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If this were a religion—it is, I think!—what would be its hymns?

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· Apr 19, 2020

Scientists and engineers, like those listed, are the heroes who will get us out of this mess. Here's to them, to discovery, and to progress. (Build!)

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maran

@marannelson

Apr 19, 2020

This movement has very little to nothing of the religious in it... it lacks religion's core function: "relates humanity to supernatural, transcendental, or spiritual elements." It is for precisely this reason that we cannot imagine any of its hymns.

maran

@marannelson

Apr 19, 2020

This is not meant to disparage the work itself: I stand behind it wholeheartedly!! But there is very little religious function here.

Michael is back in San Francisco, soon in Santa Fe

@michael_nielsen

Apr 19, 2020

I agree. Used humanely, technocracy has many useful effects, but... I don't want to worship either the steam engine or capital.

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and

*nods* Would you say you identify with worshipping the spirit which created those things (and other Works—past, present, future)?

9:59 PM · Apr 19, 2020TweetDeck

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and

If we're speaking of something akin to Spirit in the Hegelian sense? The existence of a voracious, irreducible thing in each of us? Indubitably.

maran

@marannelson

Apr 19, 2020

It's a challenging conversation for Twitter (and I'm frankly not very good at this medium) -- but I really appreciate your voicing anything "religious" out loud, and don't mean to disparage it.

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Michael is back in San Francisco, soon in Santa Fe

Replying to

and

I'm not quite what you mean. Do you mean can-do, optimistic, understanding human spirit? Or do you mean something else, closer to Maran's answer?

Andy Matuschak

@andy_matuschak

Apr 19, 2020

Closer to Maran’s answer—the drive to create, to understand, to express, to synthesize, to transcend.

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