This link has been bookmarked by 41 people . It was first bookmarked on 20 Apr 2006, by Erik Stattin.
-
30 Jul 07
-
26 Sep 06
-
08 Jun 06
-
07 Jun 06
-
30 Dec 05
-
15 Aug 05
-
18 Jun 05
-
20 May 05
-
01 Mar 05
-
The author of the widely praised Baroque Cycle on science, markets, and post-9/11 America
-
-
23 Feb 05
-
11 Feb 05
-
M GMike Godwin interview with Neal Stephenson in Reason (Feb. 2005)
-
The author of the widely praised Baroque Cycle on science, markets, and post-9/11 America
-
-
10 Feb 05
-
09 Feb 05
-
-
It is quite obvious to me that the U.S. is turning away from all of this. It has been the case for quite a while that the cultural left distrusted geeks and their works; the depiction of technical sorts in popular culture has been overwhelmingly negative for at least a generation now. More recently, the cultural right has apparently decided that it doesn’t care for some of what scientists have to say. So the technical class is caught in a pincer between these two wings of the so-called culture war. Of course the broad mass of people don’t belong to one wing or the other. But science is all about diligence, hard sustained work over long stretches of time, sweating the details, and abstract thinking, none of which is really being fostered by mainstream culture. Since our prosperity and our military security for the last three or four generations have been rooted in science and technology, it would therefore seem that we’re coming to the end of one era and about to move into another. Whether it’s going to be better or worse is difficult for me to say. The obvious guess would be “worse.” If I really wanted to turn this into a jeremiad, I could hold forth on that for a while. But as mentioned before, this country has always found a new way to move forward and be prosperous. So maybe we’ll get lucky again. In the meantime, efforts to predict the future by extrapolating trends in the world of science and technology are apt to feel a lot less compelling than they might have in 1955.
-
-
Robin MilletteRead the last sentence twice: science is a lot of work! It's hard. And so are many things. We make them easier, we enjoy some more then other, when we feel like it.
The is nothing wrong with a command line interface. What does it matter if it supports 100-
After all, if you're living in a technocratic society, it seems perfectly reasonable to try to predict the future by extrapolating trends in science and engineering. It is quite obvious to me that the U.S. is turning away from all of this. It has been the case for quite a while that the cultural left distrusted geeks and their works; [...] More recently, the cultural right has apparently decided that it doesn't care for some of what scientists have to say. So the technical class is caught in a pincer between these two wings of the so-called culture war. Of course the broad mass of people don't belong to one wing or the other. But science is all about diligence, hard sustained work over long stretches of time, sweating the details, and abstract thinking, none of which is really being fostered by mainstream culture.
-
-
08 Feb 05
Would you like to comment?
Join Diigo for a free account, or sign in if you are already a member.