[freebeard]

Quit believing what that tribe publishes as history or cause. Use your head. To them the world is gaudy affectation.

Who be ' that tribe'?

I trace the more-or-less random thought to Lewis Mumford.

Ideas
In his book The Condition of Man, published in 1944, Mumford characterized his orientation toward the study of humanity as "organic humanism". The term is an important one because it sets limits on human possibilities, limits that are aligned with the nature of the human body. Mumford never forgot the importance of air quality, of food availability, of the quality of water, or the comfort of spaces, because all these things had to be respected if people were to thrive. Technology and progress could never become a runaway train in his reasoning, so long as organic humanism was there to act as a brake. Indeed, Mumford considered the human brain from this perspective, characterizing it as hyperactive, a good thing in that it allowed humanity to conquer many of nature's threats, but potentially a bad thing if it were not occupied in ways that stimulated it meaningfully. [tell me about it ] Mumford's respect for human "nature", that is to say, the natural characteristics of being human, provided him with a platform from which to assess technologies, and technics in general.
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Influence
Mumford's interest in the history of technology and his explanation of "polytechnics", along with his general philosophical bent, has been an important influence on a number of more recent thinkers concerned that technology serve human beings as broadly and well as possible...

Mumford also had an influence on the American environmental movement, with thinkers like Barry Commoner and Bookchin being influenced by his ideas on cities, ecology and technology. Ramachandra Guha noted his work contains "some of the earliest and finest thinking on bioregionalism, anti-nuclearism, biodiversity, alternate energy paths, ecological urban planning and appropriate technology."

Mumford was an inspiration for Ellsworth Toohey, the antagonist in Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead (1943).