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Author | Topic: 10 Books To Save Humanity!! | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
The Earth is a radioactive fireball. You are the cultural and educational officer aboard the ship that contains the last remnants of humanity. Your ship is capable of inter-stallar travel, suspended animation and all the other technological requirements required to seek a new home for humanity. You even have a feasible Earth like planet destination to aim for. On board your ship are a host of craftsmen, technicians, agriculturalists and other very practically minded people who are perfectly capable of dealing with the practicalities of forming a working colony on a suitable planet. What you do not have on board are professional creative, innovative academics or thinkers. No research scientists, no mathematicians, no artists, poets, authors, economists, politicians, historians, philosophers, linguists. No theologians. No musicians or film makers. No nobel prize winners or other acclaimed thinkers.
It is your responsibility to retain and impart the sum totality of human knowledge understanding and achievement for future generations of humanity. More than that it is your task to set in place that which will educate and inspire those generations of humanity that will outlast the initial colonisers to reach and surpass the current achievements of humanity. My question to you is this: You can take 10 books with you to form the foundation of the colonial library and education system. What 10 books would you select for such a task? For the purposes of this exercise please ignore the fact that the entire British library can fit onto an Ipod nano (or whatever). Also let's not get too caught up on the Sci-Fi scenario presented. That is just a backdrop for your book selection. 10 books...........
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Here is an off-the top-of-my-head list. I reserve the right to completely change this based on the persuasiveness of others (if this thread catches the EvC public imagination at all that is)
1) The complete works of Shakespeare - Will Shakespeare2) The Road To Reality - Roger Penrose 3) A History of Western Philosophy - Bertie Russell 4) The Art Book 5) Watchmen - Alan Moore 6) Ulysses - James Joyce 7) THE definitive genetics text book whatever that may be? 8) Grays Anatomy - Current Edition 9) Feynman Lectures on Physics - RP Feynamn (all 3 vols as one book....? cheating - Yeah probably) 10) The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins Other near misses - The Holy Bible, Origin Of The Species, The Oxford English Dictionary and Monty Python The Complete Unexpurgated Scripts. Any takers?
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Yes.
Try again. 10 books.
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Thwy can write their own novels and plays and poetry if they survive. They will have their own William Shakespeare. Of course. But are you saying we haven't created anything worth saving?
The important thing is to make sure that they do in fact survive. So no art, just science. I think you are missing the point (as much as there is one to this thread). They have engineers, medics, builders, electricians, nutritionists, agriculturalists etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. The colonizers are not neanderthals. They are all practically skilled and educated in their colonizing speciality to modern standards.
But the fact that one should wash one's hands before performing surgery or delivering a baby would save untold millions of lives. For the reasons given above I don't think this is the issue that should be being addressed.
A lot of science is fun but useless. Who really needs Newton of Darwin or Einstein? And if they do, they can figure it out for themselves. Maybe. One day. But if we want to give them a headstart or even just pass on the accumulated wisdom of our species as it currently stands what texts would we pass on?
I don't think you've thought this through. Oh definitely I have not. Apart from anything else I had had a few too many glasses of wine last night when I thought it would be a good idea to start this thread. What was I thinking.......
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Everything else is expendable. That is kinda depressing. Have we achieved nothing as a species? Nothing worth saving and passing on to future generations? I would have thought the problem would be the tiny limit of 10 books. Instead it appears that those who have replied consider even that too much to bother with. That is kinda sad.
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
I have a single volume book called "The Complete Works of Shakespeare" on my bookshelf. That counts as one book.
Also, best not to fill their heads with the same ideas that screwed up this planet. Oh no - Another one who thinks that we would be better off without any of the accumulated creative output of the entire human species. It makes me wonder why we bother to create anything......(**sniff**sob**sniff**)
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
The Encyclopedia Britannica 11th Edition is a 29 volume set!!!
That is stretching the 10 book limitation too far. And seriously - Is that what we would take to reflect humanities creative achievements and grand accumulation of innovation and insight? A friggin glorified dictionary!
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Well you can tell that we are a bunch of science geeks here can't you!! I am dismayed at the cultural desert in which I find myself. I thought better of EvC members. At worst I thought no reaction at all. But instead I get "What do we need any of the artsy fartsy crap for?"
Apparently we would be better off with nothing at all. Or maybe a science text book or two to remind us to wash our hands after taking a dump, a trashy novel for the long trip and a glorified dictionary so that will forever have at our fingertips the population of Norway in 2009. I despair.
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Would it count then? If you can find it in one volume on Amazon it counts. How bout that as a criteria?
That's not what I said, I don't think we should take the EB, encyclopedia's are far too brief on all their subjects Phew!! Sanity/(Creativity) prevails!!
I'll see if I can compile a list of books this evening, but 10 is a bit less I think. The limit is imposed to make us be very selective and make us think about what is really worth saving at the expense of all else.
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
I basically agree with what Dr Adequate said: DA said that we should not bother with Einstein, Newton or Darwin. That doesn't seem consistent with what you are saying here.
