That is certainly the point: when the human species was born, on the African savanna, life was pretty good; we could live in harmony with the rest of nature, and that's what I've been calling Eden. The only technologies that humans devised for some 2 million years were fire and the hand ax. That's all. Eden didn't need anything more
Kirkpatrick SaleThe virtue of small government is that the mistakes are small as well...If you want to leave a nation you think is corrupt, inefficient, militaristic, oppressive, repressive, but you don't want to move to Canada or France, what do you do? Well, the way is through secession, where you could stay home and be where you want to be.
Kirkpatrick SaleIt's from love and knowledge of nature that any sensible understanding must come. Technology is essentially antagonistic to nature - that in fact is why it's created, to do something to or with nature that wasn't there before, that wasn't natural.
Kirkpatrick SaleSo the technology that does the least alteration of nature, the least harm to other species and systems, and provides the greatest intimacy of human with nature, is the best. We could make a scale with that in mind, and judge any technology by its place on that scale: speech and eyeglasses, say, would rank low; nuclear bombs and coal plants, high.
Kirkpatrick SaleMy analysis, especially of the computer revolution, always comes back to capitalism. It's that economic system that has led to Western civilization's willingness to enslave ourselves to machines - because some people benefit enormously from it, while the costs are borne by other people and the planet.
Kirkpatrick Sale