Human nature is a complex topic. Countless works of literature, history, and psychology speak volumes about human nature. However, there are also some basic statements about human nature that are beyond dispute. Humans require food and drink for survival. Human nature is oriented around survival, reproduction, and self-defense. In contrast with other animals, humans are highly reliant on complex natural language for expression and collaboration. Humans are highly social animals that thrive from friendship and community. Additionally, humans are capable of highly abstract systems of reasoning such as algebra or philosophy, which do not seem to exist among other animals.
Another factor that is characteristic of humans is technology. With technology, humans create material objects and systems that manipulate the natural world for accomplishing practical goals. Humans use technology for predicting the weather, waging war, producing food, lighting up the streets at night, and for traveling around the world. As technological power has increased, human welfare and prosperity have typically increased. However, technology is not always socially positive; in fact, there are some technologies that pose an existential threat to humanity.
Human nature aspires to understand and control its environment. As much as humans love the beauty of nature, we are also the supreme manipulators of nature among all animals that live on planet earth. We observe our raw resources and develop technological projects for enhancing and achieving human objectives.
Human nature is inherently creative. No other animal abstracts existing realities to create new possibilities to the same extent as humans. Creativity can be described as a mental process of imagining how systems could be different than they currently are. This process requires hypothetical reasoning, and hypothetical reasoning involves synthetic judgements about how combinations of factors would shape a given outcome. For example, when we are cooking, we often imagine the flavor of combining different food types into a single meal. Technology, like art, is an example of human creativity. It is likewise a highly practical type of creativity in the sense that it typically involves very specific goals such as transportation or providing energy services.
Even during prehistoric times, humans used stones and fires as tools of creative manipulation. This demonstrates that technological creativity is indeed an aspect of human nature, but this does not demonstrate that contemporary technology is an inevitable result of human nature. In fact, the historical development of technology testifies to how social, economic, political, and environmental factors shaped the development of technology. As humans, we have the power to choose for ourselves what type of technological society we would like to have. And this power of judgment is just as fundamental to human nature as our technological creativity. In other words, both technological creativity and human judgment of the value of diverse technologies, are both aspects of human nature. We are capable of guiding technology according to what is beneficial to human flourishing, and it is only reasonable that we should control technology according to the need for human flourishing.