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by stevefan1999 1881 days ago
Is that a Metal Gear Solid[1] reference?

[1]: https://metalgear.fandom.com/wiki/Zanzibar_Land_Disturbance

2 comments

Much more likely to be a reference to Brunner's classic work of dystopian fiction, which postulates that the 2010 population of Earth, projected to be around 7 billion people, could all stand shoulder to shoulder on a single island the size of Zanzibar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_on_Zanzibar

It's not the kind of literary allusion I'd want to make, if I were a global multinational like Google/Alphabet, but there it is.

One of the project authors (Lea Kissner) relates the story to the naming of the project here:

https://twitter.com/LeaKissner/status/1136691523104280576

Well, that was unexpected. I would have gone with Stand on Zanzibar as the other poster mentioned. Also makes me feel old that they don't remember the spice channel...