Men, Machines, and Modern Times

We have pretty well left the point where the most interesting work can be done by single men working all alone. Technical knowledge is at once so specialized and so diffused that the work of one becomes in a way the work of all, which is one way of saying that the virtuosity of the inventor has on the whole given way to systematic research and development.

“in many ways the new epoch must open as an era of destruction. It must from its very nature destroy many of the conditions which give most interest to the history of the past, and many of the traditions which people hold most dear. … There must be a great destruction, both in the physical and in the intellectual world, of old buildings and old boundaries and old monuments and, furthermore, of customs and ideas, systems of thought and methods of education.”

The interesting question seems to be whether man, having succeeded after all these years in bringing so much of the natural environment under his control, can now manage the imposing system he has created for the specific purpose of enabling him to manage his natural environment.

Tags: #society #environment #humans

In reflecting upon the part played by chance in the development of new concepts, he recalled the story of the three princes of Serendip who set out to find some interesting object on a journey through their realm. They did not find the particular object of their search, but along the way they discovered many new things simply because they were looking for something.

Tags: #business