“We had learned how to invent things, and the question of why we invent things receded in importance. The idea that if something could be done it should be done was born in the nineteenth century. And along with it, there developed a profound belief in all the principles through which invention succeeds: objectivity, efficiency, expertise, standardization, measurement, and progress. It also came to be believed that the engine of technological progress worked most efficiently when people are conceived of not as children of God or even as citizens but as consumers-that is to say, as markets.” PeopleIfsShouldChildrenIdeasDoneBeliefBornPrinciplesProgressCenturyCitizensSucceedImportanceProfoundInventionConsumersEnginesEfficiencyConsumerismTechnologicalExpertiseMeasurementObjectivityNineteenth CenturyChild Of GodOverconsumptionTechnological ProgressStandardization Book:Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology Source: Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology
“Indeed, through fundamental advances in bionics in this century, we will set the technological foundation for an enhanced human experience, and we will end disability.” HumansEndsCenturyFoundationFundamentalsDisabilityTechnologicalHuman ExperienceBionics Author:Hugh Herr
“The human species does not necessarily move in stages from progress to progress ... history and civilization do not advance in tandem. From the stagnation of Medieval Europe to the decline and chaos in recent times on the mainland of Asia and to the catastrophes of two world wars in the twentieth century, the methods of killing people became increasingly sophisticated. Scientific and technological progress certainly does not imply that humankind as a result becomes more civilized.” PeopleWorldHumansDoeTwoWarMovingResultsProgressCenturyStageCivilizationEuropeMethodSpeciesChaosKillingWar Of The WorldsCivilizedDeclineHumankindWorld War ISophisticatedTechnologicalCatastropheAsiaTwentieth CenturyMedievalStagnationHuman SpeciesTwo WorldsTechnological ProgressTandemMedieval Europe Author:Gao Xingjian
“The rate of technological and human physiological change in the 20th century has been remarkable. Beyond that, a synergy between the improved technology and physiology is more than the simple addition of the two.” HumansHas BeensTwoSimpleTechnologyCenturyRateRemarkableTechnological20th CenturyPhysiologicalPhysiologySynergy Author:Robert Fogel
“In the Middle Ages people took potions for their ailments. In the 19th century they took snake oil. Citizens of today's shiny, technological age are too modern for that. They take antioxidants and extract of cactus instead.” PeopleAgeTodayModernMiddleCenturyCitizensOilTechnologicalSnakesMiddle Ages19th CenturyAilmentsCactusAntioxidants Author:Charles Krauthammer
“Modernity is the ensemble of changes - intellectual, political, economic, social, cultural, technological, aesthetic - that have altered the world drastically since roughly the 17th century, until which time the world was, in the above respects, far less different from the world of any previous epoch of recorded history than it is from the world of today. The modern predicament is the set of problems these changes have bequeathed us.” WorldDifferentProblemTodayPoliticalSocialEconomicModernCenturyIntellectualAestheticTechnologicalModernityAlteredEpochEnsemblePredicaments17th Century Author:George Scialabba
“Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game. Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle.” GamesStruggleCenturyFootballBaseballTechnologicalTwentieth CenturyNineteenth Century Book:The Best of Brain Droppings Source: The Best of Brain Droppings
“Liberty and morality had to win their way slowly over many centuries, until finally expanding liberty made possible the great technological advance of the Industrial Revolution and the flowering of modern capitalism.” WayMadeWinningLibertyModernCenturyRevolutionMoralityCapitalismTechnologicalExpandingFloweringIndustrial Revolution Author:Murray Rothbard