It was an interesting read anyways. The answer should be obvious...
"The very fact that his book exists, he wrote, is the equivalent of tossing his cards face down on the table: If society had in fact collapsed, there would be no books, self-published or not. “So let me just admit that I was wrong,” he wrote. “But ... not by much. And not totally.” "
I agree that Sale should have paid the bet and claimed that he was a bit "early" about when the destruction would come.
In 1995 a person could have bought a US Treasury zero coupon bond for about $130 maturing in 25 years for . . . $1000. No other purchase would have been necessary to cover the bet. Relatively cheap insurance, I think.
That's such a silly way of measuring the answer. Books existed in the Middle Ages (e.g. Dark Ages, yes people will say we don't call it that anymore but still). Tech could have regressed our society in manifold ways and destroyed and rotted away many many institutions and there would still be books.
They should have a measure by which to mark this bet's conclusion. Arguments can be made for both sides.
> They should have a measure by which to mark this bet's conclusion. Arguments can be made for both sides.
They're not in the science game. They're in the selling content game. In that, all three (let's not forget the person writing the article) appear to have succeeded, gaining exposure (and payment for the article writer) thanks to the bet, regardless of rigor.
One could perhaps forsee more books and articles forthcoming as a result of this bet?
Orthagonal and nitpick. I couldn't parse the "e.g., Dark Ages" part until I realised what you may have meant is "i.e., Dark Ages". I read "e.g.," as "for example" and "i.e.," as "that is".
The "Dark Ages" usually refers to a subset of the Middle Ages, the earlier part, so "for example" worked for me and I only stopped and realized that ie was meant after reading your comment.
This is one of those stupid things about English that make life for pupils harder for no reason. In most languages the abbreviation is straightforward and based on the actual language. (Also spelling bees don't exist in most other places). Entire classes of error possibilities are just made up for no good reason in English.
As a native english speaker, "for example" and "that is" code as basically the same style of skip-over phrase: just there to lead into the important part.
I'm curious what distinction you are reading into it. I'm sure that as a native learner I was more apt to just take mental shortcuts rather than resolve these ambiguities.
> As a native english speaker, "for example" and "that is" code as basically the same style of skip-over phrase: just there to lead into the important part.
As a native English speaker, seriously, WTF?
“That is” (for which two different latin-derived abbreviations are frequently used in English, i.e. and viz.) leads into an equivalent alternative to what precedes, while “for example” (for which e.g. is a latin-derived abbreviation) leads into an example intended to illustrate the broader category which precedes it.
They are not equivalent, nor are they “skip over phrases”.
No, they are often (though very, very far from most often) used in reverse because people forget which is which. Even in that case they have very distinct intended meanings, and are not equivalents.
> Descriptivism is better than prescriptivism if you want to understand language as it's actually used.
Sure, but descriptivism isn't “words lose all distinct meaning if occasionally someone mixes them up” or nothing would mean anything.
> No, they are often (though very, very far from most often) used in reverse because people forget which is which. Even in that case they have very distinct intended meanings, and are not equivalents.
Isn't this just another way of saying they're equivalent as used? People don't know which is which, they often don't car,e and they pick one.
Prescriptivist "what should eg mean in this sentence?"
Descriptivist "what does Bob mean when he uses eg in this sentence?"
> Isn't this just another way of saying they're equivalent as used?
No, it's not.
One is used a vast majority of the time to mean “that is” and occasionally, by different people, to mean “for example”.
One is used a vast majority of the time to mean “for example” and occasionally, by different people, to mean “that is”.
Neither group (not the one with the dominant understanding nor the one with the minority understanding) uses the terms interchangeably, they both use them with distinct meanings.
The existence of some confusion of meaning and minority usages resulting from that does not eliminate all distinction in meaning, even from a descriptivist standpoint.
It's true that “X means Y” is usually a simplification of a distribution to a modal value, but that's also widely recognized and, from a descriptivist standpoint, already incorporated into the meaning of the phrase.
Where does using one over the other cause an actual change in information though? Not just sticking out as the wrong one if you know the proper distinction, but actually conveying different information? The comparison that follows is the important part, the abbreviation is a part of grammatical dressing that provides some flow and framing.
Always, if used correctly. i.e. = in other words, e.g. = for example. Surely, as a native English speaker, you can see the huge difference? One is definitive, the other is presenting one or more examples.
How so? Because I'm not going to assume that you are calling HackerNews the same as technology in any reading of the sentence, purely from context. So what other shifted meaning can be had from the swap?
I assumed "for example" follows a collection/set as opposed to "that is" which is a 1-1 mapping. Sibling comment clarified it for me on why "for example" makes sense in this context.
I'm pretty sure you could destroy a lot of the fabric of modern society and still have a publishing house and a printing company able to produce a few thousand copies of a book.
Thousands of copies of a book is something quaint in our great grandfather's days. The distribution mechanisms are what make it eyeroll worthy.
Really whenever you hear anyone talk about "the fabric of society" they are full of shit. Just like how theater, jazz, rock music, heavy metal, rap, interracial marriage, women voting, and gay marriage destroyed the fabric of society. Those ample precedents of being complete bullshit aside it is a stack of abstractions with no measures. It sounds like it means something but it doesn't - it is just mouth noises to manipulate your emotions.
The stakes were so extreme that it _is_ pretty easy to answer. Sure, there have been economic cycles, but the bet was whether the dollar is _worthless_ -- we are so far from it the Fed still can't reliably meet their inflation targets. A rebellion of the rich against the monied? Surely you're joking. And while global warming marches on, the 'significant number of environmental collapses' haven't happened, and we know we aren't close because I'm not sure even one environment has collapsed (damage ain't the same as collapse, folks).
It wasn't close. It isn't hard to tell that it wasn't close. Let's not give this doomsayer more credit than he's earned -- and he was completely wrong.
"The very fact that his book exists, he wrote, is the equivalent of tossing his cards face down on the table: If society had in fact collapsed, there would be no books, self-published or not. “So let me just admit that I was wrong,” he wrote. “But ... not by much. And not totally.” "