NP (but everything connects): N Weiner, Vonnegut & PKDick

[Mark Kohut]

That's N. Wiener, thanks Jochen. from Wikipedia:
After the war, Wiener became increasingly concerned with what he believed was political interference with scientific research, and the militarization of science. His article "A Scientist Rebels" for the January 1947 issue of The Atlantic Monthly[9] urged scientists to consider the ethical implications of their work. After the war, he refused to accept any government funding or to work on military projects. The way Wiener's beliefs concerning nuclear weapons and the Cold War contrasted with that of John von Neumann is the major theme of the book John Von Neumann and Norbert Wiener Heims (1980).[10][citation needed]
 
I remember not wanting to read him when I was younger and his books were popular because I thought he was more on the side of computers, so to speak.
Pynchon knew better.
 
 
 

----- Original Message -----
From: jochen stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com>
To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
Cc: 
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2012 12:11 AM
Subject: Re: NP (but everything connects): N Weiner, Vonnegut & PKDick

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norbert_Wiener

2012/8/22 Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>:
> Seems Kurt V. had, personally sent by his publisher, a copy of his first novel Player
> Piano go to N. Weiner. Who read it and wrote angrily about the young author to his
> editor at Scribner's that he recognized his colleague John Von Neumann in the character named
> von Neumann (!) he [author] 'cannot with impunity play fast & loose with the names of living people."
> He went on to say that the 'new cult' of science fiction was refusing to confront, as he
> was, the misuse of computers.....instead "pointless fairy tales about ..tomorrow"...
>
> Taken aback, KV later told his wife that Weiner knew as much about satire as he [KV]
> did about cybernetics.
>
> PKDick liked the novel--"Nobody knew who Vonnegut was"--because it was not the usual vision of a
> future in which humankind would be the master of machines.
>
>                                        -- from Shields' biography