Gångna tiders teknikskepticism

Jag har kommit till kapitlet om ballongmanin under 1780-talet i Richard Holmes fenomenala The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science, efter att ha passerat inledningskapitlen om proto-antropologen Joseph Banks och den skicklige amatörastronomen William Herschel, och fastnade för teknikskepticismen hos Horace Walpole:

I cannot fill my Paper as the [newspapers] do, with air air balloons; which, though ranked with the invention of Navigation, appear to me as childish as the flying of kites by schoolboys. I have not stirred a step to see one; consequently, have not paid a guinea for gazing at one, which I might have seen by looking up into the air. An Italian, one Lunardi, is the first Airgonaut that has mounted into the Clouds in this country. So far from respecting him as a Jason, I was very angry with him: he had full right to venture his own neck, but none to risk the poor cat's.

Uppdatering: det slog mig att det här med ballonger ju fortfarande aktuellt, om man t.ex. ser på vilken uppmärksamhet som MIT-studenterna fick häromveckan, när de rapporterade hur de lyckats skicka upp en väderballong försedd med en GPS och en vanlig digitalkamera (allt för drygt 1000 spänn) en sisådär 30 mil upp i stratosfären. Project Icarus heter det.