from the popular hit series, Please For The Love of All That is Holy Don’t Build the Torment Nexus
as a reminder. Zaphod Beeblebrox is meant to be understood to be a villain in Hitchiker’s Guide. he’s a dumb, drugged out, psuedointellectual who’s allowed far too much leeway because he’s both rich and famous
Oddly enough, for all the lolz, some deep wisdom from those books stuck with me for life. The lines about how the kind of people who want to and can get themselves elected to such-and-such office, how that capability and desire also makes them de facto the precise kind of person you never want running things. That idea remains honestly one of the most profound things I’ve ever read, you see it reflected in ~every politician who walks the earth.
In many ways it feels like every other problem we have as humans is downstream from that contradiction (but of course, I’m oversimplifying / overgeneralizing hugely).
Silly books for sure, super silly, but not only silly, def agree.
Hey to be fair they’ve been hard at work facilitating cyber-psychosis as well, just without the cool implants (talking about ai if anyone was wondering)
The people with the resources to change things took those stories as guidebooks… “Ooh sick robots!”
and we don’t even have those sick robots
They really failed on every front
They only succeeded in building the torment nexus
from the popular hit series, Please For The Love of All That is Holy Don’t Build the Torment Nexus
as a reminder. Zaphod Beeblebrox is meant to be understood to be a villain in Hitchiker’s Guide. he’s a dumb, drugged out, psuedointellectual who’s allowed far too much leeway because he’s both rich and famous
Oddly enough, for all the lolz, some deep wisdom from those books stuck with me for life. The lines about how the kind of people who want to and can get themselves elected to such-and-such office, how that capability and desire also makes them de facto the precise kind of person you never want running things. That idea remains honestly one of the most profound things I’ve ever read, you see it reflected in ~every politician who walks the earth.
In many ways it feels like every other problem we have as humans is downstream from that contradiction (but of course, I’m oversimplifying / overgeneralizing hugely).
Silly books for sure, super silly, but not only silly, def agree.
that’s on purpose! Douglass Adams was primarily motivated to write them by how offensive he found Apartheid South Africa to his existence as a human
I could certainly tell it was on purpose lmao, ya don’t accidentally blow my mind by telling jokes lol.
Had no idea about it being a response to his revulsion to that, great tidbit thanks!! I’ll have to look for the parallels next time I pick em up.
that’s on purpose! Douglass Adams was primarily motivated to write them by how offensive he found Apartheid South Africa to his existence as a human
Hey to be fair they’ve been hard at work facilitating cyber-psychosis as well, just without the cool implants (talking about ai if anyone was wondering)