The law of progressive simplification“The history of the development of technique, like the history of geographical expansion, has failed to provide us with a criterion of the growth of civilizations, but it does reveal a principle by which technical progress is governed, which may be described as a law of progressive simplification. The ponderous and bulky steam-engine with its elaborate ‘permanent way’ is replaced by the neat and handy internal-combustion engine which can take to the roads with the speed of a railway train and almost all the freedom of action of a pedestrian. Telegraphy with wires is replaced by telegraphy without wires. The incredibly complicated scripts of the Sinic and Egyptiac societies are replaced by the neat and handy Latin Alphabet.”
Arnold J. Toynbee
A Study of History (Primary source)
A Study of History is a monumental multi-volume inquiry into the origins, development, and disintegration of civilizations across the span of human history. Conceived as a comparative study on an exceptionally broad scale, the work examines a wide range of civilizations—including Western, Islamic, Hindu, and East Asian societies—in an effort to discern recurrent patterns in their historical development.
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“History, in the objective meaning of the word, is the process of change; in the subjective meaning, it is the study of how and why one situation changes into another.”
— Arnold J. Toynbee Primary source“Technology is, of course, only a long Greek name for a bag of tools; and we have to ask ourselves: What are the tools that count in this competition in the use of tools as means to power?”
— Arnold J. Toynbee Primary source“Civilization, as we know it, is a movement and not a condition, a voyage and not a harbour.”
— Arnold J. Toynbee Primary source“The fact that I am neither a Greek nor a Turk perhaps creates little presumption of my being fair-minded, for Western partisans of non-Western peoples are often more fanatical than their favourites.”
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“The most important speed issue is often not technical but cultural. It’s convincing everyone that the company’s survival depends on everyone moving as fast as possible.”
— Bill Gates Primary source“Clausewitz’s first principle was to have a secure base. From there one proceeds to freedom of action.”
— Ian Fleming Primary source“Every scientific law, every scientific principle, every statement of the results of an observation is some kind of a summary which leaves out details.”
— Richard Feynman Primary source“More often geographical expansion is a concomitant of real decline and coincides with a ‘time of troubles’ or a universal state—both of them stages of decline and disintegration. The reason is not far to seek. Times of trouble produce militarism, which is a perversion of the human spirit into channels of mutual destruction, and the most successful militarist becomes, as a rule, the founder of a universal state. Geographical expansion is a by-product of this militarism, in interludes when the mighty men of valour turn aside from their assaults upon their rivals within their own society to deliver assaults upon neighbouring societies.”
— Arnold J. Toynbee Primary source