Can't stop thinking about the world building exercise/setup in Stephenson's Anathem where the "avout" (aka intelligentsia) were forced to live in gated monastic communities isolated to varying degrees (and by rank[1]) from secular society. This setup was decided on for a number of self-serving reasons (by the avout), but also largely imposed on them due to a long history where technology & academic pursuits led to several catastrophic events, incl. periodic civilizational collapses triggered by knowledge/research either being weaponized, irresponsibly commercialized and/or unleashed at a rate which society simply couldn't culturally/ethically/politically handle...

He (Stephenson) termed these events "Praxic crises" to emphasize that these kinds of disaster happen when purely theoretical insight is employed as real-world technology (praxis) without any restraint. In reality, there obviously isn't such a clear-cut separation between "purely theoretical knowledge" and its applications (POSIWID etc.) and that also forms part of the basis of this book's premise... I think we also very well know all the causes for such crises: From extreme short-term incentives (profit, war, perceived control/power), lack of ethical/philosophical grounding among decision makers (amplified by political power hierarchies), first-to-market pressures vs. deep understanding & balancing of impacts, but also severe lack of institutional regulation & memory (partially due to cyclic collapse and social amnesia)...

Food for thought...

[1] Monastic rank influenced degree of isolation: Unarians were allowed a few days outside each year, Decenarians every 10 years, Centenarians every 100 years, Millenarians only opened every 1000 years...

#Anathem #Stephenson #Technology #Science #Praxis #Collapse