Fire and Knowledge

Well, Mr. Friedman, don’t you realize that the Game Boy and TV are prime manifestations of the very processing power you want to cultivate in these kids? Do you really expect young people to put their energies into the mind-numbing (and sometimes degrading) job of programming such devices without themselves becoming desperately dependent upon the empty-caloried stimulation of the products they are producing? Instead of running faster to raise our standard of living, maybe we need to slow down and consider what sort of standards we want to live by. (Emphasis mine)
—Stephen L. Talbott, “The Barren Global Vision of Thomas Friedman” in NetFuture, Issue #163 (May 13, 2005).