If technology is artifact (which it is much more) of …complex human practices, then tool building is a practice that exists within human culture - thus there's some sense in asserting that "technology is a function of culture"

Within the historical elaboration in the designs of tool/artifact, there's what I'd call (to rearrange the above phrase) 'the technology of cultural navigation' - that is - to assert - the thing that culture is, which varies in all sorts of ways, and some of them are (to others and the people inside of them - 'them' the many contexts that 'culture' provides / is the background of) more …desirable, 'given the choice, are found to be preferred', etc, than others.

Seeing that comparison, making that choice, participating in those conversations - this is what I'm calling here 'navigation'

to be continued with earlier distinctions (damn the task of finding them!) I've brought to the initial 'technology is a function of culture' assertion I first recall articulating for myself (in a particular conversation that would be circa 2016.

as of Saturday, June 20, 2020 at 11:47

“Cultural Navigation”

Since the course of technological design is a function of the culture developing it, it’s crucial that central in our expression of technology we design a cultural navigation feature.

With this sort of feature, we, together, could access the broadest possibility space of both culture and technology. Without navigating through the dimensions of this possibility space (think, ‘all the various interrelations of matters’), to that extent we’re propelled forward mechanically, exacerbating what already is.

What is a cultural navigation feature within the design of technology? Think of it as a collective sense making environment.* The chief feature of this publishing platform (hosting all subjects, open to all participants) that enables the relevant dynamics is that it works within two layers that relate to each other as metadata/data, or context/content. 

The content we’re interacting with is ultimately defined by the context we’re bringing to the reading of it, and if we can collaborate in identifying these presumptions that act on our experience of the world contextually, humanity is empowered to make choices free of being determined by how culture/things already is/are, and so together we navigate culture.

*I specifically speak of it as an environment, because of the way its structure is a receptacle for what can occupy it. Something I’m calling ‘cultural navigation’ can happen as a result of the dynamics its content moves.