Joshua Cohen
Joshua Cohen
god happening hear power since technology
I think that technology is essentially a continuation of a divestment of theological power that's been happening since The Enlightenment. It's the idea that God can see and hear everything.
technology
The Internet is a tool, a technology, and we like to say that it has all of these properties, but really, it's just a place where our writing is.
becoming demands enslaved entirely feeling forced general life machine prevents rage resentful technology time victimized
I don't like being victimized by a machine or by other people's demands on my time. I become resentful by feeling forced or incentivized to live a life I don't want to live. That rage in general prevents me from entirely becoming enslaved by technology.
clicked cultural function movement remove technology text turn
I do think that once you remove the limitations of the page, once you turn text transitive, meaning it can be clicked away from, the forward movement of text can be interrupted. But I don't think this is just a function of technology. It's also a function of cultural preference.
technology
All technology does is give us back to ourselves. So to be anti-technology in a sense is to be anti-human.
alive basic engines fairly jewish jews kept life machines outsource qualities regard seems
To outsource your memory to machines - which is what many of us do with regard to our use of search engines - seems to me to be fairly antithetical to the basic qualities of Jewish life that have kept the Jews alive for so long.
Writing is a conviction before it is a craft.
life meaning others religion
'Religion,' I should note, has a disputed etymology in Latin: some say it's from 'relegere,' meaning 'to reread', while others say it's from religare, meaning 'to connect' or 'link.' Literature is life's fastener.
german russian
I think if German literature could survive the '40s and Russian literature could survive Sovietism, American literature can survive Google.
time
Most literature everywhere and of every time is bad.
fit
Most novelists are narcissistic egomaniacs who would probably fit somewhere on the CEO spectrum.
cannot interested manner puns understood
Metaphors, similes, puns - all manner of metonymy - I'm interested in language that cannot be parsed by a machine - language that can only be understood through acculturation.
eat fish low pregnant
I think we've got two messages. If you're not pregnant and you're not going to become pregnant, eat fish. If you are pregnant or you are going to become pregnant, you should still eat fish, but you should eat fish low in mercury.
animal classify computers derive engine entire ideas search
Without computers, in the 17th century, we could classify the entire animal kingdom... there was this idea of the speciation, right? And now, all a search engine is is essentially the mathematical speciation of ideas - and these things really derive from the way that language is used and the way words relate.