

Turn On, Tune In, Veg Out (2005, Neal Stephenson) - lincolnq
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/17/opinion/17stephenson.html?pagewanted=all

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Nwallins
_Scientists and technologists have the same uneasy status in our society as
the Jedi in the Galactic Republic. They are scorned by the cultural left and
the cultural right, and young people avoid science and math classes in
hordes._

This theme is explored in depth with Stephenson's (fictional) account of the
Ita, from his (fascinating) 2008 novel, _Anathem_.

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bitdiddle
A great book! I devoured it. I sometimes feel that future is here now, which I
guess is what makes it such a good read.

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opoloqo
The future has already arrived. It's just not evenly distributed yet. ~
William Gibson

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DannoHung
Anyone else feel like Stephenson can only produce "nerd-bait"? Most of his
literary work doesn't have strong characterization or meaningful plots, and
everything he writes has this tired, "The geek shall inherit the Earth,"
undercurrent.

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mquander
There's a name for that: "science fiction."

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tel
There's a division. Asimov and Herbert are science fiction, but not so easily
grouped with Stephenson.

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dasil003
Very incisive take on the prequels and Episode 3 in particular. I think
clearly that Episodes 1-3 are exactly the movies that Lucas wanted to make
originally, but since they had limited budget and effects technology for
Episodes 4-6, they had to actually flesh out the story in order to make a
complete film. A textbook example of how constraints contribute to the quality
of art.

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pgbovine
yup, the prequels are like the ultimate example of the second-system effect :)

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sp332
Woah, _Avatar_ makes way more sense now.

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jseliger
Yeah -- that's why I cited Stephenson in the essay I wrote about Avatar:
[http://jseliger.com/2009/12/27/thoughts-on-james-camerons-
av...](http://jseliger.com/2009/12/27/thoughts-on-james-camerons-avatar) ,
which got upvoted on HN yesterday. I assume whoever submitted this link
thought, "Stephenson ought to get a place of his own here."

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barnaby
Yeah, that's when I first read the piece, after reading yours which linked to
it.

It's a fantastic point, that we have an idealized view of how the critical
elements of our infrastructure are created, so we make movie geeks with super
powers... I guess we do the same with firemen and police and other parts of
society that we rely upon and we have all those lame TV dramas.

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azgolfer
This guy covers some of the same ground, but much funnier.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxKtZmQgxrI&](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxKtZmQgxrI&);
feature=player_embedded

~~~
dmoney
Not really the same ground. Hilarious and insightful though.

