“Technological competition ignites total war, which means it is not possible to contain the effects of a new technology to a limited sphere of human activity…”
Technopoly: the Surrender of Culture to Technology (1992)
Context: Technological competition ignites total war, which means it is not possible to contain the effects of a new technology to a limited sphere of human activity... What we need to consider about the computer has nothing to do with its efficiency as a teaching tool. We need to know in what ways it is altering our conception of learning, and how, in conjunction with television, it undermines the old idea of school.
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Neil Postman 106
American writer and academic 1931–2003Related quotes
“But planned obsolescence is possible only if the rate of technological change is contained.”
Source: The Limits To Capital (2006 VERSO Edition), Chapter 8, Fixed capital, p. 221
Source: 1990s and beyond, The Book of Probes : Marshall McLuhan (2011), p. 67
“The technologies which have had the most profound effects on human life are usually simple.”
Source: Infinite in All Directions (1988), Ch. 8 : Quick Is Beautiful, p. 135
Context: The technologies which have had the most profound effects on human life are usually simple. A good example of a simple technology with profound historical consequences is hay. Nobody knows who invented hay, the idea of cutting grass in the autumn and storing it in large enough quantities to keep horses and cows alive through the winter. All we know is that the technology of hay was unknown to the Roman Empire but was known to every village of medieval Europe. Like many other crucially important technologies, hay emerged anonymously during the so-called Dark Ages. According to the Hay Theory of History, the invention of hay was the decisive event which moved the center of gravity of urban civilization from the Mediterranean basin to Northern and Western Europe. The Roman Empire did not need hay because in a Mediterranean climate the grass grows well enough in winter for animals to graze. North of the Alps, great cities dependent on horses and oxen for motive power could not exist without hay. So it was hay that allowed populations to grow and civilizations to flourish among the forests of Northern Europe. Hay moved the greatness of Rome to Paris and London, and later to Berlin and Moscow and New York.
Source: "The duality of technology" 1992, p. 389; Abstract
Thomas H. Davenport, "Need radical innovation and continuous improvement? Integrate process reengineering and TQM." Planning Review 21.3 (1993): 6-12.
Source: Global Shift (2003) (Fourth Edition), Chapter 4, Technology: The Engine of change, p. 85
Statement on TV Bra for a Living Scultpure (1969), cited in: C. A. Xuan Mai Ardia, "[http://artradarjournal.com/2014/10/24/nam-june-paik-becoming-robot-new-york/ Nam June Paik: “Becoming Robot” in New York – in pictures," at Art Radar journal, posted on 24/10/2014
1960s