Jared Diamond summarizes the conditions beneficial to the
development of technology in chapter 13, titled "Necessity's
Mother."
Hence, all other things being equal, technology
develops fastest in large productive regions with large human populations, many
potential inventors, and many competing
societies.
He highlights the
value of having a society that is sedentary, as members then have the ability to
accumulate goods. Nomadic societies would be limited to easily portable technologies.
Contact with other societies is also beneficial in that technology can diffuse from one
society to another. Technology was (and still is) frequently inspired by other
societies and then tweaked to meet a certain need, causing an evolution of the
technology.
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