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This is an archive site only. It is no longer maintained.
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what? no Brave New World? (none / 0) (#1) |
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by derek3000 on Thu Jan 24th, 2002 at 06:17:45 PM PST |
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---------------- "Feel me when I bring it!" --Gay Jamie |
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No Erewhon either (nt) (none / 0) (#4) |
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by walwyn on Fri Jan 25th, 2002 at 06:04:01 AM PST |
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Nor Ira Levin's "This Perfect Day" (none / 0) (#7) |
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by zikzak on Sat Jan 26th, 2002 at 08:10:34 PM PST |
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This Perfect Day... (5.00 / 1) (#8) |
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by The Mad Scientist on Sat Jan 26th, 2002 at 09:31:26 PM PST |
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...was a beautiful book.
Only that it brought me a *very* nasty stare from my literature teacher when I wrote its review, in strictly technical tone, and stated at the end that "...the end chapter clearly illustrates the absolute need of redundancy in important control systems. Dismantling the individual continental control systems instead of using them to decentralize the central computer or fallback to them in case of a failure was a crucial mistake." |
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Small wonder. (none / 0) (#9) |
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by Anonymous Reader on Sun Jan 27th, 2002 at 03:56:04 AM PST |
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Look, if you're not intelligent enough to state your case in terms acceptable to your intended audience, then you clearly do not understand the debate you are engaged in, and you deserve to be marked down.
It's not that hard, Mr. Scientist. The argument you cite could easily be stated in terms of the individual vs. society (a well-understood "literary" theme), and you could find supporting quotations just about anywhere, from Twain to Orwell to Richard III. In short, your teacher gave you a nasty stare not because you expressed a particular viewpoint, but because the stance in question so obviously stemmed from a dangerously narrow understanding of humanity. You are a long way from the truth, Mr. Sceintist, but I fear that your total certainty in the paltry collection of your recieved "knowledge" blinds you utterly to your own ignorance. I hope, for the sake of everyone concerned, that you are very young. |
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If you want to get the answer you want,... (none / 0) (#10) |
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by The Mad Scientist on Sun Jan 27th, 2002 at 07:03:16 AM PST |
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...you have to ask specific-enough question. The teacher done the mistake to make way way too general question.
The argument you cite could easily be stated in terms of the individual vs. society (a well-understood "literary" theme), and you could find supporting quotations just about anywhere, from Twain to Orwell to Richard III. The teacher wanted to know my opinion. I told her my opinion. If she'd ask about individual vs the society, I'd give her sociological analysis. I am primarily a technician, not a sociologist. And during the years in high school I got quite irritated with the teaching style there, so I admit I got a bit disruptive - in the style that was both funny and unattackable. By being correct and accurate, giving entirely different answers than I was supposed to, and being able and willing to defend their correctness. And not caring about losing a grade occassionally. (And playing fair and openly admitting when I don't know or make a mistake. I got into only one serious fight with a teacher during all the 4 years, which almost cost me finishing the HS, but all the other teachers luckily convinced both him and me to call it a ceasefire. But it's different story.) In short, your teacher gave you a nasty stare not because you expressed a particular viewpoint, but because the stance in question so obviously stemmed from a dangerously narrow understanding of humanity. I reiterate, I am a technician. My job is to understand how things work, not how societies work. If I am required to understand the society, then I require everyone other to understand TCP/IP. Fair deal? You are a long way from the truth, Mr. Scientist, but I fear that your total certainty in the paltry collection of your recieved "knowledge" blinds you utterly to your own ignorance. My knowledge is paltry, I admit it. I miss large bits from cryptography, higher-level languages, medicine, genetics, physics, and couple more subjects I am interested in; and the more I know the more I am aware what I don't know. But still it is enough for keeping a good job as an IT specialist in an international corporation (effectively being a comp.god there - the amount of faith they have in me can be labeled only as scary, and it seems to be increasing with time), and to occassionally drink tea with highlevel managers and CEOs of several companies. Quite good, for beginning as a freelance hacker-for-hire after dropping out of university. (If I'd stayed there, maybe I'd be doing molecular genetics now.) I hope, for the sake of everyone concerned, that you are very young. 25 and counting... |
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eh? (none / 0) (#13) |
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by nathan on Sun Jan 27th, 2002 at 12:26:37 PM PST |
