I'd distinguish between tools & machines: tools require or at least allow real skill, they can become extensions of the human; machines require technical knowledge and permit little human influence. Quote from Blood Meridian came to mind:
"You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do anything. Make a machine. And a machine to make the machine. And evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it. You believe that?
Great quote. I really have to go black to Blood Meridian.
There’s definitely a common sense distinction there, and something rather more than common sense; yes, there is a different significance to a tool than a machine. Yet I think that machinery or advanced technology is a talent that man’s teleology leads into inevitably with maturity. My thought it that machine technology is only suitable to the trust of very high minds. Not just rare clever minds like the myriad autists of Silicon Valley but minds that really few men yet attain to- wizard like minds. To these who can independently encompass the use and effects of such technology it would just be a higher unfolding of the form of tool. To mass man it is a pitfall.
Great piece, very interesting.
I'd distinguish between tools & machines: tools require or at least allow real skill, they can become extensions of the human; machines require technical knowledge and permit little human influence. Quote from Blood Meridian came to mind:
"You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do anything. Make a machine. And a machine to make the machine. And evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it. You believe that?
I dont know.
Believe that."
Great quote. I really have to go black to Blood Meridian.
There’s definitely a common sense distinction there, and something rather more than common sense; yes, there is a different significance to a tool than a machine. Yet I think that machinery or advanced technology is a talent that man’s teleology leads into inevitably with maturity. My thought it that machine technology is only suitable to the trust of very high minds. Not just rare clever minds like the myriad autists of Silicon Valley but minds that really few men yet attain to- wizard like minds. To these who can independently encompass the use and effects of such technology it would just be a higher unfolding of the form of tool. To mass man it is a pitfall.