"But, we’ve done pretty well without our tricorders, EM converters, and comlinks, haven’t we? After all, the human body is a powerful tool. We can plow the crops, harvest the fields, construct the walls that we need for protection against the wilderness, weave the clothes that we need to stay warm.

In a way, we’ve rediscovered what man is capable of without technology.”

- Alixus, from Deep Space 9: S2E15 Paradise

No, this is wrong. What you are describing is technology. Agriculture is technology. Fabric construction is technological. Housing, tools, techniques, etc. are all part of our technological development. You may not be using the same technology you grew up with, but the things we use to accomplish our tasks to stay alive and alter our environments are technology.

It would have been more accurate and helpful to say, “Though not initially our aim, we’ve explored what we are capable of using technologies we thought we had outgrown the need for.”

I really love the phrase, “the human body is a powerful tool” because even with our sensory enhancing technology today, we still rely on the body to interpret our interactions with the world. We use ourselves to decide what kinds of technologies to develop. Sure, we can outstrip human strength and endurance quite easily with our tools of today (and yesterday,) but my point is that we use ourselves as the reference point, and if this speech was about the merits of remembering that, it would be more powerful and relevant to me, instead of making me cringe and wonder why Star Trek needed to revisit the fear of technological change and development scenario again in this way.

P.S.
I also have a lot to say about “walls to protect us from the wilderness,” but that’s another topic.

And, oops, I fucked up the formatting and was foiled by autocorrect a few times. Wish I could color the quote text. I think everything is fixed now.