The constant labor of canoeing or snowshoeing has been eliminated by outboard engines and snowmobiles. They can more easily import and store the food they need, and they enjoy pleasures like sweets and alcohol. The good news is that, nowadays, the Oji-Cree no longer face the threat of winter starvation, which regularly killed people in earlier times. In our lingo, we might say that they went through a rapid evolution, advancing through hundreds of years of technology in just a few decades. The Oji-Cree eagerly embraced these new tools. The Oji-Cree have been in contact with European settlers for centuries, but it was only in the nineteen-sixties, when trucks began making the trip north, that newer technologies like the internal combustion engine and electricity really began to reach the area. Another visitor, in the nineteen-fifties, wrote of their “ingenuity, courage, and self-sacrifice,” noting that, in the North, “only those prepared to face hardship and make sacrifices could survive.” A doctor who worked with the Oji-Cree in the nineteen-forties has noted the absence of mental breakdowns or substance abuse within the population, observing that “the people lived a rugged, rigorous life with plenty of exercise.” The Oji-Cree invariably impressed foreigners with their vigor and strength. Snowshoes, dog sleds, and canoes were the main modes of transportation, used to track and kill fish, rabbits, and moose for food. As nomads, they lived in tents during the summer, and in cabins during the winter. For much of the twentieth century, the Oji-Cree lived at a technological level that can be described as relatively simple.

Here live the Oji-Cree, a people, numbering about thirty thousand, who inhabit a cold and desolate land roughly the size of Germany. We can test the “Increasing” theory by taking a quick trip up north, to an isolated area south of the Hudson Bay.

Some, like the Wired founder Kevin Kelly, believe that the answer is a resounding “yes.” In his book “What Technology Wants,” Kelly writes: “Technology wants what life wants: Increasing efficiency Increasing opportunity Increasing emergence Increasing complexity Increasing diversity Increasing specialization Increasing ubiquity Increasing freedom Increasing mutualism Increasing beauty Increasing sentience Increasing structure Increasing evolvability.” Assuming that we really are evolving as we wear or inhabit more technological prosthetics-like ever-smarter phones, helpful glasses, and brainy cars-here’s the big question: Will that type of evolution take us in desirable directions, as we usually assume biological evolution does?

The Master Switch by Tim Wu