Edward Tenner > Quotes

“...not that any futurist has ever lost business because of a wrong prediction.”
― Edward Tenner, Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences

“If we define technology as a modification of the environment, then we must recognize the complementary principle of technique: how that modification is used in performance. New objects change behavior, but not always as inventors and manufacturers imagine. And changes in behavior of people, as of bears and dogs, inspire new hardware, which in turn engenders more innovations.4”
― Edward Tenner, Our Own Devices: How Technology Remakes Humanity

“Dr. Frank Daschner once infuriated his colleagues by declaring: "You can sit on any toilet seat without the least risk, but don't, whatever you do, shake hands with your doctor”
― Edward Tenner, Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences

“We see that, sometimes, as a result of these dislocations, as a result of people leaving their original intended career and going into something else where their creativity could make a difference, that depressions and all kinds of other unfortunate events can have a paradoxically stimulating effect on creativity.”
― Edward Tenner

“One of the characteristic problems of our time is how to close this gap between capabilities and foresight.”
― Edward Tenner