Primal widget: the most powerful piece of technology almost everybody carries almost all the time in a given milieu
Backwards from today:
smartphone
wristwatch
umbrella
kerchief/towel
pen
hat or turban
knife
sword
bag/basket
walkey-pokey stick
Am I missing any?
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Yes I’m still on my sonic-screwdriver/multi-tool kick. Their fictional provenance is wands and staffs of course, but their real historical provenance is fascinating.
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For example it didn’t hit me till I thought about it, but the HHG towel has a real provenance in a primal widget. Handkerchiefs and neck-kerchiefs in the west and actual towels or turban towels (hence towelhead as a slur) in Asia.
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In India the traditional men’s upper garment is a thin towel. It got refined into a non-functional towel, such as Narendra Modi often sports. Fancy ones are often made of very non-towel material like silk. Unlike HHG towels, the stripes do not contain nutrients you can suck on.
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Fine, fine sub “middle class” for “almost everybody”
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Missed an important one. Matches (and lighters, flint/steel etc)
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Replying to @vgr
matches
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Not sure shoes belong on the list. Yes they’re a fairly sophisticated tech, but they’re actually in-use continuously as clothing, not just carried as an optionality widget.
Also excluding jewellery and religious/magical objects that serve no practical purpose.
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Replying to @vgr
Shoes, sandals
Artistic or magical things to be worn
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Keys are a big one I missed.
Tobacco type things (also hip flasks, chewing gum), hmm... mood-altering tech. Kinda borderline, but I think they qualify.
Photos of people... I think out. They’re not tech. Same as crucifixes or charms, just personal. 🤔
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Replying to @vgr
Keys: Identity, Ownership
Photograph: Of children or lover
Perhaps also tobacco eg. snuff, cigs (or other state altering compounds)
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Hmm. Belts are an interesting case. In the form of a sash or cummerbund, they’re just a variant on the towel theme, but the leather buckled kind perhaps qualifies. Kinda unit asked though, unless you make it a platform by adding apps like holsters, scabbards, etc.
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Hmm. Money as ultimate social tech multitool 🤔
Swiss-army knife of consensual microeconomic stabbings
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Water containers? I guess leather waterskins yes, and perhaps modern bottles, but not pots. That’s cargotech, not primal widget-tech.
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Okay sunglasses are in
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Replying to @vgr
+ sunglasses? Polarization was a whole thing that was developed, too.
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Hmm. Illumination tech: torches, candles, lanterns, flashlights.
A bit too specialized for my taste, but they’re now in primal widget land as part of the phone and sometimes keychains
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Left out firearms because they were/are everyday carry only in very specific times/places unlike bladed weapons which were much more common.
Also, the American tacticool mall ninja EDC culture built around firearms annoys me as poisoning a generally fun aspect of human life
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Combs and small mirrors were once common but I think they were not very universal, and rarely the most versatile tech on someone. More vanity tech.
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