Neal Stephenson Quote
MEN WHO BELIEVE that they are accomplishing something by speaking speak in a different way from men who believe that speaking is a waste of time. Bobby Shaftoe has learned most of his practical knowledge—how to fix a car, butcher a deer, throw a spiral, talk to a lady, kill a Nip—from the latter type of man. For them, trying to do anything by talking is like trying to pound in a nail with a screwdriver. Sometimes you can even see the desperation spread over such a man’s face as he listens to himself speak. Men of the other type—the ones who use speech as a tool of their work, who are confident and fluent—aren’t necessarily more intelligent, or even more educated. It took Shaftoe a long time to figure that out.
Neal Stephenson
MEN WHO BELIEVE that they are accomplishing something by speaking speak in a different way from men who believe that speaking is a waste of time. Bobby Shaftoe has learned most of his practical knowledge—how to fix a car, butcher a deer, throw a spiral, talk to a lady, kill a Nip—from the latter type of man. For them, trying to do anything by talking is like trying to pound in a nail with a screwdriver. Sometimes you can even see the desperation spread over such a man’s face as he listens to himself speak. Men of the other type—the ones who use speech as a tool of their work, who are confident and fluent—aren’t necessarily more intelligent, or even more educated. It took Shaftoe a long time to figure that out.
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About Neal Stephenson
Stephenson's work explores mathematics, cryptography, linguistics, philosophy, currency, and the history of science. He also writes non-fiction articles about technology in publications such as Wired. He has written novels with his uncle, George Jewsbury ("J. Frederick George"), under the collective pseudonym Stephen Bury.
Stephenson has worked part-time as an advisor for Blue Origin, a company (founded by Jeff Bezos) developing a spacecraft and a space launch system, and is also a cofounder of Subutai Corporation, whose first offering is the interactive fiction project The Mongoliad. He was Magic Leap's Chief Futurist from 2014 to 2020.