Readings
This is what today looked like, by people 80 years ago. It is incredible to imagine this was written in 1945. Even though the techniques he describes are foreign and primitive by today’s standards, the future he envisioned is entirely relatable.
Certainly progress in photography is not going to stop. Faster material and lenses, more automatic cameras, finer-grained sensitive compounds to allow an extension of the minicamera idea, are all imminent.
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War with the Newts is a spellbinding classic novella written nearly 100 years ago by Czech writer Karel Capek. Written in 1936, only two years before Capek’s death at the young age of 48, it is captivating in an old, yet effective way, even in the English translation. Any number of analogies, both real and fictitious, come to mind when reading about the imperial oppression of the Newts, a gentle sea-faring creature that is slowly exploited by Man.
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This short story appears to be a variation of the trolley problem in philosophy. Is the utopian happiness of an entire village worth the sacrifice of one miserable child? Does it help that everyone understands the child’s misery, and in fact is the reason for their perspective? What does it mean when people leave the village, never to return?
I think the silent departure of these people is very meaningful. First, they do not inform anyone as to why they are leaving, for fear of bursting the bubble and making the village aware that what they are doing is wrong.
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I lack the background to follow the philosophical connections Basile makes. I did appreciate the contradiction and impossibility in trying to describe the layout and architecture of the library. I also liked how Basile revealed the algorithm behind his website, www.libraryofbabel.info, something I have wondered about for years and wish to recreate some day.
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https://www.ias.edu/sites/default/files/library/UsefulnessHarpers.pdf
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https://www.thekurzweillibrary.com/memorandum-for-members-and-affiliates-of-the-intergalactic-computer-network
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https://www.thephilosopher1923.org/post/epistemic-autonomy-and-the-free-nose-guy-problem
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https://web.mit.edu/jmorzins/www/C-H-speech.html
It’s surprising how hard we’ll work when the work is done just for ourselves. And with all due respect to John Stuart Mill, maybe utilitarianism is overrated.
We’re not really taught how to recreate constructively. We need to do more than find diversions; we need to restore and expand ourselves. Our idea of relaxing is all too often to plop down in front of the television set and let its pandering idiocy liquefy our brains.
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https://archive.org/details/AMathematiciansApology-G.h.Hardy/page/n19/mode/2up?view=theater
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https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5427/pg5427-images.html
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