The Diamond Age

So I have just finished reading 'The Diamond Age' by Neal Stephenson. I got this as a present from Tofu a year and a half back and have been reading it since after Xmas. It's an excellent book that sets a vision fo a world where technology revolves around the Feed,  a means by which all items, even food, are compiled atom by atom. The world is in the grasp of nanotechnology and nations and races have fractured and form about a common set of beliefs and not on which family they were born into and which country.

I think some of the things that I loved most about the book was the idea that through the right form of education, an education tailored for the individual, that a person could surpass their cultural connections. The teaching of complex computational ideas through simple fairy stories (and so possibly all complex ideas). Also the book emphasises that no matter how much technology we have, no matter how good our AIs that we develope, we will never be able to replace the need for a human teacher for a child, and the need for a single primary teacher to act as the sole teacher of the child.

I have to recommend this book to both those with a scifi bent and to those who do not as it presents questions and concepts valid to all and in fact allows us to look at todays society and see the flaws that are present.

The Diamond Age