poored on site...like concrete.
Or ivory billiard balls.
Or ashtrays made from elephants feet.
I hope not.
Time to reinvest in that buggy whip company.
Greek Fire = napalm... The concept here is not the identical product but the technology/item itself. We don't use whale blubber for candles but we still have candles and if you want a whale blubber candle, you probably can find one somewhere between Japan and Hong Kong. Damascus steel specifically may be a lost recipe, but clearly we still make swords as close to it as we can...
And now with etsy and the internet, any niche recreationist group can enjoy their obscure retro art...
Oh, and the mud flats thing... yea, and we don't have horse archers as good as the mongols but we still have archers and horses and such... just not as talented...
The notion was not that it is impossible to replicate the technnologies but that they never cease to be used. Some things that once were widespread, could be replicated but have long ceased to be used are: using lead in wine as a sweetener, the use of woven asbestos table cloths, making and using radioactive toothpaste, and making ormolu. Nobody continues to produce them. They are extinct.
Some technologies are genuinely lost. For example, despite many theories, thus far nobody has replicated the technology that Stradivarius used to make his violins of incomparable tone. Lost. Extinct.
Thank you, ted! Finally I understand why so many people in that bar I visited had holes in their umbrella.