And one more sentiment, bringing it back to my job: "Mondaugen set out for his turret and oscillograph, and the comforts of Science, which are glacial and few."

This could easily describe the first half of the last century, or the first half of our own, where we get our algorithmic micro-updates fed directly to our nerve centers, artificial neurons rewiring real neurons and constructing an unstable representation of reality

One sentence from Pynchon's V. that felt especially prescient: "The spring thus wore on, large currents and small eddies alike resulting in headlines. People read what news they wanted to and each accordingly built his own rathouse of history's rags and straws."

Pynchon in 1963: Let's goooo!

Also hard not to think of LLMs as the space where our own automation and self-negation are happening. Perhaps it does all collapse onto one language, and then no communication, and finally rebirth. Or oblivion