Oddbean new post about login | logout 20 years ago, when I was 15, there was a local band named “read 1984”. intrigued, I found this copy in a used bookstore and took their advice. looking back that was probably a pivotal moment for me. really blew my mind. do you have any events in your life that jump out like this? https://image.nostr.build/05816b064d25466635af213ef209d48332bc66376b03002b2eab4738347e2c73.jpg
Rene Descartes and Kurt Vonnegut "Welcome to the Monkey House" were big influencers for me in high school.
When I saw my first perl script as a 10 year old lad, made a little change to it, discovered I can control what computers do, felt like a god
Late ‘95 in the uni library I saw a student editing html in notepad. Asked him a couple of questions and seeing how easy it was my life was different
I wish I could say the same. When I was 19, I started reading 1984 but then got bored halfway and abandoned it. Didn't think much of it. Some concepts stuck though, like the idea of a telescreen or how language was manipulated, like the famous passage about war is peace, etc
When I was a junior in high school, in the minutes before Physics class, I was talking to my friend Chad. It was 1979, and only a few of us at my school had used a computer and could write programs in BASIC. Chad had even done some paid work, so I really looked up to him. As we were waiting for the bell to ring, he was showing me prophecies in the Old Testament that were fulfilled by Jesus. I saw that there was a coherency in the Bible, even though it had been written by many human authors over the span of centuries. I realized that coherency was evidence of divine authorship of the Bible, so I have spent the rest of my life seeking the God that I got a glimpse of back in high school.
