The Machine Age

To the extent that a machine becomes your memory, you have no memory. To the extent that a machine becomes your calculator, you have no numeracy. To the extent that a machine saves you effort, you are drained of the ability to exert yourself. To the extent that a machine sorts out the options for you, you have no practical wisdom and no power of deliberation. To the extent that a machine provides your knowledge, you have no active intellect. In sum, to the extent that the machines are your repositories of thought, information, and choice, you are not alive. The technologist’s dream of a knowledge chip in every brain is, properly understood, nothing but a dream of universal superficiality, and a permanent end to anything worthy of the name of thought, let alone the name of life.