Comment by kwiens
14 hours ago
I was fortunate to read a preprint of Brand's latest. It's magnificent.
How and why do things fail? What are the cultures that lead to long-lasting products?
The undercurrent here is that Brand is behind the 10,000 year clock and has a vested interest in making things last a long time.
This book is an exploration of the world of things, how they break, and how people fix them. It's a huge effort, and Part One is right. He's been posting further work on Twitter from Part Two.
He included some sword fighting manuals that I sent that we think are the earliest written instruction guide.
> The undercurrent here is that Brand is behind the 10,000 year clock and has a vested interest in making things last a long time.
What do you mean by this? I have no idea who Stewart Brand is, and I am wary of authors who advertise themselves by saying how many books they have written, because it makes me think they are fiction writers rather than people with real knowledge on the subject.
He's not in this to sell books. Stewart is investigating a way of life, and a means of keeping things working a long time. And he's documenting it thoroughly.
https://longnow.org/clock/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Brand