Almost half a century on, "Connections" remains a masterpiece of television. I found it enthralling when it was first broadcast, despite being too young to follow all of James Burke's arguments, and it still draws me in, forcing me to think even while it entertains.
And nobody has ever been less appropriately attired for farm labour than Burke is here.
BBC Archive: "1978: Could You Survive Without Modern Technology?"
This is a must-watch for folks today, who are even more #TechnologyDepedent, @wesdym ! Wow!
#KesslerSyndrome #CarringtonEffect #SocietalCollapse #DependenceOnTechnology #OverDependenceOnTechnology #TechnologyTrap #JamesBurke
I remember watching this when it first came out @wesdym! TY for the reminder!
A pendulum! This jogs my brain to an apparently-random #memory, likely from #JamesBurke's #TheDayTheUniverseChanged series, about how #latitude was easy to determine via the skies, but that #longitude could not be measured until timepieces that did NOT require a #pendulum to drive it were invented.
Pendulum movement isn't very functional on a rolling #ship, after all.
And at that moment, the name of the item
I held and it's purpose snapped vividly to mind: it was a #sextant!
5/x
@wesdym "Billions and billions and billions..." Yes! Love #CarlSagan and #JamesBurke!
Wow, James Burke goes full British imperial using social Darwinism as justification on this one. Not everything he did aged well it seems.
Locates the origins of contemporary consumerism in the English industrial Revolution, powered by religious dissenters barred from all activities except trade. The invention of the steam engine, new forms of credit, surplus wealth, and opening markets laid the foundation for industrial society.
Jon Hancock
DoomsdaysCW
JoeJoeTom (aka Eerie Tom)
Likely Jan Lukas
Pious Pete
Baloo Uriza