The title is maybe just a little extreme. I dont stay away from high tech entirely. I have a telephone and a computer and I drive a car. But when it comes to me creating my own technology, like kayaks, tents and paddles, I prefer low tech. My main reason for preferring low tech is that it has a short supply chain. That is, tools and materials needed to produce low tech goods are generally available in the immediate environment and do not require complex layered technologies to support them.
I generally prefer hand tools to power tools because they are not dependent on electricity or batteries.
When I make things for other people, like paddles for instance, I use power tools because they cut down the amount of time it takes to make them so that I can price them competitively.
On the other hand, when I make paddles for myself and have no urgency about completing them, I can use salvaged wood and do the carving with an ax and a draw knife, no sanding needed.
I have a sufficient supply of hand tools to last me the rest of my life, but should I need some new tool, I know enough blacksmiths to have them make it for me.
I sharpen my own planes and chisels and can make new bodies and handles for them as needed.
Saws are a little more difficult to maintain. I do not have the tools to keep them sharp. Perhaps I should.
So what is it that makes me want a short supply chain? It is pessimism about the stability of supply chains I guess. High tech goods follow fashion and dont have a very long life span. As soon as you learn how to use a new high tech tool or material, it is replaced by a newer version and you have to learn all over, wasting time and assuring a consistently low grade product. But never mind. The high tech tool or product does not have to last. It will be superseded by a new version making the thing you made obsolete before it breaks down. No one should care that the thing you made them will only last three years as long as you bring out a new version every two years.
But I like things to work reliably for as long as possible and high tech is short lived. Nor is high tech gear expected to work right. I remember a tech rep doing something to a mass spectrometer in a lab that I was working on in school. The professor whose spectrometer it was grumbled about reliability and the tech retorted, "What do you expect? Were pushing the state of the art here."
I guess I would prefer something to work at the cost of not pushing the state of the art.
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