<div dir="auto">I'm reading John Markoff's biography of Stuart Brand, who was heavily influenced by Bateson.<br><br><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=======================<br>Tom Johnson<br>Inst. for Analytic Journalism<br>Santa Fe, New Mexico<br>505-577-6482<br>=======================</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Jun 11, 2022, 6:57 AM Frank Wimberly <<a href="mailto:wimberly3@gmail.com">wimberly3@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="auto">In 1978 as I was about to leave Pittsburgh for a job at Bell Labs my wife and I were staying with with Scott and Penny Fahlman since our furniture was on a moving van. Scott was an AI hotshot who had recently arrived at Carnegie Mellon. I was typing the final revision of my numerical analysis dissertation on my Smith Corona when Scott said, "Frank, that will be the last computer science dissertation ever written on a typewriter."<div dir="auto"><br><br><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature" dir="auto">---<br>Frank C. Wimberly<br>140 Calle Ojo Feliz, <br>Santa Fe, NM 87505<br><br>505 670-9918<br>Santa Fe, NM</div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Jun 11, 2022, 5:20 AM Steve Smith <<a href="mailto:sasmyth@swcp.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">sasmyth@swcp.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<p>Holy Moley!</p>
<p>The references to Kissenger et. al.'s "The Age of AI: and our
Human Future" here lead me to find his 1950 Senior Thesis at
Harvard (scanned copy of the <a href="https://ia903000.us.archive.org/23/items/HenryAKissingerTheMeaningOfHistoryReflectionsOnSpenglerToynbeeAndKant/Henry%20A%20Kissinger%20-%20The%20Meaning%20of%20History_%20Reflections%20on%20Spengler%2C%20Toynbee%2C%20and%20Kant.pdf" rel="noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank">typewritten
original</a>).</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="https://ia903000.us.archive.org/23/items/HenryAKissingerTheMeaningOfHistoryReflectionsOnSpenglerToynbeeAndKant/Henry%20A%20Kissinger%20-%20The%20Meaning%20of%20History_%20Reflections%20on%20Spengler%2C%20Toynbee%2C%20and%20Kant.pdf" rel="noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank">https://ia903000.us.archive.org/23/items/HenryAKissingerTheMeaningOfHistoryReflectionsOnSpenglerToynbeeAndKant/Henry%20A%20Kissinger%20-%20The%20Meaning%20of%20History_%20Reflections%20on%20Spengler%2C%20Toynbee%2C%20and%20Kant.pdf</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>I am only 20 something pages into this 400 page tome and
definitely over my head in several ways. His language reads a
little *overly* flowery and technically specific, and yet that may
just be a result of the *era* and it's topic as an analysis of
three writer's take on history itself (Spengler, Toynbee, Kant).
I have tried resolving several obscure terms such as "genus
Culture", references to which I can only find in archaic botanical
texts? I have not read Spengler and only skimmed Toynbee and the
Kant I read is now 40 years past, so of course I don't have much
more than an effing clue of what he is effing on about here, yet
it is fascinating nevertheless. <br>
</p>
<p>Even reading the typewritten type carries a sort of spectre of
the time and place this was generated. It adds significance that
I gifted my last working typewriter (at times I have had as many
as 5 or 6 which could be made to work with a little care in use)
to one of our house-sitters while we travel. She may well be
typing on it as I type this. The unevenness of a manual
typewriter, the waviness of the line and the uneveness of the
impression reflects in some way the mechanical device but also the
operator. My instinct is that Kissinger did not type this final
manuscript himself if in fact he even typed any of it. It has
the evenness (relative, given the limits of the type of device) of
an accomplished typist, typing in a workman-like way. The digital
copy (pdf) appears to be a scan of a photocopy to boot, adding
contrast enhancement and some subsequent elision of bits by
thresholding.</p>
<p>I was tempted to cut-n-paste a few choice lines (images, not txt)
and comment on them, but realize that perhaps nobody else here
cares and it would just be a manual exercise for myself to no
point otherwise. OCR is good enough these days to make it
possible to render it as txt, etc. but since I am bogged down in
the text itself and distracted by trying to graze through Jenny's
library here in Weesp, while quaffing the entireity of one of her
favorite tomes (a biography of Gregory Bateson), I will leave it
now and see if anyone else delves deep enough into the source
material to spark a conversation here that I can join or simply
enjoy.</p>
<p>So many books, so little time! If I had more time I would learn
to speedread so I can have more time to read more. <br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote>
<p><br>
</p>
</blockquote>
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