At 11:05 AM 09/10/01 -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>> WSJ: Has the recent economic slowdown provoked any reassessment about
>> the use of all this
>> technology?
>>
>> MR. REICH: The last few months have been a sobering reminder that
>> technology is not the Holy
>> Grail. It is not going to make us all instantly rich and deliver us to
>> any promised land -- there is a
>> sense of being brought down to earth. Many people are waking up and
>> asking themselves, "What
>> do I want and need out of all of this?"
>From Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England:
"And, to descend from the greatest operations to the smallest, when a
workman forms a clock, or other piece of mechanism, he establishes, at his
own pleasure, certain arbitrary laws for its direction, - as that the hand
shall describe a given space in a given time, to which law as long as the
work conforms, so long it continues in perfection, and answers the end of
its formation."
>From Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments:
"Power and riches appear then to be, what they are, enormous and
operose machines contrived to produce a few trifling
conveniencies to the body, consisting of springs the most nice
and delicate, which must be kept in order with the most anxious
attention, and which in spite of all our care are ready every
moment to burst into pieces, and to crush in their ruins their
unfortunate possessor. They are immense fabrics, which it
requires the labour of a life to raise, which threaten every
moment to overwhelm the person that dwells in them, and which
while they stand, though they may save him from some smaller
inconveniencies, can protect him from none of the severer
inclemencies of the season."
Tom Walker
Bowen Island, BC
604 947 2213
