[wearywanderer]

> human-operable motorized transport devices

Also known as 'automobile' or 'motor vehicle.' Cars are really just a subset of automobiles. It's less weird when you phrase it like that, using established terminology, right?

[smoldesu]

And now we've come full circle. That was my original point: we can abstract technologies like this into their original components, but it doesn't do any good to do so.

[wearywanderer]

What you call "abstract technology to their original components", I call understanding the historic context of technology.

I think there is a lot of value in understanding that context. Without looking at that historic context, people are more likely to let their imaginations run wild and inadvertently come to believe things that aren't true (a significant portion of the general public believe Henry Ford invented cars...) or come to view technologies with an unwarranted level of awe and tunnel vision (the way 3d printing seems to be viewed by some, as mystical Star Trek replicator technology that came out of nowhere.) More generally, if people don't understand the true historic context of technology they become more likely to believe things that aren't true about technology. There is inherent value in dispelling myths and providing historic context for technology does exactly that.

And why is it important to break a technology down into it's constituent fundamental traits or properties? Because almost always the historical context of a technology includes technologies that did not share the same name. If you're talking about the history of cars but limit the scope of your consideration to things called cars, you won't get back much further than the 1890s. But if you break the concept of a car down, it becomes clear that you need to consider the history of wheeled vehicles and the history of motorized vehicles. Self-propelled traction engine are one of the conceptual predecessors to the machines we now call cars. They share 'abstract concepts' with cars (a wheeled vehicle, not on rails, which can move around under its own power), but not a name. Traction engines aren't cars, but are important historic context for cars. If you aren't willing to consider the abstract attributes that constitute a car, you cannot consider the true historic context of cars.