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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/9469
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Consider general problems/trends/concepts instead of specific realizations/models, then think up techs that resolve/accentuate the general ideas you started with.

<sup><strong>Techs</strong> here don't have to be electronic. Anything that has a clear method/blueprint is a tech to me. So, a government, a math theorem, a tablet, a pen and a paper, a template of anything, a human language, a programming language, and so on and so forth, are all techs as far as I'm concerned. Although I'm sure I'm butchering the definition of the word right now--apologies.</sup>

So instead of "cell-phones", think "easy communication". Radio waves were already being utilized for radio/TV and various military uses. Sure it'd be desirable to have the hassle-free (physically, no wires and all) way of radio communication be more accessible. Now, how does it become available? Is it an offshoot from a high-budget military project? The brainchild of a mad scientist? How would it be different in either case (or in others)?

Notice, I didn't say _"imagine its final look and function"_. I said, _"get the general concept, think up/find sources that could help make it real,"_ and then, _"see how it'd differ, being the result of these different beginnings, each considered in isolation or close pairs"_.

In other words, don't pick a reference frame, just keep jumping and paint a fuzzy as fuzzy can be mental map of the relations between the different ways to realize your conceptual tech in the real world, as it is considered from the different perspectives of different beginning points.

So, instead of little note-pad-sized screens with keys, cell-phones could have started off as a sort of portable communications portal,still reliant on central com-stations? Like, a bracelet that lets the wearer access a phone-box (small ones, that are themselves wireless, but bigger than modern mobiles), the bracelet being his number. Or maybe it began with text messaging, and that became cell-phones' dominant use afterwards. Sure, it sounds ridiculous to _us_, but I'd have no problem believing it, considering the different origin stories of the concept and its realization (though I haven't talked yet about origin stories for concepts, that's to come).

So, let's take a modern example... Let me know in the comments which you prefer:

1. **Trans-humanism;**

2. Global communications, AIs and virtual reality;

3. Space travel and inter-planetary -stellar colonization.

Be warned, however, that I'm not even a 'respectable amateur' in any of these subjects. So my detailed example would be quite a bit detached from the latest in the fields. After it's posted and judged, tell me whether it's _yeah_, _urgh_, or _please no_. I'll try to explain it in a more abstract manner

<sub>That wasn't as detailed as I'd hoped I could make it. For now I'll ask you to accept it as is... Let's see if I don't botch it up in a later edit ;)</sub>

Original score: 4