Last Saturday’s Dominion Post got us thinking about the possibilities. Siobhan Downes reckons today’s singles rely on smartphones and aircraft. “We’re logging on to get off,” she says. The next partner might be anywhere in the world, which might partly explain why people are flying more, and further, than ever before.
A few generations ago things were different. People used ordinary phones, or passed notes at school, and travelled by car. Or they went down to High Street, the boys showing off their cars, and the girls checking them out. The girls were not always looking for what the boys thought they were. But millions of people in the twentieth and twenty-first century have been conceived in cars, testifying to the success of this particular mating strategy. We know the names of some of their parents. But we’re not telling.
Before the car they had letters, and the horse and cart, but for most people, hooking up meant taking part in traditional mating rituals such as dancing around the maypole. Even then, technology was central to hooking up. Often the process involved special clothing, body paint, jewelry. Tests of strength for young men involved weaponry and camouflage.
We know technology has been central to hooking up for thousands of years. Odysseus strutting his stolen Trojan chariot looks pretty-much like a typical Hutt Valley hot-rodder doing his thing at Port Road.
The question is, when did it start?
Most likely, in our opinion, sometime after the invention of the first tool. The oldest known hammer is about 2.6 million years old. Once you have a hammer, you can start inventing things that might attract members of the opposite sex. Some people might say the hammer itself could have been used for hooking up. The stereotypical stone-age mating cartoon shows Ug dragging an unconscious partner back to his cave, club in hand. Logic suggests no-one living today has descended from Ug. Killing your partner is not a viable mating strategy.
That’s why we think the hammer was used to attract the opposite sex, not to enslave or abuse them. What we don’t know is how. Perhaps it was used to make tools that were then used to make useful items such as clothing. The person who invented sewing, for example, probably became something of a bigshot.
Technologically-mediated bonking, then, is younger than the hammer. But how much younger? Archaeologists have found jewelry reliably estimated to be about 100,000 years old. We reckon people were giving each other gifts of clothing long before that. The first fur coat would have been a thing of wonder. But when everyone has a fur coat, you have stand out from the crowd. You can do that by inventing jewelry.
But then, if no-one has a fur coat, you could probably impress the opposite sex just by making a good knife or inventing an easier way to start a fire. People have been doing those things for a lot longer than a hundred thousand years.
That’s why we’re pretty sure technology has been central to hooking up for probably at least a million years, maybe more than two. Logging on to get off is nothing new. It’s just the latest variation on a million-year-old theme, and one of many long-established aspects of life as technological organisms. It is called “courting”.
This is Techogeny.
We are Technorg.
A few generations ago things were different. People used ordinary phones, or passed notes at school, and travelled by car. Or they went down to High Street, the boys showing off their cars, and the girls checking them out. The girls were not always looking for what the boys thought they were. But millions of people in the twentieth and twenty-first century have been conceived in cars, testifying to the success of this particular mating strategy. We know the names of some of their parents. But we’re not telling.
Before the car they had letters, and the horse and cart, but for most people, hooking up meant taking part in traditional mating rituals such as dancing around the maypole. Even then, technology was central to hooking up. Often the process involved special clothing, body paint, jewelry. Tests of strength for young men involved weaponry and camouflage.
We know technology has been central to hooking up for thousands of years. Odysseus strutting his stolen Trojan chariot looks pretty-much like a typical Hutt Valley hot-rodder doing his thing at Port Road.
The question is, when did it start?
Most likely, in our opinion, sometime after the invention of the first tool. The oldest known hammer is about 2.6 million years old. Once you have a hammer, you can start inventing things that might attract members of the opposite sex. Some people might say the hammer itself could have been used for hooking up. The stereotypical stone-age mating cartoon shows Ug dragging an unconscious partner back to his cave, club in hand. Logic suggests no-one living today has descended from Ug. Killing your partner is not a viable mating strategy.
That’s why we think the hammer was used to attract the opposite sex, not to enslave or abuse them. What we don’t know is how. Perhaps it was used to make tools that were then used to make useful items such as clothing. The person who invented sewing, for example, probably became something of a bigshot.
Technologically-mediated bonking, then, is younger than the hammer. But how much younger? Archaeologists have found jewelry reliably estimated to be about 100,000 years old. We reckon people were giving each other gifts of clothing long before that. The first fur coat would have been a thing of wonder. But when everyone has a fur coat, you have stand out from the crowd. You can do that by inventing jewelry.
But then, if no-one has a fur coat, you could probably impress the opposite sex just by making a good knife or inventing an easier way to start a fire. People have been doing those things for a lot longer than a hundred thousand years.
That’s why we’re pretty sure technology has been central to hooking up for probably at least a million years, maybe more than two. Logging on to get off is nothing new. It’s just the latest variation on a million-year-old theme, and one of many long-established aspects of life as technological organisms. It is called “courting”.
This is Techogeny.
We are Technorg.
