11 Comments

Hi Hadden

I look forward to a later opportunity on this one

As you might work out, I’m otherwise engaged at 8pm GMT on a Saturday evening :)

A brief comment re your laptop “without which I could never have been the writer I am today” Begs a question - if you hadn’t opened that door, what might have come to pass? How might your writing have been different? It’s said that Nietzsche solved his terrible headaches by making an early typewriter - but those who knew him heard a different tone in his writing after he put down his pen . . . :)

Kindest

E

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I thought this time wouldn't work for you - hence the second offering later in the year (at an Eric-friendly time!).

Thanks for the pushback regarding “without which I could never have been the writer I am today”. I am going to spend some time thinking through how my writing has been influenced by the medium of the screen and keyboard. I know it has!

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Adopting any technology I believe makes us what we are :) Happy to play push back - without which no aircraft gets off the ground (speaking as one formed by many hundreds of hours airborne :) )

Keep well

Enjoy the signs of an English spring!

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Of course Mr. Berry was right! Just look at us, we are a mess, and he is calmly reading his newspaper. I currently can not think of a technology that the human species has rejected. We don't know we have the freedom and power to say no to the billionaires and their plutocratic ways. As Mr. Berry has told us, the Amish have it figured out!

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Indeed, and the issue of “freedom” I think is at the heart of the matter. We have lost so much freedom by going down the path of increasing dependence on technology and allowing the argument, ents of technological determinism to win. This, for me, is the significant strength in Mr. Berry’s argument.

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Yes, Wendell Berry was right! Chase - Ohio Supercomputer Center

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Computers are tools. Every tool can be used or abused. It seems a dead end to declare a technology moral or immoral. It is only

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With respect I suggest the ‘technology is merely complex tools’ and ‘it depends on how you use it’ line is problematic

All tools change our relationship with our surroundings. At a basic level, if I am carrying a simple tool like an axe, my relationship with a tree is described by the tool. All tools are Trojan horses, they carry more than we see. Complex tools come replete with mythological power to which we are largely blind.

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I think you restated my point.

The wheel changed the world. So did gunpowder.

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I think you restated my point.

The wheel changed the world. So did gunpowder.

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Yes

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