Modernity and the Machines

Who is serving Whom?

The gods confound the man who first found out

How to distinguish hours! Confound him, too,

Who in this place set up a sun-dial

To cut and hack my days so wretchedly

Into small portions! When I was a boy,

My belly was my only sun-dial, one more sure,

Truer, and more exact than any of them.

-Plautas¹

This week I’ve been revisiting the idea of modernity and its mac…