Comments on: The nerd is the enemy of civilisation

By: Helmintholog » Blog Archive » More Weizenbaum

Helmintholog » Blog Archive » More Weizenbaum — Wed, 21 May 2008 05:44:05 +0000

[...] prescience of Joe Weizenbaum continues. After long detours, I have returned to the end of his book, where he is asking whether [...]

By: acb

acb — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 11:04:17 +0000

Håkan, do send me a copy. I read Swedish competently.

By: Håkan

Håkan — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:10:52 +0000

“Håkan: let me know when the piece comes out.”

I will. Do you read Swedish? If you like, I can email it to you right away.

“How did you find your way here, if I may ask?”

I have been visiting your blog for 1-2 years and I’m not sure how I found it the first time. It could have been a link from this place:
http://www.powrd.demon.co.uk/p/pressyltaredux.html

By: acb

acb — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 12:14:27 +0000

Danny, the book is not at all hard to find, at least in second hand paperback. They are all—I’d imagine—printed on brittle yellowing paper now, with glue that unsticks. I chose mine because it had belonged to the library of a priory somewhere. This seemed to offer more certain knowledge. I can’t resist instantiated puns.

Håkan: let me know when the piece comes out. How did you find your way here, if I may ask?

By: Danny

Danny — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 06:51:59 +0000

I knew about Weizenbaum’s critique (and I swear I’ve read your quoted piece somewhere), but I had no idea that he tied it at book length to descriptions of Turing machines, etc. Now I want to buy it so I can put it next to David Deutsch’s Fabric of Reality and watch their books seethe at each other.

By: Håkan

Håkan — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 21:50:41 +0000

Interesting. I’ve written a long, critical article on Ray Kurzweil (it will appear in the next issue of the Swedish magazine Ord & Bild) and this connects to things I’ve been thinking about.