Creations of human artifice In the twenty-first century, the question most of us ask when disaster strikes is not "How could God let that happen?" but "Who screwed up?" This is a salutary development: We take responsibility for the world we live in. Whether or not our world is the best of all possible worlds, it is a world we have made for ourselves. We live in an engineered landscape, on an engineered planet. Our cities and farms, our dwellings and vehicles, our power plans and communication networks—these are all creations of human artifice. If we don't like it here, we have only ourselves to blame. Brian Hayes, Infrastructure: A Guide to the Industrial Landscape humanityinfrastructuretechnologydisaster
When it goes wrong Kris: It's not my fault when it goes wrong. Jeff: Yes it is. Shane Carruth, Upstream Color lovedisaster
Downsides of the internet An Essay blog.royalsloth.eu The type of nitpicking behavior that I mentioned earlier, is especially problematic since it often causes the loss of writer’s authenticity. With time, these criticisms cause one of the following: The writer stops publishing their work. The writer stops reading comments and minds their own business. The writer learns their lesson and sands off their edges in order to fit better in the society du jour. The larger the writer’s audience, the more likely it is for the writer to pick the last option and tone down their voice. You can experience this first hand when reading the essays of prominent bloggers. Their early work is usually interesting and fun to read, which naturally brought a large audience to their doors. But the more the show goes on, the more they will waffle around the topic, since with a large enough audience every thought will be misunderstood and nitpicked mercilessly. writingwwwcritiquepersonality