Source: Academy Series - Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins, Cauldron (2007), Chapter 27 (pp. 248-249)
90th Birthday Reflections (2007)
Context: Communication technologies are necessary, but not sufficient, for us humans to get along with each other. This is why we still have many disputes and conflicts in the world. Technology tools help us to gather and disseminate information, but we also need qualities like tolerance and compassion to achieve greater understanding between peoples and nations.
I have great faith in optimism as a guiding principle, if only because it offers us the opportunity of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. So I hope we've learnt something from the most barbaric century in history — the 20th. I would like to see us overcome our tribal divisions and begin to think and act as if we were one family. That would be real globalisation…
"Neil Postman Ponders High Tech" at Online Newshour : Online Forum (17 January 1996) http://www.promotesigns.com/postman_1-17.html, also slightly paraphrased in Theology of TV : The Impact of TV (2010) by Christian Mogler, p. 24, as "While we can ́t do much about the rapid growth of new technology, it is possible for us to learn how to control our own uses of technology."
Context: I don't think any of us can do much about the rapid growth of new technology. A new technology helps to fuel the economy, and any discussion of slowing its growth has to take account of economic consequences. However, it is possible for us to learn how to control our own uses of technology. The "forum" that I think is best suited for this is our educational system. If students get a sound education in the history, social effects and psychological biases of technology, they may grow to be adults who use technology rather than be used by it.
Said in an interview with the Cornish Times. General election interviews: Sheryll Murray http://www.cornish-times.co.uk/article.cfm?id=110255&headline=General%20election%20interviews:%20Sheryll%20Murray§ionIs=news&searchyear=2017 (6 June 2017)
2017
Source: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (2010), Chapter 9 (p. 103)
“People soon get tired of things that aren't boring, but not of what is boring.”
Source: Kafka on the Shore (2002), Chapter 13
“Anything that lives forever gets bored.”
Source: Ironskin (2012), Chapter 5, “Fey Beauty” (p. 81)
