The idea that something is magical or appears to be magic appeals to our senses and fills us with wonder and amazement. Magic is something the defies reality, we think something is magical when it defies the laws of science and the limitations of our minds.
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”—Arthur C. Clark
The lure of magic often causes us to ignore ordinary sensibilities and logic as we gaze in awe of something we can’t understand. This magic can be entertaining - it can also be used to manipulate and deceive, and ultimately harm us for someone else to make money or push forward a shady political agenda.
Technological Magic
Sometimes technology is like real magic — it provides us with tangible benefits that help our lives and the lives of others. And, sometimes technology is just an illusion – presented by a skilled magician— it can capture our attention, our amazement, and wonder without providing any real solution or benefit.
We are spellbound participants in a grand magic show, watching the illusion and believing that it is real. We might even be the magicians, impressing our peers with tricks and illusions, and putting on a great show, without ever making the real problems disappear. These problems need to be solved for real, and not just made to vanish in an elaborate illusion.
These magic shows make their way into every aspect of daily life. Companies make decisions every day to purchase multi-million dollar software solutions—not because they make the problems go away, but because they hide the issues entirely.
Breaking the Spell
If you find yourself caught in the spell, and hopelessly in love with the illusion, you might not enjoy the following quotes. They help remind us that advanced technology should not be about magic and fantasy. Instead, it should be about the reality that can solve problems and make the world a better place.
Technology Quotes
It is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome. —T.S. Eliot
Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backward. —Aldous Huxley
The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers. —Sydney J. Harris
Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons. —R. Buckminster Fuller
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. —Albert Einstein
There is an evil tendency underlying all our technology – the tendency to do what is reasonable even when it isn’t any good. —Robert Pirsig
Modern technology owes ecology an apology. —Alan M. Eddison
Technology is the knack of so arranging the world that we don’t have to experience it. —Max Frisch
The machine does not isolate man from the great problems of nature but plunges him more deeply into them. —Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Lo! Men have become the tools of their tools. —Henry David Thoreau
The abnormality of our time that which makes it contrary to nature, is its deliberate and stated determination to make the working life of men & the product of their working hours mechanically perfect, and relegate all the humanities, all that is of its nature humane to their spare time, to the time when they are not at work. — Eric Gill
