What would Einstein have said about PCs?

Nowadays Einstein’s quotes *surprise* me more than anything anybody else has
ever said. This one jolted me so much that I cannot resist posting it here.
Here’s what he says about machines…

“You cannot love a car the way you love a horse. The horse brings out human
feelings the way machines cannot do. Things like machines may develop or
neglect certain things in people … Machines make our life impersonal and
stultify certain elements in us and create an impersonal environment. “

If we see the people living in rural technology-starved areas, they’re typically more
simple, affectionate and trusting of strangers.

This, based on my own observations as well as what many people have acknowledged, is the fundamental difference between the residents of an idyllic village and a bustling hi-tech city.

But I think its about more than just dependency on the machines. I think the dependency itself isn’t as disastrous as its consequences:

He also says…

“I believe that the horrifying deterioration in the ethical conduct of
people today stems from the mechanization and dehumanization of our lives –
the disastrous by-product of the scientific and technical mentality. Nostra
culpa. Man grows cold faster than the planet he inhabits.”

“Betterment of conditions the world over is not essentially dependent on
scientific knowledge but on the fulfillment of human traditions and ideals.”

Source: Quotes of the heart – Albert Einstein Quotes

Why I find these surprising is that he’s the world’s greatest scientist who’s explored the very depths of science, and yet he says something totally unexpected and unpredictable that one might expect of a scientist. He seems to be one of the rare breed of more *human* scientists who sees the bigger picture – rather than any run of the mill highly acclaimed scientist who’s simply been obsessed with finding the answer to more and more technical problem. Of course, technology has its own place, but the thing is he wasn’t being limited by it.

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