Comment on Tom Scott - This library has every book ever published

FlyingSquid@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

• ToyDork@lemmy.ca [bot] ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  We’ve built several over the years. There are Libraries of Babel (wikis) within the Library of Babel (the internet). Alexandria burned, and the Incan accounting system is mostly lost, but they existed.

  That said, the pun is a bit misleading. Big libraries are not bad things or “unholy pride” IMO. On the contrary, if god as described by religion hated science, or learning, why is godlike knowledge called “omni_science_”?

  Babel. Bible. The many languages of the world probably didn’t start with a tower, but if I was looking for a monument to hubris, it wouldn’t be a library. It would be a temple, whether a literal church that fleeces its followers, or an actual monument to excess and inequality like Burj Khalifa. (Nothing against you if you live in Saudi Arabia, but please stop building skyscrapers out of sea sand and drinkable water in the middle of a desert? Dubai is not a city, it’s an architectural testing ground at best.)

  Language is a strange thing. Unfortunately, it’s easy to be misled by people cherry-picking words from a book. Obviously that applies to me too, so feel free to double-check all this.

  source