A Quote by Neil Postman

Embedded in every technology there is a powerful idea, sometimes two or three powerful ideas. Like language itself, a technology predisposes us to favor and value certain perspectives and accomplishments and to subordinate others. Every technology has a philosophy, which is given expression in how the technology makes people use their minds, in how it codifies the world, in which of our senses it amplifies, in which of our emotional and intellectual tendencies it disregards.

Neil Postman

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Accomplishments Certain Embedded Emotional Every Expression Favor Given How Idea Ideas Intellectual Itself Language Like Makes Minds Others Our People Perspectives Philosophy Powerful Senses Sometimes Subordinate Technology Tendencies Three Two Us Use Value Which World

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Neil Postman
American - Author
March 8, 1931 - October 5, 2003

Technology enables consumers and investors to have extraordinary choice and ease of switching, which, in turn, stimulates much fiercer competition than ever before, which, in turn, makes it imperative for every institution to innovate like mad. That innovation is powering our economy these days, and it requires companies to find and utilize creative workers. That's the most important syllogism going; technology is embedded in that syllogism, but it's not as if we're seeing these productivity gains because of the technology.

Robert Reich

Technology today is the campfire around which we tell our stories. There's this attraction to light and to this kind of power, which is both warm and destructive. We're especially drawn to the power. Many of the images of technology are about making us more powerful, extending what we can do. Unfortunately, 95 percent of this is hype, because I think we're powerful without it.

Laurie Anderson

The only weapon we have to oppose the bad effects of technology is technology itself. There is no other. We can't retreat into a nontechnological Eden which never existed...It is only by the rational use of technology to control and guide what technology is doing that we can keep any hopes of a social life more desireable than our own: or in fact of a social life which is not appalling to imagine.

C.P. Snow

I am extraordinarily fascinated by the future of technology. We are in the early infancy of technology, and we have an opportunity to guide how technology develops and integrates into our lives. I talk a lot about the 'invisible interface,' or the idea that we can utilize technology without being absorbed into a screen.

Yves Behar

As we become more codependent with technology, it's not necessarily based on our desire for the technology but our desire for interconnectivity and wanting to stay connected, which is a natural human instinct. The technology itself is kind of emotionally manipulative.

Weyes Blood

The reality is technology is here, technology will only improve and certain technology companies will dominate in the next five to ten years, ... The problem is determining which ones and at what value.

George Rodrigue

People always think of technology as something having silicon in it. But a pencil is technology. Any language is technology. Technology is a tool we use to accomplish a particular task and when one talks about appropriate technology in developing countries, appropriate may mean anything from fire to solar electricity.

Mae Jemison

We must ask whether our machine technology makes us proof against all those destructive forces which plagued Roman society and ultimately wrecked Roman civilization. Our reliance - an almost religious reliance - upon the power of science and technology to forever ensure the progress of our society, might blind us to some very real problems which cannot be solved by science and technology.

Robert Strausz-Hupe

It is inescapable that every culture must negotiate with technology, whether it does so intelligently or not. A bargain is struck in which technology giveth and technology taketh away.

Neil Postman

We humans usually feel that we are the best at everything we do, that we can safely drive ourselves. But tens of thousands of people die every year. We need to be open to having technology assist us, to find ways in which technology makes us safer.

Sebastian Thrun

[Internet] is kind of like a hammer. The technology itself doesn't determine how its used. It depends on the social, cultural and economic context in which the technology is made available.

Noam Chomsky

The one thing perhaps that technology hasn't always given us is a sense of how to make the wisest use of technology.

Pico Iyer

Our philosophy is that we want to be an ecosystem. Our philosophy is to empower others to sell, empower others to service, making sure the other people are more powerful than us. With our technology, our innovation, our partners - 10 million small business sellers - they can compete with Microsoft and IBM.

Jack Ma

I've always been interested with the idea of technology and the way technology affects our ability to communicate - our ability to have a rewarding experience with technology versus a kind of dehumanizing experience with technology.

Marco Brambilla

So many people for so many years have promoted technology as the answer to everything. The economy wasn't growing: technology. Poor people: technology. Illness: technology. As if, somehow, technology in and of itself would be a solution. Yet machine values are not always human values.

Ellen Ullman

What I’m trying to show is that the main event today is not seen by those of us that are living it… So it’s not the effect of [technology], it is that everything exists with-in [its milieu]. It's not that we use technology, we live technology. Technology has become as ubiquitous as the air we breathe, so we are no longer conscious of its presence.

Godfrey Reggio

A Quote by Neil Postman

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