Tag: technology and culture
Bubbles, Beliefs, and Behaviors
I grew up in a bubble. It was a very common bubble for a lot of folks in our country: Mid-western, white, Christian, republican, working class, conservative, and rural. I had very little understanding about the lives of people outside my bubble and no awareness that I was even in a bubble.
My first bubble was burst in 1968 when I served in Vietnam with Army Intelligence.
Concepts and Skills
Stephen Ambrose, in his new book describing the construction of the Transcontinental railroad, Nothing Like It In the World, suggests that trains were the primary vehicle for introducing the industrial revolution. He quotes an engineer who said, “where a mule can go, I can make a locomotive go.” The poetry of engineering requires both the imagination to conceive and the skills to execute. We use concepts to frame our imagination, we use skills to build Read More
Machines, Money, and Meaning
“And every sand becomes a Gem reflected in the beam divine” -William Blake In 1909, E. M. Forster published a series of short stories in his book The Eternal Moment. The first story is entitled “The Machine Stops.” This chilling masterpiece concerns the role of technology in our lives. Written over 100 years ago, when technology was in its infancy, it is more relevant today than it was then. With an uncanny prescience, Forster wrote about Read More
The Questions we Live in
It seems like we are always desperately seeking answers in our life. “If only I could be certain about this,” or “I sure wish I knew the answer to that.” Unfortunately, when the total quantity of information in the world is doubling twice a day, it’s going to be increasingly impossible to keep up with all the “answers” that are literally available at our fingertips. It doesn’t necessarily mean the answers are getting better, they are just Read More