#inventions

[...] there is one inexorable law of technology, and it is this: when revolutionary inventions become widely accessible, they cease to be accessible. Technology is inherently democratic, because it promises the same services to all; but it works only if the rich are alone using it. When the poor also adopt technology, it stops working. A train used to take two hours to go from A to B; then the motor car arrived, which could cover the same distance in one hour. For this reason cars were very expensive. But as soon as the masses could afford to buy them, the roads became jammed, and the trains started to move faster. Consider how absurd it is for the authorities constantly to urge people to use public transport, in the age of the automobile; but with public transport, by consenting not to belong to the elite, you get where you're going before members of the elite do. ↗

— Umberto Eco

#inventions #technology #transport #age

The workforce offers many outlets for personal growth to people of limited potential. You can explore your aptitude for drudgery. Or if you are the creative sort, you can join a corporation and have it come up with your ideas for you. The amount of great ideas corporations have today is astounding. They are far more original than people ever were. In fact, since the rise of the corporation I can’t think of a single person who invented anything. ↗

— Bauvard

#creativity #funny #humor #inventions #jobs

For years, I've had a hankering for the portrait of Benjamin Franklin by Joseph Duplessis. Franklin is credited with so many inventions: the postal system, lightning rods, the constitution. He was a rock star before there was such a thing. ↗

— Jon Bon Jovi

#benjamin #benjamin franklin #constitution #credited #franklin

Homo sapiens is the species that invents symbols in which to invest passion and authority, then forgets that symbols are inventions. ↗

— Joyce Carol Oates

#forgets #homo #homo sapiens #inventions #invents

Of all human inventions the organization, a machine constructed of people performing interdependent functions, is the most powerful. ↗

— Robert Shea

#functions #human #human inventions #interdependent #inventions

That new technologies and techniques would be forthcoming was a fundamental article of Christian faith. Hence, no bishops or theologians denounced clocks or sailing ships--although both were condemned on religious grounds in various non-Western societies. ↗

— Rodney Stark

#inventions #technology #faith

Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous. ↗

— Leonardo da Vinci

#because #devise #direct #does #her

Animals can adapt to problems and make inventions, but often no faster than natural selection can do its work - the world acts as its own simulator in the case of natural selection. ↗

— Vernor Vinge

#adapt #case #faster #inventions #make

Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development. ↗

— Ursula K. Le Guin

#further #hope #i #i see #inventions

I'm afraid for all those who'll have the bread snatched from their mouths by these machines. What business has science and capitalism got, bringing all these new inventions into the works, before society has produced a generation educated up to using them! ↗

— Henrik Ibsen

#before #bread #bringing #business #capitalism