This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Marshall McLuhan, fully Herbert Marshall McLuhan
The medium, or process, of our time - electric technology - is reshaping and restructuring patterns of social interdependence and every aspect of our personal life. It is forcing us to reconsider and re-evaluate practically every thought, every action, and every institution formerly taken for granted. Everything is changing - you, your family, your neighborhood, your education, your job, your government, your relation to “the others.” And they’re changing dramatically.
Technology | Time |
Modern technology has become a total phenomenon for civilization, the defining force of a new social order in which efficiency is no longer an option but a necessity imposed on all human activity.
Efficiency | Force | Necessity | Order | Technology |
We are already producing enough food to feed the world. We already have technology in place that allows us to produce more than we can find a market for.
Enough | Technology |
I wanted to make sure that this be the first scientific and technology revolution in history in which the public thoroughly discussed all the potential benefits and all the potential harms, in advance of the technology coming online and running its course.
History | Public | Revolution | Technology |
John Glenn, fully John Herschel Glenn, Jr.
The most important thing we can do is inspire young minds and to advance the kind of science, math and technology education that will help youngsters take us to the next phase of space travel.
Education | Important | Space | Technology | Will |
We must learn to balance the material wonders of technology with the spiritual demands of our human race.
Balance | Technology | Learn |
Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives… From an Industrial Society to an Information Society... From Forced Technology to High Tech/High Tech/High Touch... From a National Economy to a World Economy… From Short Term to Long Term… From Centralization to Decentralization… From Institutional Help to Self-Help… From Representative Democracy to Participatory Democracy… From Hierarchies to Networking… From North to South… From Either/Or to Multiple Option.
Democracy | Society | Technology | World | Society |
The respect for human rights, essential if we are to use technology wisely, is not something alien that must be grafted onto science. On the contrary, it is integral to science, as also to scholarship in general.
Respect | Technology | Respect |
This is perhaps the most beautiful time in human history; it is really pregnant with all kinds of creative possibilities made possible by science and technology which now constitute the slave of man - if man is not enslaved by it.
Man | Science | Technology | Time |
Jack Welch, fully John Francis "Jack" Welch, Jr.
You have just got to constantly focus on innovation. And more competitors. You've got to constantly produce more for less through intellectual capital. Shun the incremental, and look for the quantum leap." Now the fundamentals have got to be more education. More information knowledge, faster speeds, more technology across the board.
Focus | Technology |
Marshall McLuhan, fully Herbert Marshall McLuhan
Our technology forces us to live mythically.
Primitive peoples tried to annul death by portraying the human body—we do it by finding substitutes for the human body. Technology instead of mysticism!
Death | Technology |
Max Weber, formally Maximilian Carl Emil Weber
Since Judaism made Christianity possible and gave it the character of a religion essentially free from magic, it rendered an important service from the point of view of economic history. For the dominance of magic outside the sphere in which Christianity has prevailed in one of the most serious obstructions to the rationalization of economic life. Magic involves a stereotyping of technology and economic relations. When attempts were made in China to inaugurate the building of railroads and factories a conflict with geomancy ensued ... Similar is the relation to capitalism of the castes in India. Every new technical process which an Indian employs signifies for him first of all that he leaves his caste and falls into another, necessarily lower ... An additional fact is that every caste makes every other caste impure. In consequence, workmen who dare not accept a vessel filled with water from each other's hands, cannot be employed together in the same factory room. Obviously, capitalism could not develop in an economic group thus bound hand and foot by magical means.
Capitalism | Character | Important | Magic | Religion | Service | Technology |
Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe
There is much to learn from the technological revolution, as long as we understand its role in our lives and see it as a final step in our dramatic search for unity throughout the universe. After all, developments in science and technology have taught us to be more sensitive to the intangible and the sublime: the forces behind computers, telephones, television, and so on are all invisible, and yet we fully recognize their power and reach. Similarly, we must come to accept that the driving force behind the entire universe is intangible and sublime, and we must come to experience the transcendent and G-dly in every single thing — beginning, of course with ourselves.
Experience | Force | Power | Science | Search | Technology | Unity | Universe | Learn | Understand |
Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe
The divine purpose of the present information revolution, for instance, which gives an individual unprecedented power and opportunity, is to allow us to share knowledge—spiritual knowledge—with each other, empowering and unifying individuals everywere. We need to use today’s interactive technology not just for business or leisure but to interlink as people – to create a welcome environment for the interaction of our souls, our hearts, our visions.
Business | Individual | Leisure | Need | People | Power | Present | Purpose | Purpose | Technology | Business |
Michael Dell, fully Michael Saul Dell
Visionaries have the unique ability to dream of what's possible and then make it a reality. We are excited to watch these visionaries use technology to help students develop skills in collaboration, critical thinking and teamwork that they'll need to compete in the global economy.
Ability | Critical thinking | Global | Need | Technology | Thinking | Unique | Critical Thinking |
Mother Teresa, born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu NULL
Sacrifice, surrender, and suffering are not popular topics nowadays. Our culture makes us believe that we can have it all, that we should demand our rights, that with the right technology all pain and problems can be overcome. This is not my attitude toward sacrifice. I know that it is impossible to relieve the world's suffering unless God's people are willing to surrender to God, to make sacrifices, and to suffer along with the poor.
Culture | Pain | People | Problems | Right | Suffering | Surrender | Technology |
In the context of this more mature discourse, the Valdez oil spill is no longer seen as an Alaskan matter, an “episode” in the geography of pollution. Rather it is recognized as a social act that raises such “accidents” to the level of systemic problems-rooted not in consumerism, technological advance, and population growth but in an irrational system of production, an abuse of technology by a grow-or-die economy, and the demographics of poverty and wealth. Ecological dislocation cannot be separated from social dislocations. The social roots of our environmental problems cannot remain hidden without trivializing the crisis itself and thwarting its resolution.
Abuse | Growth | Poverty | Problems | System | Technology | Crisis |
But it is much later in the game now, and ignorance of the score is inexcusable. To be unaware that a technology comes equipped with a program for social change, to maintain that technology is neutral, to make the assumption that technology is always a friend to culture is, at this late hour, stupidity plain and simple.
Culture | Friend | Ignorance | Stupidity | Technology |
Why do we think technology is above morality? ... The real question is, 'How should I conduct my life?' rather than 'What tools should I use?'
Conduct | Question | Technology | Think |