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FLORID

                                                             May 5, 2005
   Samuel Floriman                                                        
   "The Existential Pleasures                                                    
   of Engineering"                     APOCRYPHA
                                       
Back in the seventies, there was such  
a strong current of anti-technological 
thinking going on that it's possible
that even I was swept along with it --
though I don't think it took me very far.

        (I was getting tired of
        holding on to the rock               The advice against
        of my science fictional              mixing metaphors
        faith, though.)                      is funny: whenever
                                             I try to stick with
                                             one, like this, it
                                             seems really silly.
  This made Samuel Floriman's
  "The Existential Pleasures                    Maybe: The
  of Engineering" a joy                         prohibition
  to read... at least the first                 against the
  few chapters of it, in which                  mixed metaphor
  Floriman argues quite clearly                 is based on the
  and persuasively that engineers               idea that a
  are not evil.                                 metaphor is
                                                something
     He then goes on to try to                  stronger than it
     prove that engineers are not               is, something
     boring... and succeeds in                  akin to an
     demonstrating the opposite.                analogy.

                                                Usually it's
     In any case, Floriman's                    just a figure
     book remains one of my                     of speech,
     favorite pro-technology                    a rhetorical
     polemics -- and in those                   flourish...
     days there wasn't much out
     there like this -- Jerry                   MIXMASTER
     Pournelle's columns in
     "Galaxy" is the only other
     example I can think of.       Hm... come to think
                                   of it, I should put     
                                   Pournelle on my list,     POURNELLE
                                   at least as Apocrypha.

     If it wasn't such a totally
     obvious, commonsense issue,         BIBLES
     maybe I'd promote this from
     "Apocrypha" to "Bible".             APOCRYPHA

            The way it played out:

            When Japanese competition emerged
            as a serious economic threat, all      Ah, the good old
            of a sudden no one wanted to hear      days, when Japan
            from the anti-tech crowd any           was going to
            more... we moved on into the slick,    conquer the earth.
            "high-tech" 80s.
                                                       Before that, it
                                                       was going to be
                                                       the middle-eastern
                                                       countries.

                                                          And before that,
                                                          I think it was
                                                          Oceana.


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