- Apr 2024
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Confusion about what it means toown a book leads people to a falsereverence for paper, binding, and type—a respect for the physical thing—thecraft of the printer rather than thegenius of the author.
This sort of worship of objects extends to those who overbuy notebooks (or other stationery). It's nice to "own" them, but it's even more valuable to write your thoughts in them and use them as the tools they were meant to be.
cross-reference: https://hypothes.is/a/sSgxLMGoEe6j8ccyyMeDTw
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- Feb 2024
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As Thoreau said, “We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us”;and this is what we must fight, in our time. The question is, indeed,Which is to be master? Will we survive our technologies?
another variation of Thoreau on tools... source?
It's Walden. (see: https://hypothes.is/a/b10mJsGoEe6rgteMdxbwKQ)
Joy may have more profitably quoted the earlier Walden piece from p.41: "But lo! men have become the tools of their tools."
There also seems to be the idea of our slow evolution into cybernetic or Borg-like beings hiding not only in Joy's argument, but in Thoreau's. If we integrate so closely with our tools, where do they stop and we end and vice versa?
Compare this with the infamous problem of the ship of Theseus.
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We do not ride on the railroad; it rides uponus. Did you ever think what those sleepers are thatunderlie the railroad ? Each one is a man, an Irish¬man, or a Yankee man. The rails are laid on them, andthey are covered with sand, and the cars run smoothlyover them. They are sound sleepers, I assure you.And every few years a new lot is laid down and runover; so that, if some have the pleasure of riding on arail, others have the misfortune to be ridden upon.
p100
This fits into the same sort of framing as Thoreau's earlier quote "men have become the tools of their tools." (p41)
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But lo!men have become the tools of their tools. The manwho independently plucked the fruits when he was hun¬gry is become a farmer; and he who stood under a treefor shelter, a housekeeper.
p41
This quote is fascinating when one realizes that the Thoreau family business was manufacturing pencils at John Thoreau & Co., one of the first major pencil companies in the United States. Thoreau's father was the titular John and Henry David worked in the factory and improved upon the hardness of their graphite. https://hypothes.is/a/sm7LUpazEe2tTq_GhGiVIg
One might also then say that the man who manufactured pencils naturally should become a writer!
This quote also bears some interesting resemblance to quotes about tools which shape us by Winston Churchill and John M. Culkin see: https://hypothes.is/a/6Znx6MiMEeu3ljcVBsKNOw
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- Jan 2024
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But if we are downloaded into our technology, what are the chancesthat we will thereafter be ourselves or even human?
reminiscent of the quote:
Life imitates art. We shape our tools and thereafter they shape us.<br /> —John M. Culkin, “A Schoolman’s Guide to Marshall McLuhan” (The Saturday Review, March 1967) (Culkin was a friend and colleague of Marshall McLuhan)<br /> (see: https://hypothes.is/a/6Znx6MiMEeu3ljcVBsKNOw)
or the earlier version:
But lo! men have become the tools of their tools. The man who independently plucked the fruits when he was hungry is become a farmer; and he who stood under a tree for shelter, a housekeeper.<br /> —Henry David Thoreau, Walden, p41 <br /> (see: https://hypothes.is/a/vooPrPkwEe2r_4MIb6tlFw)
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