I

When I was a child, I remember thinking: Where do houses come from? They are huge! Building one would take forever! Yet there are so many of them!

Having become a boring adult, I no longer have the same blue-eyed wonder about houses, but humanity does have an accomplishment or two I'm still impressed by.

When going to the airport, the metal boulders really stay up in the air without crashing. Usually they leave at the time they told me two weeks earlier, taking me to the right destination at close to the speed of sound.

There are these boxes with buttons that you can press to send information near-instantly anywhere. They are able to perform billions of operations a second. And you can just buy them at a store!

And okay, I admit that big houses - skyscrapers - still light up some of that child-like marvel [...]

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Outline:

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(10:44) VII

The original text contained 4 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
May 30th, 2024

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tQGSZqb97dRZ2KNwH/a-civilization-ran-by-amateurs

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“A civilization ran by amateurs” by Olli Järviniemi

LessWrong (30+ Karma)