[Borodog]

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A hundred years ago technology had only a minor impact on the day to day lives of people.

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I disagree completely. Technology dominated peoples' lives one hundred years ago exactly as much as it does today. Every facet of every moment of every day in 1905 involved technologies in manufacturing, agriculture, medicine, etc. Every human being in western civilisation in 1905 covered themselves with manufactured goods, made their homes from manufactured tools, was employed in some task that required manufactured goods, etc. Boots, buttons, cloth, knives, guns, glasses, buggy whips, plows, machines, everything. In fact, man is defined by his technology. Without our technology we are naked apes, shivering and being eaten by bears.

Just yesterday it occured to me that everthing in the modern world, literally hundreds of billions of manufactured items, is the end result of an unbroken chain of manufacture that muse go back a minimum of seven to ten thousand years, possibly longer. Modern goods are made from tools and machines that were made with tools and machines that were made with tools and machines . . . The last time that tools themselves were created from nothing but new, raw materials available in and on the Earth, and the application of nothing but human labor, had to be many thousands of years ago. It could be argued that certain native tribes in North America and elsewhere around the globe that still practiced raw toolmaking traditions like stone knapping are exceptions. But I would argue that those tool lineagaes are almost certainly extinct. Modern tools like manufactured knives have completely replaced native toolmaking traditions.

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Furthermore at least 20% of the population had at least a vague understanding of those technolgies along with the ability if, need be, to grasp them more fully.

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I doubt this as well. Did 20% of the population in 1905 know how to manufacture gun powder, a thousand year old technology? Did 20% of the population know how to make steel? How to weave cloth? Manufacture paper? How to build and operate a steam engine? How to make a gun? And to the extent that there was some fraction of the population "vaguely familiar" with the principles behind these technologies, I would argue that percentage has not dropped in the modern populace (as poor as our education system is, there is still bound to be 20% of the population that succedes in spite of it).

I would argue that in 1905 the division of labor was as absolute as it is now, and that few people worried about how the locomotive worked or how to make gun powder, unless they worked on locomotives or at a gun powder plant.

As for technologies becoming ever more intricate with ever fewer people able to understand them, we already have that. A modern airliner is so complex that no one member of the team of engineers that designs it has a complete understanding of every component and scientific principle behind the design. Engines are ordered from engine manufacturers that meet certain specifications. It weighs so much, consumes so much fuel, produces so much thrust, etc. The people designing the wing most likely have only a rudimentary understanding of the mechanics of the engine, and the people who made the engine probably have only a rudimentary understanding of wing design. The human factors engineers who design the cockpit have little understanding of aerodynamics and lift, or hydraulic controls, or landing gear design, etc.

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Now, and even more so in the not too distant future, technology will have a major impact on peoples's lives. And only maybe five percent of the population will have even the most cursory understanding of how the gadgets that almost eveyone will be so dependent on, works. Even fewer will be smart enough to have any hope of fully understanding their underlying pricnciples and even fewer still, actually will.

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Paradoxically I think you're being both to harsh on people and too generous. I think that we're already at the point where the majority of people have only a rudimentary understanding of how the technologies we're dependent on work, but I believe that if not most, at least a good chunk of people do in fact have that rudimentary understanding. Which, given the division of labor, is probably more than they require at all.

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I wondering what effect this will have on thinking people.

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I suspect very little.