
p, 125
Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat (1824)
Source: The Human Use of Human Beings (1950), p. 16
p, 125
Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat (1824)
Source: Way Station (1963), Ch. 21
Context: It's not the machine itself that does the trick. The machine merely acts as an intermediary between the sensitive and the spiritual force. It is an extension of the sensitive. It magnifies the capability of the sensitive and acts as a link of some sort. It enables the sensitive to perform his function.
Source: Where There's a Will: Thoughts on the Good Life (2003), Ch. 28 : Inventions and the Decline of Language
"Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine" http://www.stat.vt.edu/tech_reports/2005/GoodTechReport.pdf, Advances in Computers, vol. 6, 1965
“The most technologically efficient machine that man has ever invented is the book.”
“There is no difference between machine autonomy and the abdication of human responsibility.”
"One Half of a Manifesto," The New Humanists: Science at the Edge (2003)
Silence is a Commons (1982)
Context: Machines which ape people are tending to encroach on every aspect of people's lives, and that such machines force people to behave like machines. The new electronic devices do indeed have the power to force people to "communicate" with them and with each other on the terms of the machine. Whatever structurally does not fit the logic of machines is effectively filtered from a culture dominated by their use.
The machine-like behaviour of people chained to electronics constitutes a degradation of their well-being and of their dignity which, for most people in the long run, becomes intolerable. Observations of the sickening effect of programmed environments show that people in them become indolent, impotent, narcissistic and apolitical. The political process breaks down, because people cease to be able to govern themselves; they demand to be managed.