Carlos

“Fired by an emotional faith in spontaneity, the common-sense attitude toward change was discarded in favor of a mystical readiness to accept the social consequences of economic improvement,”
― Langdon Winner, The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology

“Over many decades technological optimists have been sustained by the belief that whatever happened to be created in the sphere of material/instrumental culture would certainly be compatible with freedom, democracy, and social justice. This amounts to a conviction that all technology—whatever its size, shape, or complexion—is inherently liberating. For reasons noted in the previous chapter, that is a very peculiar faith indeed.”
― Langdon Winner, The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology

“There is the capitalist approach (make it bigger), the technocratic one (make it better), the ‘revolutionary’ solution (portray the problem as an example of an exploitative system) and the pre-industrial romantic fallacy (don’t use it; maybe it will go away by itself). We propose a fifth alternative response: Let’s invent a different answer.”28”
― Langdon Winner, The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology

“While it has wonderful appeal, decentralization turns out to be a very slippery concept. How can it have any importance in a society thoroughly enmeshed in centralized patterns?”
― Langdon Winner, The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology