Only six people in the Galaxy knew that the job of the Galactic President was not to wield power but to attract attention away from it. Zaphod Beeblebrox was amazingly good at his job.
I guess when I was around 12 or 15…I had an existential crisis, and I was reading various books on trying to figure out the meaning of life and what does it all mean? It all seemed quite meaningless and then we happened to have some books by Nietzsche and Schopenhauer in the house, which you should not read at age 14 (laughter). It is bad, it’s really negative. So then I read Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy which is quite positive I think and it highlighted an important point which is that a lot of times the question is harder than the answer. And if you can properly phrase the question, then the answer is the easy part. So, to the degree that we can better understand the universe, then we can better know what questions to ask. Then whatever the question is that most approximates: what’s the meaning of life? That’s the question we can ultimately get closer to understanding. And so I thought to the degree that we can expand the scope and scale of consciousness and knowledge, then that would be a good thing.
The Encyclopaedia Galactica defines a robot as a mechanical apparatus designed to do the work of a man.
The Marketing Division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot as: your plastic pal who’s fun to be with!
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy defines the Marketing Division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as a bunch of mindless jerks who’ll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes. With a footnote to the effect that the editors would welcome applications for anyone interested in taking over the post of robotics correspondent.
R is a velocity measure, defined as a reasonable speed of travel that is consistent with health, mental well-being and not being more than, say, five minutes late.
Life feels like The Total Perspective Vortex