
Connections (1979), 10 - Yesterday, Tomorrow and You
Source: 1960s, Understanding Media (1964), p. 178-179
Connections (1979), 10 - Yesterday, Tomorrow and You
“The changes are not going to stop. They are going to continue and accelerate. Like it or not.”
Acceptance Speech for the Margaret Edwards Award (1998)
Context: I don't want to dump on TV, but there's no doubt that our language has been changed by television, especially by the media, which tries to manipulate us into being consumers. Most of the time nowadays we human beings are referred to as consumers. What does the consumer think? What does the consumer want? How ugly. Forest fires consume. Cancer consumes. I want us to be nourishers. To be a librarian, particularly a librarian for young adults, is to be a nourisher, to share stories, offer books full of new ideas. We live in a world which has changed radically in the last half century, and story helps us to understand and live creatively with change.
The changes are not going to stop. They are going to continue and accelerate. Like it or not.
“Something changed. Somewhere along the line you stopped accelerating.”
Source: Bright Lights, Big City
“War is never anything less than accelerated technological change.”
Source: 1960s, Understanding Media (1964), p. 102
As We May Think (1945)
Context: Thus science may implement the ways in which man produces, stores, and consults the record of the race. It might be striking to outline the instrumentalities of the future more spectacularly, rather than to stick closely to the methods and elements now known and undergoing rapid development, as has been done here. Technical difficulties of all sorts have been ignored, certainly, but also ignored are means as yet unknown which may come any day to accelerate technical progress as violently as did the advent of the thermionic tube.
Source: 1960s, Understanding Media (1964), p. 24
“It doesn't work to build half an accelerator. The particles need to go all the way around.”
On The Shoulders of Giants - "The Future of Science" by Steven Weinberg, World Science Festival, YouTube, 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GrjjCVk6cA