Once a new technology rolls over you, if you’re not part of the steamroller, you’re part of the road.

Stewart Brand, a leading figure linking 1960s counterculture to later Silicon Valley techno-optimism, used this line in the context of rapid technological change—especially computing and networked media—where innovations can quickly become unavoidable infrastructure. Brand’s work (from the Whole Earth Catalog to later writing on digital culture) often urged active engagement with tools and systems rather than passive consumption. The “steamroller” image reflects a late-20th-century sense that technological adoption can be socially and economically coercive: once a technology becomes dominant, institutions and individuals are pressured to adapt or be reshaped by it.

The quote frames technological change as an asymmetrical force: when a new technology becomes widespread, it doesn’t merely offer options—it reorganizes the environment in which choices are made. To be “part of the steamroller” is to help design, deploy, or strategically adopt the technology, gaining agency and influence over its direction. To be “part of the road” is to be acted upon—flattened into compliance, rendered obsolete, or forced into roles defined by others. Brand’s aphorism is less a celebration of disruption than a warning about passivity: participation, literacy, and governance are presented as the only realistic ways to retain autonomy amid accelerating innovation.

1) “Once a new technology rolls over you, if you’re not part of the steamroller, you’re part of the road.”
2) “If you’re not part of the steamroller, you’re part of the road.”