For thousands of years, human civilizations did something unimaginable by modern standards: They set rules to limit the power of their technologies. In the Hebrew Bible, God commands the Israelites to build an altar for worship but forbids them from using stonecutting tools in its construction. Classical Greek philosophers warned that new inventions would bear costs equal to their power. Socrates tells the story of an ancient king who laments that the advent of writing will make men lose their faculty of memory and become ignorant. Plato looked down on the "base mechanic arts" of technology for weakening the body and enfeebling the soul.
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