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About this quote

What does it mean?
Humans advance technologically so quickly that society and nature cannot keep pace, risking self-destruction.
In plain terms
We are moving faster than our world can handle.
What can you take from it?
Progress needs to match our environment's capacity.

Where it applies

  • discussions on tech ethics
  • environmental policy
  • future forecasting

Putting it to work

  • evaluate tech adoption rates
  • plan sustainable growth

Questions to consider

  • How fast is too fast for society?
  • What collisions are we risking?

Another view

It assumes linear progress without accounting for adaptive human behavior.

More from James Thurber

  1. Love is the strange bewilderment that overtakes one person on account of another person.

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  2. No male can beat a female in the long run because they have it over us in sheer, damn longevity.

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  3. Let the meek inherit the earth - they have it coming to them.

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