6 Matching Annotations
  1. Feb 2024
    1. 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

  2. Jan 2024
    1. 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)

  3. Jan 2022
    1. We should be careful that we do not become our own tools.

      Compare and contrast this admonition and extension with

      Life imitates art. We shape our tools and thereafter they shape us. — John M. Culkin, “A Schoolman’s Guide to Marshall McLuhan” (The Saturday Review, March 1967) (Culkin was a friend and colleague of Marshall McLuhan)

    1. We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us. —Winston Churchill


      Life imitates art. We shape our tools and thereafter they shape us. — John M. Culkin, “A Schoolman’s Guide to Marshall McLuhan” (The Saturday Review, March 1967) (Culkin was a friend and colleague of Marshall McLuhan)

  4. Dec 2021
    1. The story is linear (the stages are followed in order, with no going back), uniform (they are followed the same way everywhere), progressive (the stages are “stages” in the first place, leading from lower to higher, more primitive to more sophisticated), deterministic (development is driven by technology, not human choice), and teleological (the process culminates in us).

      This might be the case if the tools drove the people, but isn't it more likely the way in which different people use the tools?

      Which direction gives rise to more complexity?

  5. worrydream.com worrydream.com
    1. Bret Victor: email (9/3/04) Interface matters to me more than anything else, and it always has. I just never realized that. I've spent a lot of time over the years desperately trying to think of a "thing" to change the world. I now know why the search was fruitless -- things don't change the world. People change the world by using things. The focus must be on the "using", not the "thing". Now that I'm looking through the right end of the binoculars, I can see a lot more clearly, and there are projects and possibilities that genuinely interest me deeply.

      Specifically highlighting that the "focus must be on the 'using', not the 'thing'".

      This quote is very reminiscent of John M. Culkin's quote (often misattributed to McLuhan) "We shape our tools and thereafter they shape us."

      <small><cite class='h-cite via'> <span class='p-author h-card'>Linus Lee</span> in Towards a research community for better thinking tools | thesephist.com (<time class='dt-published'>12/01/2021 08:23:07</time>)</cite></small>