Erewhon
or, Over the range
by Samuel Butler · first published 1708
32% recommend68% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Satirical utopian novel that uses a fictional country to poke at Victorian society. Its chapter on machines is most cited for its ideas about industrialization. Suits readers curious about early thinking on technology.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Samuel Butler's Erewhon, or Over the Range was published anonymously 1872. In this satire of Victorian society, the main character Higgs discovers an unknown country, the seeming utopia called Erewhon, Nowhere backwards with the "h" and "w" transposed. The starting chapters detailing the discovery of Erewhon were based on Butler's experiences in New Zealand as a young man. Butler was possibly the first to write about the idea that machines might one day develop consciousness through the process of Darwinian Selection.
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You know, I apologize a bit, because I'm not even sure this answers any of your questions... But you should read Erewhon by Samuel Butler. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erewhon It was written way back when, but there is even a short section that deals with, ironically, animal rights, that then progresses to plant rights,…
on “George Carlin's "Soft Language"” ↗An interesting read about the subject is the small 'utopian' book Erewhon by Samuel Butler, published in 1872. It considers the implications of the industrial revolution on society, and thus how it shapes the industrial society and its future. The relationship with the religious…
on “The Amish have negotiated a pact with modernity (2018)” ↗…so much about our own sufferings. Since, then, they do not annoy us by any expression of pain we call them emotionless; and so qua mankind they are; but mankind is not everybody. From Samuel Butler's Erewhon. (The same chapter that inspired the eponymous Butlerian Jihad in Dune, incidentally.) I don't agree with the conclusion here, and I doubt Butler did either, but the whole book is a great read. [1] http://www.online-literature.com/samuel-butler/erewhon/26/
on “Dolphins' elaborate octopus-hunting strategy” ↗For what it's worth, the following three stories/novels have that effect on me. There's something about them that seems surreal and foreign, a little magical. - The Machine Stops, E.M. Forster - Erewhon, Samuel Butler - The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho The styles and formats are completely different. The only common thing I can think of is that there's this invisible guiding force in all of them, whether…
on “Ask HN: Works of fiction that have inspired you to solve programming problems?” ↗This became a chapter in his book Erewhon, which I read recently and enjoyed: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/samuel-butler/erewhon It and a couple of related essays are combined to become The Book of the Machines segment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erewhon#The_Book_of_the_Machin...
on “Darwin Among the Machines (1863)” ↗I highly recommend Erewhon by Samuel Butler. The author is the namesake for Butlerian Jihad. Interesting book in our times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erewhon
on “Butlerian Jihad” ↗To fully generalize the concept, take Samuel Butler's formulation from Erewhon: If it were possible to know everything about the past, it would be possible to know everything about the future. Zoom out far enough and nature and nurture are unified into a deterministic historical…
on “So is it nature not nurture after all?” ↗…promote some chess books or software on their page to supplement their donations, Why more? If donations are enough why ads? "Advertising is the way we grant power to the machine" - said Samuel Butler in Erewhon (1872). I'm thinking a lot about the nature of advertising. I guess, after all, it sells excess, stuff which shouldn't exist. It propels low quality, overproduction, unlimited and unnecessary growth.…
on “Why Lichess will always be free” ↗…useful for state and capital. Now, they don't need us anymore. We are a burden for the state (universal basic income) and capital plays its own game (high frequency trading). Samuel Butler was right in Erewhon (1872): "Advertising is the way we grant power to the machine" AI is powered by advertising, by the data we voluntarily feed into the machine. For the false reward of shining the ego. Yes, we must admit,…
on “Moore's Law for Everything” ↗This post reminds me of Samuel Butler's novel, Erewhon. "Assume for the sake of argument that conscious beings have existed for some twenty million years: see what strides machines have made in the last thousand! May not the world last twenty million years…
on “Certified 100% AI-Free Organic content” ↗It aligns fairly well with Samuel Butler's Erewhon, actually -- and it should raise questions such as those visited in C. S. Lewis's essay The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment.
on “The Brain on Trial” ↗Pilfered from Wikipedia entry: Butler developed "Darwin Among the Machines" and subsequent articles into The Book of the Machines, three chapters of Erewhon, published anonymously in 1872. Project Gutenberg eBook Erewhon by Samuel Butler: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1906
on “Darwin Among the Machines (1863)” ↗…ourselves, and as unquestionably indicating something seriously wrong with the individual who misbehaves, is nevertheless held to be the result of either pre-natal or post-natal misfortune." -Samuel Butler, Erewhon. Not satire as much these days, sadly.
on “As Obesity Rises, Remote Pacific Islands Plan to Abandon Junk Food” ↗Sounds like adoption of ideas from Samuel Butler's Erewhon. "a man is ... punished very heavily for serious illness, while failure of eyes or hearing in one over sixty-five, who has had good health hitherto, is dealt with by fine only, or imprisonment in default…
on “San Francisco Santitizes language used to describe convicted criminals” ↗>blowback from the Butlerian Jihad. Which itself is a reference to Samuel Butler's 1872 satirical novel "Erewhon" which featured a culture that had banned all complex machines due to an experience with machine intelligences revolting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erewhon
on “Feasibility of a Dune Ornithopter” ↗