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by roxmon 3935 days ago
Does anyone have more information about this essay (apart from it being written by Alan Kay)?

I can't seem to find anything that doesn't link back to the worrydream site.

1 comments

There are some YouTube lectures out there from him on this topic. Specifically I remember him showing a slide with the earth on a podium, or a globe on a stand or something, and talking about the different dynamic stabilities of it being slightly kicked and wobbling or kicked hard and toppling, very similar to this from the essay:

the part where he says:

"One way to imagine “stability” is to take a bottle and turn it upside down. If it is gently poked, it will return to its “stable position”. But a slightly more forceful poke will topple it. It is still a system, but has moved into a new dynamic stability, one which will take much more work to restore than required to topple it."