I am finishing up the book Lucifer’s Hammer by Larry Niven (great author) and there is a quote in it that made me think of Brian’s post about “Technology Is Not Making You Stupider.”

Anyways, here is some context of the quote. World is essentially post-apocalyptic. Technology is gone. I believe this was written in the 70s so there is no internet but obviously technology does not just mean computers. A guy is wandering around when a thief comes up behind him to steal a his windbreaker. The guy being stolen from says this:

“Do you know what you’re stealing?” [his] bitter sense of loss went deeper than his common sense. “They can’t make the materials anymore. They can’t make the machines to shape it. There was a company in New Jersey, and it made that jacket in five sizes and sold it so cheap you could toss one in your car trunk and forget it for ten years. You didn’t even have to go looking for it. The company hunted you down and sent you thick packets of advertisements. How long will it be before anyone can do that again?”

The book deals a lot with the struggles that today’s man would have if technology / civilization disappeared in a flash. A good reminder to those that want to go back to the “simple times” that perhaps they weren’t so simple after all.

There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it’s only a hundred billion. It’s less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.
- Richard Feynman

Source: Unsure, but perhaps Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!