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[TheBiggerFish]

......
But it isn't irrelevant how the outcome is achieved.

[NullForceOmega]

Does it use light to capture an image?  Yes?  Still basic optics.  Doesn't matter if the medium is chemical, biological (tho' the tech to create a functioning biotech replacement would be a different issue) or digital.

[Shadowlord]

And ALL CAMERAS FUNCTION ON THE SAME PRINCIPLES THE EXACT METHOD OF CAPTURING THE LIGHT IS IRRELEVANT.  IT IS STILL BASIC OPTICS.

Incorrect.

[TheBiggerFish]

The principles behind actually capturing it aren't basic optics.
Focusing, that's optics.

[NullForceOmega]

Edit.

[Frumple]

... does it use energy to move things? Yes? Still basic motor. The means which it uses the energy is irrelevant.

This is a strange way to try to categorize the world.

[Shadowlord]

So now we're down to:  'I'm right', 'No, I'm right'?  Is that the best you can do?

Sending signal to optic nerve is very different from storing it into flash memory which is very different from allowing light to expose photographic film.
Also the mechanism of capturing the light in the first place is a completely different technology between simple photographic-film-based cameras and digital cameras (and I don't know what eye-replacements use).

[NullForceOmega]

Regardless of it using digital or chemical storage medium, it is still using lenses to focus and capture the image, so it is still a camera.  The medium is a different technology, one is chemical, wherein the light causes a reaction that permanently copies the image, one is digital, where the data is captured and can be reproduced as long as it is in memory.

The eye replacement tech is a very small digital camera in a specialized housing, the last report I saw the camera was to small to even capture color images, and the quality was very bad, but usable, I do not have data beyond that.  The 'technology' that allows it to translate to human optics is partially neuroplasticity, a concept that we are still trying to understand fully, the other part appears to be some form of signal converter.

[Frumple]

... so what's the heuristic we're supposed to be using to determine what the important part of the technology is, anyway? Like, me, I'd consider the capturing bits (i.e. the chemical or digital aspect) significantly more important than the lenses (lots of stuff we don't call cameras use lenses to focus and capture an image, they just tend to use the existent biological systems for the capturing method), and I'm curious how this system is doing its... granularity, I think the word is. Because with what's been said so far, I'd be charitably calling it unclear.

[Shadowlord]

TL;Dr: Telescopes and binoculars are cameras now.

[NullForceOmega]

I suppose that due to my poor attempts at communication a great deal of what I am trying to convey is being lost.

All cameras function on the principles of optics, optics is a distinct technology.  The medium of capture is different, there are currently two forms that I am aware of, in a film camera there is a chemical medium that is reactive, in a digital medium there is a sensor that converts the captured image into data.

Both are cameras, both fulfill the same function, but the part that matters is the method of capture, as it is the consistent factor to it being a camera.

In the previous example of a maglev vs. a steam engine, if you are comparing them as trains, then they are functionally identical, if you are comparing their drive system, they are functionally distinct.

In the previous example of a melted-salt reactor vs. Chernobyl's light-water reactor, they are the same technology, with a refinement to cooling, they still operate on identical principles.

Edit: Also, there are digital telescopes, radio telescopes and I am sure many other forms of long-distance imaging devices for observation and capture, we call them telescopes because of their function, just like trains, motors, cameras, computers, reactors, furnaces .etc.

[Shadowlord]

You need both lenses and some kind of capture technology to make a camera. They're both important to it.

[ManMan]

What was the original point you were trying to make, that humanity hasn't developed a lot after 1950 because we didn't invent a lot of things?

[NullForceOmega]

The original point is that our overall technological evolution increased geometrically for a period of time, then suddenly stalled.  I don't know what the reasons for that are, but revisions to existing systems is NOT the same as the creation of new systems, it is entirely possible that we have simply plateaued and need to reach a higher level of revision for new technologies to begin developing again, but currently we are not moving.

Edit: Yes, Shadowlord, you are correct, but we, as a rule, define technologies by their function, not their component systems.  There are hundreds of different types of sword, but they are all levers with ramps attached, allowing them to penetrate materials.  We can call it a film camera, a digital camera, a video recording camera, but it is still the same function.

[Neonivek]

One thing that Cracked pointed out about the mechanisation of the workforce: It'll eventually reach a certain point where almost everyone is on benefits since everything is being made and done automatically (assuming we don't hit some kind of barrier such as computing power being insufficient or extinction). As a result we'd basically wind up in a post-scarcity economy where everyone is allotted a certain amount of money to spend each day/week/month as they wish.

Assuming, of course, nobody goes the way of that short story about something like this happening and everyone that doesn't own a business starts being put on birth control because... I dunno, rich people don't like the existence of poor? They never gave a good reason for it other than 'for the lulz'

I forsee something far more morbid where the rich owners will pretty much "disown" everyone and create basically their own ivory towers far above everyone else.

A sort of corporate feudalism.