I could see why [Candide] appealed to Charlotte Clingstone. It was a rejection of ambition, a blueprint for her small, perfect, human-scale restauran… - Robin Sloan

At General Dexterity, I was contributing to an effort to make repetitive labor obsolete. After a trainer in the Task Acquisition Center taught an arm how to do something, all the arms did it perfectly, forever,

In other words, you solved a problem once, and then you moved on to other more interesting things.

Baking, by contrast, was solving the same problem over and over again, because every time, the solution was consumed. I mean, really: chewed and digested.

Thus, the problem was ongoing.

Thus, the problem was perhaps the point.

the Pacific, and the Spanish sent tomatoes to Italy

Veniamo alla luce e stringiamo alleanze e conquistiamo imperi e moriamo, tutto in un solo battito di ciglia. O forse in un unico, breve ciclo di un gigantesco processore, chissà dove.