Quotes About Toolmaking

Humans nowadays completely dominate the planet not because the individual human is far smarter and more nimble-fingered than the individual chimp or wolf, but because Homo sapiens is the only species on earth capable of cooperating flexibly in large numbers. Intelligence and toolmaking were obviously very important as well. But if humans had not learned to cooperate flexibly in large numbers, our crafty brains and deft hands would still be splitting flint stones rather than uranium atoms.

The point is that I don't design stuff for myself. I'm a toolmaker. I design things that other people want to use.

The point is that I don't design stuff for myself. I'm a toolmaker. I design things that other people want to use.

Technology is always double-edged, and the day stone tools were invented, axe murder became possible.

Since violence—as distinct from power, force, or strength—always needs implements (as Engels pointed out long ago),2 the revolution of technology, a revolution in toolmaking, was especially marked in warfare.

Engineers tend to develop tools for the pleasure of developing tools, not to induce nature to yield its secrets.

Man is a thinking animal, a talking animal, a toolmaking animal, a building animal, a political animal, a fantasizing animal. But, in the twilight of a civilization he is chiefly a taxpaying animal.