“The vast accumulations of knowledge – or at least of information – deposited by this century have been responsible for an equally vast ignorance. When there is so much to be known, when there are so many fields of knowledge in which the same words are used with different meanings, when every one knows a little about a great many things, it becomes increasingly difficult for anyone to ... »
Kevin Kelly, the co-founder of Wired Magazine, gave one of the best definitions of the word progress that I’ve ever heard. In an interview, he said, “Ever since the Enlightenment and the invention of science, we’ve managed to create a tiny bit more than we’ve destroyed each year.” He went on to explain that the problems of today were caused by yesterday’s technological successes. It doesn’t take a... »
John Stuart Mill wrote this in the Principles of Political Economy (1848): “Hitherto it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day’s toil of any human being.” Film and television critic, Nathan Heller, writes in a recent New Yorker column: “A measure of industrial progress is the speed with which inventions grow insufferable. The elevator, once a marvel of eff... »
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