The history of invention is not the history of a necessary future to which we must adapt or die, but rather of failed futures,…

“The history of invention is not the history of a necessary future to which we must adapt or die, but rather of failed futures, and of futures firmly fixed in the past. We do not have a history of invention, but instead histories of the invention of only some of the technologies which were later successful”

–David Edgerton in’The Shock of the Old‘