Tired of staring at a computer all day? Well, go back a 100 years and you’d have been working in a grueling factory all day. Go back another century and you’d have been tending a field all day. Go back 500 years and more than half of your children would have died before the age of five. And yet you’d *still* be using all kinds of human-made objects and systems. As we read yesterday, humans may have been deploying fire for 1 MILLION YEARS. No matter how far back you go, you’ll find us shaping our environment. It is technology all the way down.

Alexis Madrigal, on why the alternative to 21st-century technology is not “nature” but some other technologically-mediated reality.

(Also, read Lindy West’s excellent essay on the subject.)

Comforting.

447 notes

Show

  1. kissesfrommaryjane reblogged this from world-shaker
  2. lacosaperdida reblogged this from laphamsquarterly
  3. mv12 reblogged this from my-tourniquet
  4. my-tourniquet reblogged this from world-shaker
  5. ashyrasberries reblogged this from theatlantic
  6. fluorescentelizabeth reblogged this from world-shaker
  7. alexanderpf reblogged this from world-shaker
  8. skewedneutral reblogged this from zteven3000
  9. sprekenziedeutsch reblogged this from world-shaker
  10. jejm1 reblogged this from world-shaker
  11. zteven3000 reblogged this from world-shaker
  12. snarkandsoul reblogged this from world-shaker
  13. thesocialmedianerd reblogged this from world-shaker
  14. imagescontrolculture reblogged this from world-shaker
  15. patsofficial reblogged this from world-shaker
  16. gnarlysnarly reblogged this from world-shaker
  17. technoitinerant reblogged this from world-shaker
  18. world-shaker reblogged this from theatlantic
  19. carrotcupcake reblogged this from laphamsquarterly
  20. atumblingirl reblogged this from theatlantic

Blog comments powered by Disqus