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I reiterate, I am a technician. My job is to understand how things work, not how societies work. If I am required to understand the society, then I require everyone other to understand TCP/IP. Fair deal? No, it's not. Society is a number of levels of abstraction below TCP/IP. Everyone participates in society, but not everyone participates in network engineering. Sorry to say it, but your quote makes you sound unpleasantly cocky about the importance of your job. The next bit also worries me: I miss large bits from ... [a] couple more subjects I am interested in. Does this mean that you are not willing to broaden your interests? Do you often try new, unexpected things? You never know what you might be missing. Nathan -- Li'l Sis: Yo, that's a real grey area. Even by my lax standards. |
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Eh. (none / 0) (#14) |
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by The Mad Scientist on Sun Jan 27th, 2002 at 05:39:41 PM PST |
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<I>No, it's not. Society is a number of levels of abstraction below TCP/IP. Everyone participates in society, but not everyone participates in network engineering.</I>
<P> Yes. Then, as we are increasingly dependent on the networks, everyone is becoming dependent on network engineers. Face it: geeks 0wn you! :) <P> <I>Sorry to say it, but your quote makes you sound unpleasantly cocky about the importance of your job. The next bit also worries me:</I> <P> Yes, I am. Rightfully. If it wouldn't be for my kind - techies, experimentators, tinkerers and hackers - we would still live on trees and argue about bananas. Math, physics, biology - the "hard" sciences - are what makes the world spin and keep it going. No technicians? No bridges. No roads. No houses. No mathematicians? No astronomy. No calendars. No curious people, no hackers? No research, no development, no progress. My job is important and I am aware about it. <P> <I><BLOCKQUOTE>I miss large bits from ... [a] couple more subjects I am interested in.</BLOCKQUOTE> <P> Does this mean that you are not willing to broaden your interests? Do you often try new, unexpected things? You never know what you might be missing.</I> <P> I tend to deconstruct everything. I don't remember any case I hadn't ended either in informatics or in physics. So I focus in these two, with focus on the aspects that project to higher levels of abstraction. <P> Sociology is psychology. Psychology is neurology (more than you think is in hardware). Neurology is biochemistry+informatics. Biochemistry is organic chemistry. Organic chemistry is physics. |
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Not quite. (none / 0) (#15) |
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by tkatchev on Mon Jan 28th, 2002 at 04:28:02 AM PST |
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I'm way more dependent on the guy that takes care of the sewage pipe compared to the network engineering guy.
In any case, "progress", as a life philosophy, has long been discredited. The only "progress" that we can talk about with a straight face is the progress of more efficient toys. Also, your tendency to "deconstruct things" means that you are certainly leaving important aspects of reality out of the equations; there is no way to accurately model the whole universe (or even any significant part of it) without building a whole new separate universe! Stop playing God, and face the fact that, ultimately, you don't matter in the large scheme of things. Or even in the small or tiny scheme of things, for that matter. You cannot jump out of your own skin, neither can you grow taller than your own head; without the help of a Divine Being, anyways. -- Peace and much love... |
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quick question: (none / 0) (#16) |
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by nathan on Mon Jan 28th, 2002 at 07:01:29 AM PST |
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Sociology is psychology. Psychology is neurology (more than you think is in hardware). Neurology is biochemistry+informatics. Biochemistry is organic chemistry. Organic chemistry is physics. Assuming this is so, you ought to hold yourself rather more accountable for missing social nuances, by your own reasoning. If the social is the physical, misreading the social means misreading (at the wetware layer) the cues in the physical. It's funny how some of the stupid non-computer people can do that despite their utterly impoverished understandings of post-Einsteinian physics. Nathan -- Li'l Sis: Yo, that's a real grey area. Even by my lax standards. |
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OT: Pre-Einsteinian physics. (none / 0) (#17) |
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by tkatchev on Mon Jan 28th, 2002 at 10:40:26 AM PST |
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Indeed, before Einstein people genuinely believed in a magical "ether" pervading empty space; since the universe was seen, at the time, as a collection of very tiny balls, springs, and pulleys, (I am not kidding you) "empty" space was obviously not really "empty". Otherwise, how could light travel? Since light was seen as simply a wave of really, really small balls, it obviously had to travel in a medium. On the other hand, since outer space doesn't apply any friction to bodies travelling through it, (planets, for example) ether must necessarily have very strange properties: it is at the same time infinitely dense and viscious, and on the other hand it must be infinitely compressible, infinitely elastic, and completely lacking any sort of friction. Finally, since the universe is just a collection of mechanical balls, springs, and pulleys, ether is also nothing but a collection of balls interconnected with sprtings.
