How we cite our quotes: (Act.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Imagine him sitting over a test tube and thinking how the whole tree of life would grow out of it, starting with some species of worm and ending—ending with man himself. (1.64)
Old Rossum dreams a dream of technological change and transformation, which is also the dream of evolution. Technology and biology are hard to split apart for Old Rossum. He seems to think they're one and the same.
Quote #2
The old atheist didn't have a crumb of understanding for industry, and finally young Rossum shut him up in some laboratory where he could fiddle with his monumental abortions, and he himself undertook production from the standpoint of an engineer. (prologue.84)
Progress here isn't just in the form of inventions. It's about production processes. Young Rossum didn't invent robots, but he did figure out how to make them on the assembly line. Modernity isn't just scientific advances. It's the ability to make the same thing over and over a lot.
Quote #3
It's great progress to give birth by machine. It's faster and more convenient. Any acceleration constitutes progress, Miss Glory. (prologue.273)
Does any acceleration constitute progress? What about killing people faster? Is that progress? Or is it the opposite of progress? Domin will get to find out (insert ominous music here).