The notion of “viral ideas” is a central theme in Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash. And the “birther” nonsense is a near-perfect illustration:
“We are all susceptible to the pull of viral ideas. Like mass hysteria. Or a tune that gets into your head that you keep humming all day until you spread it to someone else. Jokes. Urban legends. Crackpot religions. Marxism. No matter how smart we get, there is always this deep irrational part that makes us potential hosts for self-replicating information. The only thing that keeps these things from taking over the world is the Babel factor — the walls of mutual incomprehension that compartmentalize the human race and stop the spread of viruses.”
A world where all, or most, of the people speak English would be a dangerous thing indeed.
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Neal Stephenson,
Snow Crash
I love the novels of Neal Stephenson and find that I can read them again and again, always discovering something new and fresh. The excerpt below is from Snow Crash, written in 1976. published in 1984.
“The people of America, who live in the world’s most surprising and terrible country, take comfort in that motto. Follow the loglo outward, to where the growth is enfolded into the valleys and canyons, and you find the land of the refugees. They have fled from the true America, the America of atomic bombs, scalpings, hip-hop, chaos theory, cement overshoes, snake handlers, spree killers, space walks, buffalo jumps, drive-bys, cruise missiles, Sherman’s March, gridlock, motorcycle gangs and bungee jumping. They have parallel-parked their bimbo boxes in identical computer-designed Burbclave street patterns and secreted themselves in symmetrical sheetrock shitholes with vinyl floors and ill-fitting woodwork and no sidewalks, vast house farms out in the loglo wilderness, a culture medium for a medium culture.”
It means nothing out of context, I suppose, but this is where I put things I want to find again. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Neal Stephenson do an interview but perhaps I just missed them.
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Neal Stephenson,
Snow Crash
October 20, 2008
in Books
“I am tormented, or tantalized, by the sense that I am almost in view of something that is at the limit of my comprehension.” — Neal Stephenson’s Anathem (pg 543)
“All the story had been bled ut of their lives.” (pg 414)
“…in the intervening hours, my brain had been changing to fit the new shape of my world. I guess that’s why we can’t do anything when we’re sleeping: it’s when we work hardest.” (pg 366)
“…we do not perceive the physical universe directly, but only through the intermediation of our sensory organs.” (pg 529)
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Neal Stephenson
From Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, published in 1976. 22 years before Google; 29 years before YouTube; 32 years before the Bail Out/Melt Down.
“The business is a simple one. Hiro gets information. It may be gossip, videotape, audiotape, a fragment of a computer disk, a xerox of a document. It can even be a joke based on the latest highly publicized disaster.
He uploads it to the CIC database — the Library, formerly the Library of Congress, but no one calls it that anymore. Most people are not entirely clear on what the word “congress” means. And even the word “library is getting hazy. It used to be a place full of books, mostly old one. Then they began to include videotapes, records, and magazines. Then all of the information got converted into machine-readable form, which is to say, ones and zeros. And as the number of media grew, the material became more up to date, and the methods for searching the Library became more and more sophisticated, it approached the point where there was no substantive difference between the Library of Congress and the Central Intelligence Agency. Fortuitously, this happened just as the government was falling apart anyway. So they merged and kicked out a big fat stock offering.
Millions of other CIC stringers are uploading millions of other fragments at the same time. CIC’s clients, mostly large corporations and Sovereigns, rifle through the Library looking for useful information, and if they find a use for something that Hiro put into it, Hiro gets paid.”
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Neal Stephenson,
Snow Crash
September 2, 2007
in Books
"Some complain that e-mail is impersonal — that your contact with me, during the e-mail phase of our relationship, was mediated by wires and screens and cables. some would say that’s not as good as conversing face-to-face. And yet our seeing of things is always mediated by corneas, retinas, optic nerves, and some neural machinery that takes the information from the optic nerve and propagates it into our minds. So, is looking at words on a screen so very much inferior? I think not; at least then you are conscious of the distortions. Whereas, when you see someone with your eyes, you forget about the distortions and imagine you are experiencing them purely and immediately."
– Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson (pg. 800)
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Neal Stephenson
"Men who believe they are accomplishing something by speaking, speak in a different way from men who believe speaking is a waste of time." pg.372 of Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
I love this book and and discover new delights every time through it.
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Neal Stephenson
Just finished reading the third (and final) volume of Neal Stephenson’s The Baroque Cycle (Quicksilver, The Confusion and The System of the World). I don’t know what to say about almost 3,000 pages except it was a journey. Perhaps one for fans only. I didn’t care much for The Diamond Age but loved Cryptonomicon (1,168 pages) and Snow Crash. Some day I’ll be at a boring party and meet someone that read and enjoyed the story of Dr. Waterhouse, Eliza and Jack Shaftoe as much as I. And we’ll have a nice, long chat.
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Neal Stephenson,
Snow Crash
January 31, 2005
in Books
Just slogged through 800+ pages of Neal Stephenson’s The Confusion (Volume Two of the Baroque Cyclel). I enjoyed it more than the previous sentence would suggest but I found it a tough read. With another 1,000 pages ahead of me in Volume Three.
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Neal Stephenson
“The world is full of power and energy and a person can go far by just skimming off a tiny bit of it.” — Pg. 31 of Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash.
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Neal Stephenson,
Snow Crash