'Good' uses of technology? - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

William Cloud Hicklin · 01-14-2008, 12:30 PM

For Tolkien (who assigns the Hobbits things like watermills, which use pulleys and gears), the dividing line is pretty clearly the use of chemical combustion for motive force: external combustion (steam and by extension electricity) and internal combution (gasoline and diesel). He had no problem with 'natural' power sources: wind, water, gravity and muscle- even if mechanisms were involved. After all, Bilbo had a clock!

So draw the line at Newcomen. (I note that in the last illustration to The Hobbit, Bilbo is dressed in clothes of about 1700).

01-14-2008, 12:30 PM	#5
William Cloud Hicklin Loremaster of Annúminas Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 2,332	For Tolkien (who assigns the Hobbits things like watermills, which use pulleys and gears), the dividing line is pretty clearly the use of chemical combustion for motive force: external combustion (steam and by extension electricity) and internal combution (gasoline and diesel). He had no problem with 'natural' power sources: wind, water, gravity and muscle- even if mechanisms were involved. After all, Bilbo had a clock! So draw the line at Newcomen. (I note that in the last illustration to The Hobbit, Bilbo is dressed in clothes of about 1700). __________________ The entire plot of The Lord of the Rings could be said to turn on what Sauron didn’t know, and when he didn’t know it.