Show threadbs2Feb 15, 2024

> Henry David Thoreau said,

“All our inventions are but improved means to an unimproved end.”

An on-line article with Harper's(?) had Socrates say this line about Progress in an imagined dialogue with Steven Pinker.

#Thoreau 's quote from #NeilPostman has be thinking of the #WellSweep story by #ChuangTzu or ##ChuangTze #荘子

bs2Oct 27, 2023
> "If you had a machine here.. in a day you could irrigate a hundred times your present area. The labor required is trifling as compared with the work done. Would you not like to have one?.. It is a contrivance made of wood.. heavy behind and light in front. It draws up water.. in a constantly overflowing stream.. it is a #WellSweep
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/59709/pg59709-images.html#Page_147
#ChuangTzu #荘子 #TheWellSweep #TheMachine
#Deforestation ? #Erosion ? other reasons ? One wonders after reading of the #PowerLoom
Chuang Tzu: Mystic, Moralist, and Social Reformer

Show threadbs2Oct 13, 2022
> those who have cunning implements are cunning in their dealings, and that those who are cunning in their dealings have cunning in their hearts, and that those who have cunning in their hearts cannot be pure and incorrupt, and that those who are not pure and incorrupt are restless in spirit, and that those who are restless in spirit are not fit vehicles for Tao. It is not that I do not know of these things. I should be ashamed to use them. #WellSweep #Shadoof
https://cummingsatsilverlake.com/2015/06/24/what-is-a-well-sweep-and-how-does-it-work/
What is a well sweep and how does it work?

Cummings at Silver Lake