The change in the company's business produced the requirement for a new system, the savings accruable as a result of the proposed purchase and the inability to guarantee the availability of an alternative service justified it. Existing technology determined the kind of system to be purchased, but this in turn was caused by a corporate policy decision which resulted in the relatively new systems at other sites being of a standard type. Neither determinism nor social shaping can stand alone. Alvin Toffler in a monologue broadcast for the Open University says that technology and society are in a feedback loop. The pre-existence of the elements necessary for the development of a given convergent technology does not guarantee its development, there must first be either a social need be that economic, political or military in its origins, or an unsatisfied academic or technical curiosity.
Different societies have different priorities and taboos.
The native peoples of the Americas and Australia had the same resources to hand in varying quantities as we do today, yet their societies had not developed the wheel, ironworking, or gunpowder when Europeans arrived to exploit their lands. On the other hand the existence of the elements necessary for a technology to be discovered does make its development possible. Block 1 of course text for THD204 'Information Technology and Society', The Open University, 1996.