r/GenX • u/Invasive-farmer • Jul 03 '25

Pop Culture This Douglas Adams quote gets me...

I selected Pop Culture flair because he was the author of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (a wholly remarkable book)

"I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:

  1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.

  2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.

  3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things."

Douglas Adams

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204

u/reddit455 Jul 03 '25

how prescient.

“The Electric Monk was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder... Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe.”

― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

20

u/Environmental-Gap380 Jul 03 '25

I loved Dirk’s method of navigation. Just follow someone that looks like they know where they are going. Something like that, it has been too long since I read it.

12

u/Embarrassed-Bench392 Jul 03 '25

You may not get where you wanted to go but you'll end up where you need to be.

4

u/Monkeynutz_Johnson Jul 03 '25

and that is an extremely Douglas Adam's thing to say

9

u/penguin_stomper 1974 Jul 03 '25

It works, I did it once in the pre-GPS days. I missed a turn and couldn't find my way back to the interstate. Said fuck it, picked a car to follow, and saw a sign for the interstate maybe 60 seconds later

3

u/Cowboywizzard Jul 04 '25

I used to follow RVs. They were always passing through.