Sunday, November 07, 2010

Molasses

Any sufficiently advanced bureaucracy is indistinguishable from molasses.
           -- Unknown


Oh, that's a good one.

For real value, it depends of course on familiarity with the quote by Arthur C Clarke: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

... Which of course hints that like a camera or a lighter will seem like magic to any person who has lived only in a pre-industrial society, so would it seem like magic to us if we saw technology from a much more technologically advanced race, or the future (given that trends continue).

Update: TTL said:
Any sufficiently coarse form of magick is indistinguishable from technology.
Society is becoming less technology centric and more magickal.
For example, instead of upgrading one's computer all the time, people will keep a wingmac:



Woa. I haven't heard of Evan Ferrante before, but he's just spooky as Tom Cruise. Goldurnit.

6 comments:

Steve said...

Not so sure about that. I think it is more to do with the concept or idea of technology. If we could see things from the future or elsewhere, we may not understand them but we will understand that they are a product of technology.

For people who do not understand the concept of technology or who have never lived with the idea of technology, it may well be magic. That is to say they could not conceive of what could produce such things.

Regards
Steve

ttl said...

Any sufficiently coarse form of magick is indistinguishable from technology.

Society is becoming less technology centric and more magickal.

For example, instead of upgrading one's computer all the time, people will keep a wingmac.

Anonymous said...

Any sufficiently coarse form of magick is indistinguishable from technology.

Lame, even for you.

ttl said...

Lame, even for you.

I know. But I needed some glue to bridge the gap in order to be able to post a Tom video as a comment to Eo's post about molasses.

I try to come up with better glue next time.

ttl said...

[...] but he's just spooky as Tom Cruise. Goldurnit.

Tom is spooky? What do you mean?

To LRH!

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

I thought the magick line was good.