Six Ways to Resist the Machine The technological mindset is corrupting our souls. It’s time to fight. Plough Quarterly 46: The Call of Beauty Essays By Paul Kingsnorth December 17, 2025 It is the year 2025. We are 213 years out from the invention of the first commercial steam engine. It is 155 years since the construction of the first modern factory, 140 years since the invention of the commercial motor car, 122 years since the first manned flight, and 115 years since the invention of the neon light. We are sixty-seven years on from the coming of the microchip. It is sixty-five years since the first contraceptive pill went on sale, sixty years since the first atomic bomb exploded, fifty-six years since man walked on the moon, and a mere eighteen years since the invention of the iPhone. It’s been an eventful two centuries. In this same time period, the earth’s human population has grown from one billion to over eight billion, the earth’s climate has begun ...