"Any Sufficiently Advanced Technological Problem Is Indistinguishable from a Curse": LAUGH OF THE DAY
Clarke’s Third Law has a dark twin: the corollary Arthur C. Clarke declined to write...
His first law is: “When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.” His second law is: “The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible”.
Via:
Venketash Rao: <https://substack.com/@contraptions/note/c-306478452>: ‘Gonna steal this one:
Floh Einstein: ‘Arthur C. Clarke: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Me: “Therefore, any sufficiently advanced technological problem is indistinguishable from a curse”…
Should I, again, show this slide to my undergraduates next year?:
Reminds me of the old Good News/Bad News joke about Moses describing his plan dividing the Red Sea, "But first we have to file an environmental impact statement."
That alternate version of that joke is he describes the plan, and his PR man says, "Moses, baby. You pull this off, I can get you a full page in Exodus."
Magic and technology have a similar logical structure. Gilbert, for example, proposed that the Earth had a magnetic field based on the principles of sympathetic magic.
My favorite variation was from Dr. Who: "Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology."