Books: boring. Codes: awesome. These are the people who are running the internet. - Robin Sloan

"Do people even look at one another?"
"Not really. Everything that matters is on your screen. There's an agenda that rearranges itself. There's a back-channel chat. And there's fact-checking! If you get up to speak, there are people cross-referencing your claims, supporting and refuting you — "
It sounds like an engineer's Athens.

... nothing lasts long. We all come to life and gather allies and build empires and die, all in a single moment - maybe a single pulse of some giant processor somewhere.

And even if I fail-this is always the archivist's consolation-perhaps I will have laid a foundation for someone wiser.