Simon Sarris writes essays on tradition, belonging, agency, craft, and the limits of rationalism, and on designing a new old home.
Commenters recommend it among favorite blogs, cite his essay on familiarity and belonging, and point to his argument against stoicism.
For a more mind-bending perspective of permutations, look at Jorge Luis Borges. In particular, The Library of Babel[1] and The Lottery of Babylon[2].
These two stories are a bit like HP Lovecraft for mathematicians and computer scientists. What starts with a simple premise turns out to lead to an ever-unfolding sense of dread as the story approaches the consequences of infinity.
Babylon deals with probability directly, Babel deals with the concept of permutations. Some people say that Babel is outdated in the modern world but I disagree -- the fundamental problems still exist. The library is a platonic version of the "document-verse", just as the lottery is a platonic version of ordinary life.
I thoroughly recommend these stories and all others by the same author to hackers. Be prepared to be deep in thought for some time afterwards.
As for Arthur C Clarke, my favourite story of his was The Food of the Gods. Wonderfully paced and very funny.
(edit: linked to better-formatted version of Babel)
[1] http://simonsarris.com/lit/library-of-babel
[2] http://www.class.uh.edu/mcl/faculty/armstrong/cityofdreams/texts/babylon.html
> Having a job is a moral obligation and making kids work is good for them.
The second part of this sentence is not obviously false to me. Kids working exploitative & dangerous jobs, yes that's bad. Kids being allowed to work in general, I think is good.
I like Simon Sarris's take on this, from:
https://simonsarris.substack.com/p/the-most-precious-resource-is-agency
> I find it striking just how early, and how varied, the avenues were that allowed one to pivot off-script, to do something differently than everyone else. For a 13 year old today, what is the equivalent of being a telegraph office boy, where he can learn technology while contributing? What about for a 16 year old? 21 year old? What is today’s equivalent to being a studio apprentice of Verrocchio?
That is what my company does except we basically hire out of high school. After the founders, 100% of our employees (including myself) were hired directly as high school interns, kept for years during college, and got offers after graduation.
I wrote about this a bit. I wish we could hire more. I am kind of shocked how few companies do it. There are a LOT of smart kids who would love a summer programming job.
https://simonsarris.com/p/growing-software-developers
He has quite a few other articles, perhaps not quite as good as that one but the same style - I'd say this guy has a very special skill that you don't see too often.
https://simonsarris.substack.com/archive
I'd go so far as to say that the ideas in that post, and the manner in which they're presented, is getting pretty deep into subversive propaganda territory, but in a good way.
This is tangent, but your comment reminds me of this essay that floats around HN every so often about how limiting school is. Young children are absolutely capable of greatness beyond what we ever ask of them, and most of us are okay with them growing up in the rigid, ordained box of modern public schooling: https://map.simonsarris.com/p/school-is-not-enough
It involves multiple redirects. One goes to http://simonsarris.com/recurse, which surely can be modified at any time. So, goo.gl short link to a controlled resource that shortly afterward is made to point back to the tweet.