Erewhon by Samuel Butler скачать в хорошем качестве

Erewhon by Samuel Butler

One of the Utopian (or Dystopian) 19th Century British novels. An advanced hideaway-culture in the outback of New Zealand turns its back on technology for fear of takeover -- not by machines, but by mechanism. The implications for day to day life involve an alteration in responsibility for one's own health, leading to people becoming "Spiritual Valetudinarians". That is, it's okay to be angry or mentally ill but considered degenerate to become physically ill. All this from fearful denial of mere simple mechanical devices like clocks, pulleys, steam engines. Butler was onto something, but it's subtle. He is best known for having written "The Way of All Flesh", but this speculation about the implication of Darwinian Evolution is more far reaching. He anticipated our present day fear of machine takeover. But he said you don't even need intelligent robots, just ANY kind of self-replicating mechanism. He anticipated memes well before Richard Dawkins.