Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder
Translation Of A Truth
Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2009 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.
I reread much of Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon a few weeks ago and found this passage:
"We're businessmen," Avi says. "We make money. Gold is worth money.""Our wealth is work," the man said."Gold is the corpse of value," says Goto Dengo.
"I don't understand."
"If you want to understand, look out the window!" says the patriarch, and sweeps his cane around in an arc that encompasses half of Tokyo. "Fifty years ago, it was flames. Now it is lights! Do you understand? The leaders of Nippon were stupid. They took all of the gold out of Tokyo and buried it in holes in the ground in the Philippines! Because they thought that The General would march into Tokyo and steal it. But The General didn't care about the gold. He understood that the real gold is here--" he points to his head "--in the intelligence of the people, and here--" he holds out his hands "--in the work that they do. Getting rid of our gold was the best thing that ever happened to Nippon. It made us rich. Receiving that gold was the worst thing that happened to the Philippines. It made them poor."
--p. 858, paperback
More decade-old Stephenson analysis coming later tonight.
