My two main conclusions are that technology develops cumulatively, rather than in isolated heroic acts, and that it finds most of its uses after it has been invented, rather than being invented to meet a foreseen need. Guns, Germs And Steel
“When you stay too long in a place, you forget just how big an expanse the world is. You get no sense of the length of those longitudes and latitudes. Just as […] it is hard to have a sense of the vastness inside any one person.” Midnight Library
Abundance, even of good things, prevents them from being valued; and scarcity, even in the case of what is bad, confers a certain value. Don Quixote
In fact, the tendency for one purchase to lead to another one has a name: the Diderot Effect. The Diderot Effect states that obtaining a new possession often creates a spiral of consumption. Atomic Habits
Quotes