Questions tagged [diamond-age]
For questions about "The Diamond Age", otherwise known as "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" (1995), a post-cyberpunk novel by Neal Stephenson.
13
questions
7
votes
1
answer
263
views
Why is the Seed in "Diamond Age" associated with Confucianism?
In Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age, the Seed is presented as a fundamentally Oriental solution to the existence of nanotechnology, and put in opposition with the Feed as a Western concept. The Seed is ...
- 472
5
votes
1
answer
140
views
What's the relationship between Mr. X, the Drummers and CryptNet?
Dr. X sends Hackworth to the Drummer colony in Seattle to work on the Seed. What's the relationship between Dr. X, the Drummers and CryptNet? Are the Drummers a free-for-all community Dr. X hijacks ...
- 472
2
votes
0
answers
119
views
Why would Hackworth want the Mouse Army to seek Nell to rule them?
In Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age, the rescued girls raised on the Chinese Primers form their own phyle and seek Nell as their ruler.
While the connection between Nell and the Mouse Army is through the ...
- 472
7
votes
1
answer
828
views
Why does the mouse army follow Nell?
In Nell's version of the Primer she saves the mouse army and thus they are indebted to her.
I assumed that each of the mouse army had her own Primer which ran its own story arc. This seems to be ...
- 1,657
7
votes
1
answer
506
views
What becomes of the drummers?
So at the end of the book it seems as if Nell actually drowns all the drummers:
They passed up through many tunnels, always taking the uphill fork until they saw sunlight shining down from above ...
- 173
6
votes
2
answers
391
views
Courts, governments, and jurisdictions in The Diamond Age?
In The Diamond Age, the narration firmly establishes that the traditional geography-based nation-state has been made obsolete by technology. That is, information secrecy has made it impossible for ...
- 807
15
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Is Miss Matheson from Diamond Age, YT from Snow Crash?
In Diamond Age the character Miss Matheson alludes to her past in a reminiscence concerning the 'smart wheels' on her wheel chair. She likens them to those on skateboards and then talks about how she ...
- 4,160
2
votes
1
answer
789
views
Why was Harv sick in Diamond Age?
Why was Harv sick in Diamond Age? Wouldn't they have technology to cure those kind of diseases? In other parts of the book, they used nanocytes as defenses to to 'cure broken capillaries in the ...
- 2,030
5
votes
1
answer
318
views
Has Dynabook inspired Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age?
I'm looking for evidence about Dynabook, by Alan Kay, being the inspiration for Neal Stephenson self-learning book in The Diamond Age: a young lady's illustrated primer.
- 69
5
votes
3
answers
438
views
Were the Hindu job applicants really in danger of having their heads sawn off by their collars?
Early on in Diamond Age: A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, the following passage is used to describe a group of people who have come to apply for jobs at Machine-Phase Systems Limited:
Hackworth ...
- 53.9k
22
votes
5
answers
10k
views
The ending of The Diamond Age
I have just finished rereading Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age for about the fourth time and am still confused about the ending.
The part that is confusing me is as follows:
- 321
8
votes
2
answers
511
views
Why was Seed being developed instead of iterative building on an existing solution?
Why they built a seed technology for "open source nanotechnology" instead of iterative building on feed lines?
The iterative build seems to be quite simple:
Establish healthy community of open feed ...
- 2,365
31
votes
1
answer
9k
views
What is the connection between Snow Crash and The Diamond Age?
I've heard that these two novels by Neal Stephenson take place in the same universe.
What connections exist between the two novels and what is the time-line like?
- 1,715