historical parallel

Ethan Mollick @emollick · 23h This might be the first hot take on how technology tells us how to live our lives, destroying our ability to make human decisions. The technology in question is the sundial. From a 3rd century BCE Roman adaptation of a Greek play, as discussed in Kerr's "The Ordered Day" [Quoted image, block of printed text:] > QUOTED: May the gods destroy the one who first discovered hours and who also first set up a sundial here! He has reduced my day to pieces. For when I was a boy my belly was my sundial, by far the best and more truthful than all those ones. You would eat when it told you, except when there was nothing. Now even what there is, is not eaten, except with solar approval. And thus the town is now so stuffed with sundials, most of the people are on their knees, parched with hunger. (NA 3.3.5, ll. 1–9)