Die Physiker
by Friedrich Dürrenmatt · first published 1963
6mentions
3recommended by
6HN commenters
2019–2026first – last mentioned
50% recommend50% neutral
Der Kernphysiker Möbius entdeckt eine furchtbare Formel und flüchtet ins Irrenhaus. Am Ende geht es um die Verantwortung der Entdecker für die Welt.
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…pushing back against an aggressor by using weapons, long range sensing, passive radar, etc. This is an entirely different subject that I don’t think we should get sidetracked by. I’ll just recommend Die Physiker (or one of its translations) as a fun starting point for radicalization against the argument you presented.
on “An Inside Look at the Token Reseller Market” ↗…currently earning money from unethical sources should feel ashamed More often they likely sleep deeply on sheets of insanely high thread count, shame only goes so far to effect change. > I’ll just recommend Die Physiker If I recall correctly that came up when I had a long discussion with Mark Oliphant in the late 1970s, William Tutte had a few books of his own to recommend on similar themes not long after.
on “An Inside Look at the Token Reseller Market” ↗I highly recommend for anyone in tech to read Die Physiker at least once. Not only is it incredibly funny, but also very thoughtful and is timeless (as you point out)
on “A Reader Asks How to Avoid Working for Evil” ↗This reminds me of Dürrenmatt's "Die Physiker "(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Physicists). While this has indeed very scary implications, one should be aware that if it's thinkable, eventually it will be thought (I'm paraphrasing here).
on “Better Language Models and Their Implications” ↗Even if your employer is not evil, they may get acquired. "What has been thought of once cannot be taken back anymore." Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Die Physiker (1961) See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Physicists
on “A Reader Asks How to Avoid Working for Evil” ↗The central problem here is this: In the Physicists from 1961 (German: Die Physiker, F. Dürrenmatt) the central theme is that scientists cannot "uninvent" something. Encryption is here to stay. Mathematically proven. Period. The criminals will just flock to the "real encryption" and…
on “Denmark's Justice Minister calls encrypted messaging a false civil liberty” ↗