The technologies we use to try to "get on top of everything" always fail us, in the end, because they increase the size of the "everything" of which we're trying to get on top.

The next generation never learns anything from the previous one until it’s brought home with a hammer. I’ve wondered why the next generation can’t profit from the generation before but they never do until they get knocked in the head by experience.

Technologists are not noted for learning from the errors of the past. They look forward, not behind, so they repeat the same problems over and over again. [...] As each new technology matures, customers are no longer happy with the flashy promises of the technology but instead demand understandable and workable designs. Slowly the manufacturers relearn the same basic principles and apply them to their products. The most egregious failures always come from the developers of the most recent technologies.

The potential of any new technology is always dissipated by its users involvement in its predecessors. (p. 210)

Technology does not always equal progress.

I thought that all generations were lost by something and always had been and always would be

Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons.

Unforeseen technological inventions can completely upset the most careful predictions.

And I was shocked to see the mistakes of each generation will just fade like a radio station, if we drive out of range.

There are certain truths that, in themselves, are as dangerous as any advanced technology.

“All it takes,” said Crake, “is the elimination of one generation. One generation of anything. Beetles, trees, microbes, scientists, speakers of French, whatever. Break the link in time between one generation and the next, and it’s game over forever.”

No technology startup has a long shelf life. Even the best ideas become terrible ideas after a certain age.

It will always remain incomprehensible that our generation, which has shown itself so great by its discoveries and inventions, could fall so low in the realms of thought.

Technology frightens me to death. It's designed by engineers to impress other engineers, and they always come with instruction booklets that are written by engineers for other engineers — which is why almost no technology ever works.