Our man in Chicago turned me on to Charlie Stross. Little did I
know, Stross’ writings have become something of a sensation in the
academic world.
One of the first blogs I read was Crooked
Timber. I think it was our man in Chicago who showed me the
way there, IIRC.
Anyway, Crooked Timber has a
href="http://crookedtimber.org/2009/01/27/charles-stross-book-event/">new
Crooked Timber book event, about Stross’ books. There are
essays by the famous bloggers Paul Krugman and Brad DeLong, et alia.
Starting off with a heavy hitter, we’ve got href="http://www.henryfarrell.net/stross/2008/09/ct_stross_on_development_econo.html">Paul
Krugman writing on The Merchant Princes, considered as a
thought experiment in development economics… href="http://www.henryfarrell.net/stross/2008/11/i_feel_an_attack_of_constituti_1.html">Brad
DeLong
riffs off Ken’s reference to Asimov’s Three Laws to discuss the
constitutional status of robotic ex-slaves and that less concrete but
more powerful form of artificial/fictive humanity, the corporation.
As Krugman says, “let me say that they are, first and foremost, great
fun.”
And to think, people used to say I was nerdy for reading science
fiction. Peculiar irony, that.