"Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" <sentience@pobox.com> writes:
> hal@rain.org wrote:
> >
> > Four of these authors are, unsurprisingly, science fiction writers.
> > What's Machiavelli, the 16th century political philosopher, doing there?
>
> Not my fault, but I like Machiavelli. At least he's a clear thinker
> most of the time.
True. A lot of clever observations and witty understatements.
He is also a good example of how one's work can get misunderstood; his real views were apparently fairly democratic, but the advice expressed in The Prince (intended to remove the French from Italy) was taken to be his own view, so he ended up regarded as a villain by many people (who haven't read or understood him).
Maybe some of us will end up as adverbs too one day?
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