Modern physics is completely different. The universe, according to modern physics, is a scary virtual reality consisting of three-story mathematical equations. A sort of a cosmic "Quake" game, if you will, except instead of the mathematical laws of projection you have functional analysis and non-Euclidian topological geometries. There are scores of "physical" entities in modern physics that are nothing but a short equation of high-order math. These entities are "physical" in that they are deemed to exist "in reality" by physicists, but they have no manifestation other than a string of letters on paper. -- Peace and much love... |
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my own brattiness (none / 0) (#12) |
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by nathan on Sun Jan 27th, 2002 at 12:19:37 PM PST |
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One of my HS lit. teachers required us to hand in our class notes, so I wrote mine in Greek letters (the transliteration is very easy.) Being marked down was worth it in spades. Nathan -- Li'l Sis: Yo, that's a real grey area. Even by my lax standards. |
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Its' bad form to complain about lack of options (none / 0) (#2) |
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by because it isnt on Thu Jan 24th, 2002 at 07:29:16 PM PST |
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But still, my favourite utopian fantasy has to be Manifesto of the Communist Party by Karl Marx and Frederik Engels. adequacy.org -- because it isn't |
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It is (none / 0) (#3) |
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by ucblockhead on Thu Jan 24th, 2002 at 08:43:14 PM PST |
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That'd be "The Iron Heel". |
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What? No Whinnie the Pooh? (none / 0) (#5) |
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by motherfuckin spork on Fri Jan 25th, 2002 at 06:29:02 PM PST |
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Oh, Kanga, how I long for a return to the Hundred Acre Woods... I am not who you think I am. |
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Although it's very unlikely that Washington State (none / 0) (#6) |
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by chloedancer on Fri Jan 25th, 2002 at 08:22:06 PM PST |
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would ever voluntarily agree to anything involving California, and also recognizing that Oregon hates both its neighbors to the South and North, I still offer the following for consideration: Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach. Aside from those previously-noted pesky plausibility issues, there are other aspects of this particular flavor of utopia that I find to be tremendously appealing, indeed. |
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Steal this book. (none / 0) (#11) |
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by because it isnt on Sun Jan 27th, 2002 at 08:52:07 AM PST |
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As a service to fellow tree huggers:
adequacy.org -- because it isn't |
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[subject] (none / 0) (#18) |
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by Anonymous Reader on Thu Jan 31st, 2002 at 12:41:34 AM PST |
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Obviously 1984, on the grounds that the utopian system implemented in it works. |
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1984 works? (none / 0) (#19) |
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by tkatchev on Thu Jan 31st, 2002 at 01:03:57 AM PST |
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I don't agree. There are some aspects that Orwell got right -- namely, the relationship between language and mind control -- but on the whole, 1984 is a hack job of a book. Too much of "bad sci-fi" in the mix for it to work on any level but the most superficial.
-- Peace and much love... |
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Where's the sci-fi? (none / 0) (#20) |
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by Anonymous Reader on Thu Jan 31st, 2002 at 03:34:17 AM PST |
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I don't recall reading that much science in 1984, unless you count 'political science'. I mean, boiled cabbage and rusty razor blades - it's hardly state of the art, is it?
Given the current state of London, it's really not that hard at all to go to the physical manifestation of 1984. What stops it from actually happening is the culture and politics of British life. |
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(Why do I bother?) (none / 0) (#21) |
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by tkatchev on Thu Jan 31st, 2002 at 05:15:14 AM PST |
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"Sci-fi" is a literary style, not "fiction about science". Just like a "detective story" doesn't have to be about detectives per se, and "feminine romance" is not necessarily about women and dating, so "sci-fi" is not necessarily about science. Indeed, the best examples of "sci-fi" have little to do with science. 1984 is written in the "sci-fi" style, and this narrow orientation really detracts from the message. It becomes somewhat of a "political pamphlet" instead of a broad study of human nature due to this narrow focus on stylistic devices.
-- Peace and much love... |
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18 votes - 6 %
