One of Marshall McLuhan's concerns that resonated most with me regards the observation that we tend
to focus on the obvious. By doing, it can be historicly seen that we largely miss the structural changes in our
affairs that are introduced over long periods of time. Whenever a new innovation or idea is created, many of
its properties are fairly obvious to us in the sense that we generally know what it will nominally do, or at
least what it is intended to do, and what it might replace. We often know what its advantages and
disadvantages might be. But it is also often the case that, after a long period of time and experience with the
new innovation, we look backward and realize that there were some effects of which we were entirely
unaware at the outset.
For example, Alfred Nobel thought dynamite, which he invented and was relatively stable, would make
mining and other rock-blasting operations much safer than it had been with nitroglycerin. He didn't think it
would be used for military purposes.
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