In the recent past, I might have been tempted to write a blog post about these. As things stand, I’ll merely point you to them.

“Valley of God” in the Financial Times — Faith in Silicon Valley. In to be taken in both senses. File under religion of technology.

“He stopped going to church. Instead, he went to the computer – “there was this thing called Google” – and started researching theories of evolution to recast his understanding of the world. After the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001, he discovered the potential to organise political activists on the internet. And when he got sick again, he credited the internet with saving his life. He replaced his faith in the Christian God of his childhood with faith in technology.”

“Making the Land Our Own” in American Scientist — A review of American Georgics: Writings on Farming, Culture, and the Land. Opening:

“Forty-eight years ago in his groundbreaking book, The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America, historian Leo Marx cited Thomas Jefferson to illuminate the tension between farming and industry that has characterized land use in the United States for more than two centuries.”

“Computer Literacy and the Cybernetic Dream” — Short lecture by Ivan Illich delivered in 1987. Interesting throughout.

“With great pains she has trained her inner Descartes and her inner Pascal to watch each other: to balance mind and body, spirit and flesh, logic and feeling.”

“When I think of the glazing which the screen brings out in the eyes of its user, my entrails rebel when somebody says that screen and eye are ‘facing’ each other.”