Like Dr Adequate, I say that all 10 books must be of a scientific, technological or academic nature, rather than of a cultural or sentimental nature, because science is less easily replaced than culture. I think most who are less sciencely geeky than the average EvC participant would say the exact oposite. All the science stuff can be rediscovered but nobody will ever write Shakespeare's plays again. They will be lost forever.
Even having well-trained professionals in these fields won’t be good enough, because without, e.g., documented evidence and data about the various scientific theories and fields of study, you would be requiring the colony to accept these theories, not because of the evidence for them, but solely on the authority of those few professionals. They are not well trained in the sense of pure science. They are well trained in terms of having the practical skills required to colonize wherever. But that is a fair point (speaking as a fellow science geek ). So what ten books would you take to preserve the most important aspects of human scientific discovery? That is the question if it is the science solely route you want to take. Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Straggler writes:
quote: Hotjer writes: 9*(harddisk with 5 TB of books) disguised as books1*Laptop disguised as a book. No cheating!!!!
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Straggler writes: Apparently we would be better off with nothing at all. Or maybe a science text book or two to remind us to wash our hands after taking a dump, a trashy novel for the long trip and a glorified dictionary so that will forever have at our fingertips the population of Norway in 2009. A more pefect summary of humanity I could not conceive.
We're not perfect, but you can't help but love us. I'm not loving anyone who hasn't washed their hands after a dump.
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
I suppose it comes down to a choice between taking a journey in a spaceship full of Arnold Rimmers or one full of Dave Listers. Well if you want to list either Rimmer's or Lister's choice of 10 books to pass on the flame of human achievement that would be some sort of progress in this thread. So far we have only my paltry drunken off-the-top-of-my head 10 listed in this thread. Is it really only me that would choose something other than science text books or glorified dictionaries as the book based baton of human enlightenment?
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Is it really only me that would choose something other than science text books or glorified dictionaries as the book based baton of human enlightenment? Apparently so. Well I have just been out with some of my BBC mates. They, with the exception of a couple of IT bods, are the sort of people who pompously describe themselves as "creatives". And I can tell you that their response to this question as compared to the EvC response could not be more stark. They completely ignored the Sc-fi-ness of the scenario and flew into a debate about the relative merits of Kafka and Dickens. Their inclusion of science can be summed up by the following (loosely remembered) quote: "Once you have E=mc squared and you can build your bomb or power station or whatever what else needs to be said? The technicians will know enough about this stuff for anything useful and the rest can just be rediscovered anyway. It is the unique creative achievements of humanity that need to be preserved. Not the factual crap anyone can find out if they try hard enough" So there you go. I don't agree with that. But there you go.
My problem with literature for this scenario is that it is so strongly tied to specific cultures. Which is why those who think aspects of human culture worth saving would advocate such things. I mean why have museums or galleries or libraries huh? We will inevitably create other books, pictures and devices so why give a shit about any of that historical crap? Why spend huge sums of money preserving and restoring this ancient shit? Let's get rid of it all and make way for the new. Why not?
Why should Shakespeare's works be chosen, and not, for example, some Swedish literature, like August Strindberg? Why indeed? But if we had to choose to preserve anything at all are all things equal or are some more worthy of saving than others? I don't dispute it is subjective to a large degree. But that is what I am asking here. What would you save from obliteration?
(for instance, the operator's manual for the spaceship they're riding). Let's assume that the instruction manuals are already in place and that this is not an issue. As science geeks it seems we are just incapable of putting to one side the fact that the practical considerations of traval and colonization are not the issue under consideration here.
My vote would be to let the colony develop its own cultural and literary traditions, and preserve things that are more practical And they will. But based on that argument we might as well throw away the entirety of human creative output at any given time and just get on with doing new stuff. Surely all the greatest innovation is done "standing on the shoulders of giants" No? Otherwise why keep anything? Let's scrub out the Picassos and record over the Beatles tracks to make way for the new stuff. No? Who needs the Mona Lisa when I can knock up a quick picture of a miserable bird with a grumpy smile using some crayons?
But, if you must have cultural and artistic stuff, then, rather than focusing on specific works that are indispensible, perhaps you should take a single-volume anthology from each of the ten most important literary traditions or cultures on the planet. That will give everybody at least a good sampling of the diversity of artsy-fartsiiness that existed on Earth, and make for a broader cultural experience for everybody. Yeah fine. 10 books that do that would be, in my opinion, of some worth. Although I think you would sacrifice quality for the sake of inclusion. But hey ho this is all subjective anyway.
For example, we could bring a high school literature textbook, that may have a Shakespeare play, some sonnets by Keats, The Raven by Poe, and a number of other short stories, poems and novellas. Then, you could include, for instance, a Chinese anthology, that may have some jueju-style poems from the Tang Dynasty, a few other poems from Chu-Ci, some excerpts from the Analects, etc. If you think that is the best way to preserve the intellectual achievements of the human race then OK. What ten books would represent such an inclusive and collective amalgamation of dispirate cultural achievements?
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
But dude you are obviously a Red Dwarf fan of worrying proportions.........
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