IMHO, this is only one of the theses, and not the central one. The central thesis is already hinted at in the subtitle: change and progress are caused by humans either aimlessly playing around with ideas or concepts, possibly from totally unconnected fields, or by creating something entirely different than what they initially set out to do (possibly without even realizing it). Very, very seldomly can change and progress be planned, and therefore it is a pointless endeavor to predict or plan future technologies. In that regard, Burke was certainly a child of its time, as progress through many individual actions (and their recombinations) vs. centrally planned progress is essentially the narrative of the Cold War.
What you are describing is one of two cautionary tales in the series: technological progress will continue to accelerate (because the possible recombinations of existing ideas will grow exponentially), and we will be increasingly dependend on and caught in it. This is not entirely original, but has been lamented over and over again for many centuries before Burke. Just consider this verse of a still popular German lullaby from the 18th century:
We, with our proud endeavour,
Are poor vain sinners ever,
There’s little that we know.
Frail cobwebs we are spinning,
Our goal we are not winning,
But straying farther as we go [0].
It's basically the same concept. The German original even specifically addresses "Künste", a term which still had a technlogical meaning at that time (as preserved in "Baukunst", "Wasserkunst", "künstlich", etc.)
PS: a possible corrolary of the central thesis is that we should stop goal-driven research to progress further. But that is of course not true: goal-driven research is exactly what caused a great part of human progress, it's just that the initial goal was almost never met.
> In that regard, Burke was certainly a child of its time, as progress through many individual actions (and their recombinations) vs. centrally planned progress is essentially the narrative of the Cold War.
TBF the fear of systemic collapse was very much on-Zeitgeist in the '70s, too.
> Burke was certainly a child of its time, as progress through many individual actions (and their recombinations) vs. centrally planned progress is essentially the narrative of the Cold War.
I have to disagree - this theme, though reaching its greatest exposition in the 20th century, is not really a modern concept and was discussed by multiple ancient philosophers, including Laozi, Zhuangzi, and at least one Roman writer whose name escapes me at the moment
What you are describing is one of two cautionary tales in the series: technological progress will continue to accelerate (because the possible recombinations of existing ideas will grow exponentially), and we will be increasingly dependend on and caught in it. This is not entirely original, but has been lamented over and over again for many centuries before Burke. Just consider this verse of a still popular German lullaby from the 18th century:
It's basically the same concept. The German original even specifically addresses "Künste", a term which still had a technlogical meaning at that time (as preserved in "Baukunst", "Wasserkunst", "künstlich", etc.)PS: a possible corrolary of the central thesis is that we should stop goal-driven research to progress further. But that is of course not true: goal-driven research is exactly what caused a great part of human progress, it's just that the initial goal was almost never met.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Mond_ist_aufgegangen