Crouch's Razor: device or instrument?
The next time you are invited to use a new kind of technology, apply Crouch's Razor and ask yourself: is this a device or an instrument?
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The next time you are invited to use a new kind of technology, apply Crouch's Razor and ask yourself: is this a device or an instrument?
Introduction Libraries are one of the humankind’s oldest formalized institutions, developing alongside the very first temples and marketplaces of the ...
Introduction Libraries are one of the humankind’s oldest formalized institutions, developing alongside the very first temples and marketplaces of the ...
In the 1950s and 1960s, a series of thinkers, beginning with Jacques Ellul and Marshall McLuhan, began to describe the anatomy of our technological society. Then, starting in the 1970s, a generation emerged who articulated a detailed critique of that society. The critique produced by these figures I refer to in the singular because it shares core features, if not a common vocabulary. What Ivan Illich, Ursula Franklin, Albert Borgmann, and a few others have said about technology is powerful, incisive, and remarkably coherent. I am going to call the argument they share the Standard Critique of...