May 27
Translating his theory of degeneration into a series of proposition on human affairs, [Ray] Lankester asks whether, for all its celebration of convenience and artificial tools, should modern civilization not fear that it too, like the parasite, may be in the process of decay, shedding its organic functions, and slowly drifting 'to the condition of intellectual Barnacles or Ascidians'?
Thomas Dekeyser, Techno-Negative: A Long History of Refusing the Machine, p. 71