“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.”

— Ivan Illich

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.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Machines which ape people are tending to encroach on every aspect of people's lives, and that such machines force peopl…" by Ivan Illich?

Ivan Illich 66

austrian philosopher and theologist 1926–2002

Related quotes

“Silence, according to western and eastern tradition alike, is necessary for the emergence of persons. It is taken from us by machines that ape people. We could easily be made increasingly dependent on machines for speaking and for thinking, as we are already dependent on machines for moving.”

Ivan Illich (1926–2002) austrian philosopher and theologist

Silence is a Commons (1982)
Context: The issue which I propose for discussion should therefore be clear: how to counter the encroachment of new, electronic devices and systems upon commons that are more subtle and more intimate to our being than either grassland or roads — commons that are at least as valuable as silence. Silence, according to western and eastern tradition alike, is necessary for the emergence of persons. It is taken from us by machines that ape people. We could easily be made increasingly dependent on machines for speaking and for thinking, as we are already dependent on machines for moving.

“Often people, especially computer engineers, focus on the machines. They think, "By doing this, the machine will run faster. By doing this, the machine will run more effectively. By doing this, the machine will something something something." They are focusing on machines. But in fact we need to focus on humans, on how humans care about doing programming or operating the application of the machines. We are the masters. They are the slaves.”

Yukihiro Matsumoto (1965) Japanese computer scientist

Yukihiro Matsumoto " The Philosophy of Ruby, A Conversation with Yukihiro Matsumoto, Part I http://www.artima.com/intv/ruby4.html" by Bill Venners on 2003-09-29 (Artima Developer).

“Balla, he advanced Dynamic Futurism.... drawing closer, not to the human body but to the machine, as contemporary muscles of a man of today... The actual structure of each of Balla's works tells us that the dynamic power sensed by the artist is incomparable greater than the actual bodies of the machines, and the content of each machine is only a small part of this dynamic power, since each machine is a mere unit from the sum total of the forces of contemporary life.”

Kazimir Malevich (1879–1935) Russian and Soviet artist of polish descent

Quote, c. 1915 in: 'Cubofuturism', Malevich, in Essays on Art, op. cit., vol 2; as quoted in Futurism, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, pp. 59-60
1910 - 1920

“Memetics appears to have a lot of implications that we humans are machines, which people have never liked. Of course we're machines, we're biological machines. But people don't like that. Free will and consciousness is an illusion, and the self is a complex of memes. People don't like that. My view is that if these things are true it doesn't matter if we like them or not.”

Susan Blackmore (1951) British writer and academic

"Humans Are Just Machines for Propagating Memes", Wired.com, 2/29/2008

“It's not the machine itself that does the trick. The machine merely acts as an intermediary between the sensitive and the spiritual force.”

Clifford D. Simak book Way Station

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.

“A Computer is a state machine. Threads are for people who can't program state machines.”

Alan Cox (1968) British computer programmer

Re: Alan Cox quote? (was: Re: accounting for threads) http://www.uwsg.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0106.2/0405.html.

“The Web does not just connect machines, it connects people.”

Tim Berners-Lee (1955) British computer scientist, inventor of the World Wide Web

Tim Berners-Lee Speech before Knight Foundation, (14 September 2008) http://www.webfoundation.org/donations/knight2008/tbl-speech

“We have to manufacture machines that allow us to continue manufacturing machines, because what machines will never do is to manufacture machines in turn.”

Mariano Rajoy (1955) Spanish politician

8 March, 2016
As President, 2016
Source: El País http://elpais.com/elpais/2016/03/08/videos/1457457914_756232.html

“The constructive schizoid person stands against the spiritual emptiness of encroaching technology and does not let himself be emptied by it. He lives and works with the machine without becoming a machine.”

Rollo May book Love and Will

Source: Love and Will (1969), Ch. 1 : Introduction : Our Schizoid World, p. 32
Context: The constructive schizoid person stands against the spiritual emptiness of encroaching technology and does not let himself be emptied by it. He lives and works with the machine without becoming a machine. He finds it necessary to remain detached enough to get meaning from the experience, but in doing so, to protect his own inner life from impoverishment.

“It is at work everywhere, functioning smoothly at times, at other times in fits and starts. It breathes, it heats, it eats. It shits and fucks. What a mistake to have ever said the id. Everywhere it is machines — real ones, not figurative ones: machines driving other machines, machines being driven by other machines, with all the necessary couplings and connections.”

Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) French philosopher

from Anti-oedipus: capitalism and schizophrenia, p. 1

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Ivan Illich 66

Related quotes

Related topics