Hot new Einstein quote

[Jonathan Lighter]

The meaning of "the technology overlapp[ing] with our humanity" is a
tendentious mystery. Possibly it means "technology replacing humanity," but
why that should result in a "generation of idiots" instead of a world of
robots, I'm not sure. (If Einstein had meant robots, he'd have said robots.)

It sounds like third-hand New Age gibberish of an unusually inarticulate
kind. Maybe it has to do with cell phones and Twitter. I don't know.

JL

On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 10:09 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Hot new Einstein quote
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 6:04 PM, Jonathan Lighter
> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I fear the day when the technology overlaps with our humanity. The world
> will only have a generation of idiots.
>
> What seems most un-Einstein-like to me is that this supposed "quote"
> lacks an immediately-obvious semantic interpretation. It reads like
> the Turd-Potty bullshit posted to Facebook: you know that it's
> supposed to be a sophisticated, cerebral analysis destroying Obama's
> fallacious mouthings, but it has no discernable meaning.
>
> FWIW, I think that the reference to the overlap of technology with
> humanity respects the dread development of self-awareness by machines,
> a possibility known to be Einstein's greatest fear. And the
> "generation of idiots" refers to the consequences of Ann Romney's
> discarding of public education.
>
> --
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
> to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
>
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