{"id":3241,"date":"2023-05-05T18:15:12","date_gmt":"2023-05-05T18:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/?p=3241"},"modified":"2023-05-05T18:15:12","modified_gmt":"2023-05-05T18:15:12","slug":"any-sufficiently-advanced-technology-is-indistinguishable-from-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/2023\/05\/05\/any-sufficiently-advanced-technology-is-indistinguishable-from-magic\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cAny sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I heard this quote (from Arthur C. Clarke) for the umpteenth time today, and while I think there&#8217;s an important insight here, the saying irritates me. <\/p>\n<p>The important insight is that advanced technologies might be able to wow the superstitious mind. <\/p>\n<p>The truth is that the technology doesn&#8217;t have to be all that advanced. Imagine visiting a group of people who don&#8217;t have writing. The ability to send a message with some scribbles on a piece of paper might seem like magic. <\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s what I don&#8217;t like about the saying. <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> &#8220;Sufficiently advanced technology&#8221; sounds too much like the &#8220;No True Scotsman&#8221; fallacy.\n<li> He hasn&#8217;t defined magic.\n<li> People react differently to unexplainable phenomena. E.g., some said it thundered. <\/ul>\n<p>So while I don&#8217;t dispute that there&#8217;s a legit insight here, there&#8217;s so much wiggle room and ambiguity that it strikes me as a bit arrogant and condescending. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I heard this quote (from Arthur C. Clarke) for the umpteenth time today, and while I think there&#8217;s an important insight here, the saying irritates me. The important insight is that advanced technologies might be able to wow the superstitious mind. The truth is that the technology doesn&#8217;t have to be all that advanced. Imagine &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/2023\/05\/05\/any-sufficiently-advanced-technology-is-indistinguishable-from-magic\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;\u201cAny sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic\u201d&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3241"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3243,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3241\/revisions\/3243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}