> I think its more of a stream of consciousness

That is often his form, and part of his appeal.

Thanks for the clarification.

I tend to stay away from streams of consciousness. Its hard enough to debate a highly edited, clear and concise article. Streams of Consciousness have the advantage in that the author is probably more honest about his opinion... but often contradicts himself or has many weak or irrelevant points.

On the flip side, it is the author being completely open about his surface thoughts. By leaving himself vulnerable to so many attacks, the piece feels more like a conversation as opposed to an article.

In the modern world of "phrase sniping" and picking, its hard to debate such an article on its merits.

I can see the potential appeal of this writing style, but certainly not for any form of internet debate. It just doesn't make a good baseline for discussion, no matter how I look at it.

I find this comment amusing, because a recurring theme in the article is that of concern over the way many automated systems mine the past looking for discontinuities in politicians, criminals and "potential criminals" - that this does not allow growth or change of a person. In politics particularly I agree that this is dangerous - I want my politicians to be human - for it to be acceptable for them to change their opinions as their understanding changes, and as society changes around them. A strong requirement on rigidity and consistency of position is, to me, just as bad as a politician who has no opinion other than what the polls say that day. Rather than either I like a carefully considered opinion and position that acknowledges new data, and changes if necessary upon understanding said new data. Further, I don't mind if my politicians make mistakes, sometimes say stupid things, and occasionally show their human foibles - I think its awful to hold them to superhuman standards as we see a lot these days.

To address the last point: I know nothing inherent to the internet that requires a strongly consistent piece and prevents open discussion about a topic. Heck - there's nothing inherent about the internet that requires it to be a debate. I've found debate tends to arise from proclamations of "this is the truth" rather than "here's what I'm thinking" anyway - internet or no. The latter tends to just lead to discussion but unfortunately also draws people who try to discredit the author on inconsistencies because they mistake a "my thinking right now" piece for a proclamation of truth. I don't think this is built into the internet, so much as a broader social issue or quirk of human psychology that causes or at least allows for that mistake. I lean towards a social issue of some sort that causes us to think everything people write is a proclamation of truths rather than a fundamental human thing - and that there is some psychological quirk that once someone is attacking a mistaken proclamation of truth it causes people to have to defend their team, rather than ignore the incorrect premise. I'll admit it, I've done both before - but I'm not sure it was the right thing to do.

Well, I thought, at least, that he was doing to talk about the problem of the 'filter bubble'. Instead he zoomed off into the Boole family and the Voynich Manuscript for no apparent reason.

The Voynich manuscript "tie in" I see as just another interesting digression while talking about Ethel's life.

But the Boole family bit ties in thematically in that it provides two people who represents two contradictory possibilities for the future:

The stagnating world described in the first part of the article where nothing changes because we're locked in place by technology, represented by Hinton's view of time as an illusion, where it is just what part of a static four-dimensional landscape we see that changes.

Or a future where things are allowed to change again, represented by Ethel, whose novel inspired a generation of revolutionaries, and who herself continued to believe in change to the end.

The manuscript is an old document that might still have significance. It's a part of the past that still holds sway over the future. That's how it fits into the article.