Granted. One day, if humanity needs to take a spaceship to another planet to survive, the knowledge of how that spaceship needs to be maintained would be a technology that humanity depends on for its survival. But what about today? Although there are a large variety of existing technologies, none of it involves the survival of humanity as a whole, right? That depends on how you define technology.
What is technology? It is the knowledge of how to use the resources at our disposal to make devices that serve specific purposes. Well, it does not have to involved physical devices. Technology can also be represented by methodology – techniques of how to do things. Often the use of specific tools requires some sophisticated knowledge.
If we see it broadly enough, almost all the knowledge that we have can to some extent be seen as some form of technology. Perhaps it would be a stretch to think of the waltz as a form of technology, but that may be the exception.
So what technology, seen in this broader sense, is vital for the survival of humanity today? Well, in this broad sense, the technology of acquiring and maintaining knowledge is in itself also a technology. In fact, the mechanism for the way humanity learns and uses knowledge can be seen as a technology. When viewed in this way, it is clear that such a technology would be something that humanity needs for its survival.
This technology has a name. It is called culture. One may think of culture as things like theater, cuisine, fashion, etc., but culture is much more than that. These things are high culture, which is just a tiny part of culture. One may think that culture is a fixed rigid thing, but that is not the case. It evolves and changes as time goes by. One may think of culture as just a collection of traditions and activities, but in fact, it is a mechanism.
Culture is the most important mechanism by which humanity maintains its survival in an ever changing world. If we lose it, we are in a serious situation. I’m not taking about “losing our cultures,” instead I’m referring to losing the mechanism of culture.
Culture is a feedback system that filters new ideas and maintains the best among them. For this to work, it is important that new ideas are tested before they are propagated through the population. This mechanism is under threat today. The rate at which ideas are propagated far outpaces the rate at which these ideas are tried and tested. The result is that false information is spread far and wide. People are responding to it with detrimental consequences. This process erodes the very mechanism of culture and thus threatens the survival of humanity.
Flippiefanus 
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