“That is certainly the point: when the human species was born, on the African savanna, life was pretty good; we could live in harmony with the rest of nature, and that's what I've been calling Eden. The only technologies that humans devised for some 2 million years were fire and the hand ax. That's all. Eden didn't need anything more” NeedsYearsHumansHandsBornMillionsTechnologyFireCallingHarmonySpeciesEdenHuman SpeciesSavanna Author:Kirkpatrick Sale
“And it was only when we invented the spear and began roaming the planet that technologies got complex and central to human survival.” HumansTechnologyPlanetsSurvivalComplexesSpearsRoaming Author:Kirkpatrick Sale
“Governments, existing primarily to protect and enhance capitalism, maintain their power through the use of technologies that control the populace - by bread or circuses, by war or schooling, by armies and police, all of which are enabled and empowered by technology. That is what we might call the stick part of capitalism, while the riches-for-the-few is the carrot.” WarUseGovernmentMightTechnologyProtectCapitalismArmyPoliceSticksRichesBreadEmpoweredCircusSchoolingCarrotsUse Of Technology Author:Kirkpatrick Sale
“I'm convinced that the catastrophes of the next two decades will be so vast as to bring about a world where life, if it survives, will be far simpler - and the technologies, too. Then we will have come full circle to something like life on the savanna.” IfsWorldTwoNextTechnologyConvincedDecadesCirclesCatastropheFull CircleSavanna Author:Kirkpatrick Sale
“It's from love and knowledge of nature that any sensible understanding must come. Technology is essentially antagonistic to nature - that in fact is why it's created, to do something to or with nature that wasn't there before, that wasn't natural.” FactsUnderstandingNaturalTechnologySensible Author:Kirkpatrick Sale
“So the technology that does the least alteration of nature, the least harm to other species and systems, and provides the greatest intimacy of human with nature, is the best. We could make a scale with that in mind, and judge any technology by its place on that scale: speech and eyeglasses, say, would rank low; nuclear bombs and coal plants, high.” MindHumansDoeTechnologyJudgingSpeechLowsPlantSpeciesHarmNuclearScalesIntimacyBombsCoalAlterationsNuclear BombEyeglasses Author:Kirkpatrick Sale
